Disentangling the developmental cascades between adolescent maltreatment and internalizing and externalizing problems: From between‐person differences to within‐person changes

The relationship between maltreatment and psychological difficulties in adolescence represents a critical domain in developmental psychopathology that requires more nuanced temporal examination. While extensive scholarship documents associations between these phenomena, understanding their reciprocal relationships requires distinguishing between two temporal patterns: early cumulative effects, which reflect how prolonged adverse experiences establish enduring vulnerability, and recency effects, which capture the immediate impact of proximate maltreatment. Using data from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (N = 905, girls = 51.5%, Black = 53.2%), this study employs both cross-lagged panel models and random intercept cross-lagged panel models across four waves spanning ages 10-16 to disentangle within-person and between-person effects. Results revealed significant differences in relationship patterns: maltreatment significantly predicted subsequent externalizing problems (b = 0.522, p = .009), and externalizing problems predicted subsequent maltreatment (b = 0.015, p = .016), confirming a genuine "fatal spiral" at the within-person level. Conversely, maltreatment's effect on internalizing problems reached only marginal significance (b = 0.424, p = .063), with associations primarily reflected in correlated random intercepts (b = 0.783, p = .025), suggesting stable trait differences rather than causal processes. Early cumulative maltreatment significantly predicted between-person differences in internalizing problems (b = 0.146, p = .004), maltreatment (b = 0.046, p < .001), and externalizing problems (b = 0.188, p = .001), while recent adolescent maltreatment predominantly influenced within-person dynamics. These findings demonstrate the methodological importance of distinguishing the temporal dimensions of maltreatment effects from stable individual differences and from dynamic processes in developmental psychopathology.