Problem Behavior Theory: A Half-Century of Research on Adolescent Behavior and Development

Introduction It all started in 1958. An unexpected opportunity presented itself to become involved in a large-scale community study of an important social problem-alcohol abuse-in a marginalized group in American society, Native Americans. This chapter sketches the successive phases, from that point to the present, of the systematic development of Problem Behavior Theory, a theory increasingly employed in research on adolescent risk behavior by scholars in the USA andabroad. In a certain sense, the “biography” of that theory is the autobiography of my half-century of research and writing about the developmental science of adolescence.