Internalizing and delinquency
Internalizing behaviors and delinquency were measured with
items assessing depression/anxiety (13 items) and delinquency
(nine items), which have shown adequate validity and reliabilityin adolescent samples [15]. Sample items for internalizing include
“I am unhappy, sad, or depressed”; whereas, for delinquency,
“I lie or cheat.” Adolescents were the only reporters of
their own internalizing behavior ( .85), but mothers ( .77,
factor loading .91), fathers ( .59, factor loading .97), and
adolescents ( .75, factor loading .74) answered the delinquency
items with regard to the adolescents’ behavior on a scale
ranging from 1 (not true) to 3 (very true or often true). Mean scale
scores from all three respondents were used to create a latent
variable representing adolescent delinquency.