'Bad' Girls: Mad or Sad?

This proposed Café Scientifique will be a health research public education event designed to educate the general public on the topic of "Bad Girls: Mad or Sad?" Four speakers with research expertise in antisocial behavior in girls and women (i.e., conduct disorder, aggression, substance abuse) will speak on the factors motivating these behaviors in females. Does the high co-morbidity of conduct disorder and substance use disorders with psychiatric disorders such as depression in adolescent girls suggest that these apparently externalizing behaviours are motivated by internalizing problems such as sadness? Or is there more evidence for antisocial behaviours in girls being motivated by similar processes as in boys (e.g., aggression motivated by anger)? Alternatively, are antisocial girls and women a heterogeneous group with distinct motivations for their antisocial behaviour (e.g., school truancy motivated by anxiety in some, and by defiance in others)? The objectives of the Café are to (1) increase awareness of the prevalence and costs associated with "bad" behaviours in girls such as aggression, conduct disorder, and substance abuse; (2) share and discuss recent scientific information regarding the potential causes of these externalizing behaviours in girls, with a focus on whether or not the motivational underpinnings are distinct in girls vs. boys; and (3) examine the issue from a developmental perspective through additional consideration of what factors motivate criminal and antisocial behaviours in adult women. The speakers, Drs. Kathleen Pajer, Candice Odgers, Sherry Stewart, and Margo Watt, and the moderator, Dr. Patrick McGrath, are well-funded and productive researchers with clinical and scientific expertise related to the proposed topic. The Café will be held at Alderney Landing in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, on Thursday, November 1, 2012 from 7-9 pm.