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Limitations of Adult Reports on Children's Cruelty to
Animals
Both the ACQ and CBC rely on caretakers' reports, and comparable
information from youth's self-reports of cruelty to animals is not
available. The reliance on caretakers' reports, however, could be
problematic because animal abuse may be performed covertly (a
characteristic shared with youth vandalism and firesetting) and
caretakers may be unaware of the presence of this behavior in their
children. Offord, Boyle, and Racine (1991) surveyed a nonclinical
sample of 1,232 Canadian parents/guardians and their 12- to
16-year-old boys and girls. They asked respondents (both
parents/guardians and adolescents) to report on a number of CD
symptoms, based on a 3-point scale identical to the one used with
the CBC. (See Animal Abuse and Conduct
Disorder for a more indepth discussion of the link between CD
and animal abuse.) Figure 3 compares
parent/guardian reports of cruelty to animals with youth
self-reports. These data suggest that parents and guardians may
seriously underestimate cruelty to animals, with boys
self-reporting this behavior at 3.8 times the rate of
parents/guardians and girls at 7.6 times the parent/guardian rate.
Similar underestimates appear for two other CD symptoms, vandalism
and firesetting, that may often be covert and, therefore, unknown
to or undetected by parents or guardians (see figure 4).
A recent study of a nonclinical sample of youth (1,333 boys and
837 girls; mean age, 14.6 years) in Alexandria, Egypt (Youssef,
Attia, and Kamel, 1999), also provides data on self-reported
cruelty to animals. Dividing their sample into two groups—one
reporting that they had engaged in violent behavior (acts of
"physical force that tended to inflict harm or cause bodily
injury") and the other reporting that they had not—Youssef,
Attia, and Kamel (1999:284) asked youth whether they were often
cruel to animals. Of the violent youth, 9.6 percent reported being
cruel; of the nonviolent youth, 2.05 percent reported being cruel.
The cruelty-to-animals variable significantly (p<0.003)
determined membership in the violent or nonviolent group.
It should be noted that instruments used to assess teacher
reports of children's problem behaviors rarely include an item on
animal abuse (e.g., Reynolds and Kamphaus, 1992). Although teachers
are unlikely to observe their pupils being cruel to animals,
teachers may hear about such acts or read about them in students'
written work. These indirect observations should be taken seriously
and serve as a signal for further assessment (Dwyer, Osher, and
Warger, 1998).
| Figure 3: |
Comparison of Parental Reports and Self-Reports of Cruelty
to Animals Among 12- to 16-Year-Olds, by Offender's
Gender |
Source: Offord, D.R., Boyle, M.H., and Racine, Y.A. 1991. The
epidemiology of antisocial behavior in childhood and adolescence.
In The Development and Treatment of Childhood Aggression,
edited by D.J. Pepler and K.H. Rubin. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, pp. 31–54. This figure was derived from
table 2.3, p. 39.
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| Figure 4: |
Comparison of Parental Reports and Self-Reports of Vandalism
and Firesetting Among 12- to 16-Year-Olds, by Offender's
Gender |
Source: Offord, D.R., Boyle, M.H., and Racine, Y.A. 1991. The
epidemiology of antisocial behavior in childhood and adolescence.
In The Development and Treatment of Childhood Aggression,
edited by D.J. Pepler and K.H. Rubin. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, pp. 31–54.
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