Modeling the risk variables together allowed us to examine the unique contributions of individual risks when taking into account numerous other risk factors. The specific variables uniquely associated with higher ending values of externalizing problems at age 27 included male sex, peer deviance in early adolescence and later adolescence, individual stress in later adolescence, and internalizing problems in later adolescence and adulthood. Other variables were uniquely associated with the initial (age 5) levels of problems and with the slopes from ages 5 to 27. Temperamental resistance to control in early childhood, parents’ spanking in early childhood, parents’ harsh discipline in early childhood, low father caregiving in early childhood, lower peer social preference in early and middle childhood, internalizing problems in middle childhood, and lower language ability in earlier adolescence were characterized by higher initial values of externalizing yet smaller increases or greater decreases in externalizing problems over time, resulting in slopes for low and high levels of the risk factors that converged over time. Higher peer deviance in later adolescence was associated with greater increases in externalizing problems over time
