Disruptive school behavior and concepts of social convention in early adolescence.

Studied 22 7th- and 8th-grade students who had engaged in disruptive behaviors that involved violations of classroom regulations and defiance of authorities and 20 nondisruptive students. Both groups were administered an interview assessing concepts of social conventions, within a sequence of developmental levels. Disruptive Ss were reinterviewed 1 yr later, and behavioral records were reassessed. Disruptive school behavior was partially related to thinking (Level 4) characterized by rejection of conventional regulation; this preceded systematic conceptions of the role of conventional regulation in social organization (Level 5). At 1st testing, a greater proportion of disruptive than nondisruptive Ss displayed Level 4 thinking. One year later, 13 of the 20 originally disruptive Ss no longer displayed disruptive behavior. All Ss disruptive at Time 2 had not changed to the next level whereas the majority of those no longer disruptive shifted to the next level. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)