Understanding desistance from aggression: A joint interpretation of person-centered and variable-centered approaches

When leveraged together, variable-centered and person-centered statistical methods have the potential to illuminate the factors predicting mental health recovery. However, because extant studies have largely relied on only one of these methods, we do not yet understand why some youth demonstrate recovery while others experience chronic symptoms. This omission limits our understanding of trajectories of physical aggression (AGG) in particular, which are frequently characterized by desistance. The present study examined the development of AGG across childhood and adolescence via variable-centered and person-centered modeling, with neighborhood and family characteristics considered as predictors. Variable-centered results indicated a mean-level decline in AGG with age but were more useful for illuminating predictors of AGG at baseline than predictors of declining engagement. Person-centered analyses, by contrast, identified low parent-child conflict and high household income as predictors of desistance. Although variable-centered analyses were integral to modeling the average AGG trajectory and identifying predictors of engagement at baseline, person-centered techniques proved more useful for understanding predictors of desistance.