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There are scores of aggressive and delinquent adolescents and the number of them committing crimes or involved in anti-social activities, and the number has been rising. While aggression during adolescence is often blamed on violent TV shows and exposure to media, scientists say that this kind of behavior may also have its roots in a person's childhood. 

A new study claims that chronic stress in childhood could lead to anti-social and aggressive behavior during adolescence.

It was found that a child's self-regulatory ability, which is a critical skill needed to be able to plan and to focus attention and behavior toward one's goals gets negatively affected when exposed to multiple risks linked with poverty like, poor living conditions, family separation, single parenting and domestic violence.

For the research, Gary W. Evans, the Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor of Human Ecology in Cornell's College of Human Ecology, lead author Stacey N. Doan, Ph.D, assistant professor of psychology at Boston University, and Thomas Fuller-Rowell, Ph.D, a Robert Wood Johnson postdoctoral at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, conducted a study on 265 adolescents and their parents. 

The researchers analyzed the data on risk factors, maternal responsiveness and child characteristics in the participants in order to better understand the link between poverty and poor outcomes for children.

The study found that when mothers could not provide sensitive nurturing care, these risks compromised a child's self regulation directly as well as indirectly.

External problems such as aggression and delinquency are more likely linked to low self regulation unlike internal problems such as depression and anxiety which are not influenced by it. 

"Our research examines the additive effects of multiple stressor exposures, rather than the typical focus on single variables such as divorce, abuse or housing," said Evans

"One of the things that chronic stress seems to do in children is damage the body's ability to regulate the physiological response system for handling environmental demands with consequences for physical and mental health," Evans said. 

"By tearing apart two major subtypes of psychological well-being, internalizing and externalizing, we have shown that their predictors operate differentially."

This means that internal and external problems are influenced by completely different factors.

"Overall, our results suggest that while it may not always possible to increase income or reduce all risk factors, by improving parenting skills or child self-regulation abilities we may be able to ameliorate some of the effects of poverty on children's mental health," Doan said.

This research was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health, and Program the W.T. Grant Foundation. 

The study appeared in the Journal Developmental Psychology.