Quick summary: A study of 138 adults found that adverse childhood experiences and negative life events in adulthood were each positively associated with rule-breaking behaviour, including violence, group activity and both common and less common breaches. Because the design was cross-sectional and based on self-report, the results do not show that trauma causes rule-breaking, only that these experiences travel together across the lifespan. For forensic practice, education and mental health care, the useful response is to assess emotional regulation, relational security and the function of the behaviour alongside clear boundaries, and to move towards preventing recurrence rather than treating every breach as simple defiance.
Rule-breaking behaviour is frequently interpreted through a relatively simple framework: an individual understands a rule and deliberately chooses not to follow it. Among children and adolescents, such behaviour may quickly be characterised as defiance, disruption or misconduct. In adulthood, similar patterns may be interpreted as irresponsibility or antisociality.
Psychological and criminological research, however, presents a considerably more complex picture. Behaviour does not develop in isolation. Exposure to trauma, difficulties with emotional regulation, impulsivity, family environments and subsequent stressful life experiences can interact with individual vulnerabilities and influence how people respond to rules, authority and interpersonal conflict.
My research examined this broader developmental context by investigating associations between adverse childhood experiences, negative life events in adulthood, paranoid thinking and rule-breaking behaviour. The findings raise an important question for forensic and developmental psychology: rather than focusing exclusively on why an individual broke a rule, should we also examine the developmental and psychological processes that preceded the behaviour?
The developmental context of rule-breaking behaviour
Antisocial behaviour can emerge during childhood and adolescence and has been associated with factors including impulsivity, disrupted family environments and exposure to adversity. Difficulties with self-control and a preference for immediate rather than delayed rewards may also contribute to behavioural risk.
Importantly, this does not mean that impulsivity inevitably leads to antisocial behaviour, nor that childhood adversity determines an individual’s future. Contemporary developmental perspectives instead emphasise interactions between individual vulnerabilities and environmental circumstances.
Research examining adverse childhood experiences, impulse control and delinquency, for example, has identified relationships between childhood adversity, developmental patterns of impulse control and sensation-seeking, and subsequent delinquency.
Social learning theory provides another relevant perspective. Children do not learn behaviour solely through direct instruction; observational learning and modelling can also influence behavioural development. When aggressive or rule-breaking responses are repeatedly observed within an individual’s environment, particularly when such behaviour appears to have few consequences, these patterns may become increasingly normalised.
Relational security is similarly relevant. Attachment theory highlights the importance of early caregiver relationships in psychological development. Stable and supportive relationships can provide an environment in which emotional regulation and adaptive coping strategies develop. Conversely, childhood environments characterised by abuse, neglect, unpredictability or hostility may interfere with these developmental processes.
Trauma, impulsivity and behavioural responses
Adverse childhood experiences encompass a range of experiences, including physical, emotional and sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence and broader household dysfunction. Large-scale research has associated childhood maltreatment with a range of adverse psychological and behavioural outcomes, although these associations should not be interpreted as deterministic.
One potential pathway connecting adversity with later rule-breaking behaviour concerns emotional regulation. When an individual experiences difficulties identifying, tolerating or regulating intense emotional states, behaviour itself can become a means of responding to distress.
Impulsivity is particularly relevant within this context. Acting rapidly during periods of anger, fear or emotional arousal may reduce opportunities to consider longer-term consequences or alternative responses. Research on self-control and antisocial behaviour has similarly contributed to understanding how individual differences in behavioural regulation may relate to offending and other forms of problematic behaviour.
David Farrington’s integrated cognitive antisocial potential theory provides a useful framework for conceptualising this process. The theory distinguishes relatively enduring antisocial potential from shorter-term variations and proposes that whether such potential develops into antisocial behaviour depends partly upon cognitive and situational processes.
The framework therefore challenges overly simplistic interpretations of rule-breaking as the product of a fundamentally “bad” personality. Instead, antisocial behaviour may emerge through an interaction between developmental risk factors, environmental circumstances and decision-making processes.
What my research found
My study initially recruited 150 adults from the general population, with 138 participants remaining following the removal of incomplete responses. Participants reported adverse childhood experiences, negative life events during adulthood, paranoid thinking and different categories of rule-breaking behaviour.
The results demonstrated a significant positive association between adverse childhood experiences and overall rule-breaking behaviour. Childhood adversity was also positively associated with each of the measured rule-breaking categories, including group activity, violence, sanctions, low-prevalence behaviours and high-prevalence behaviours.
Negative life events experienced during adulthood were similarly associated with each of these categories of rule-breaking behaviour.
These findings are consistent with wider research identifying associations between multiple adverse childhood experiences and health and behavioural outcomes across the lifespan. They suggest that rule-breaking should not necessarily be examined separately from an individual’s developmental and psychological context. Early adversity may contribute to vulnerabilities, while subsequent stressful experiences may interact with established patterns of emotional processing and coping.
Crucially, however, these findings should not be interpreted as evidence that trauma causes rule-breaking behaviour. The study employed a cross-sectional, correlational design and relied upon self-report measures. Consequently, causal conclusions cannot be established.
The results instead contribute to a wider body of research examining how experiences across the lifespan may be associated with behavioural outcomes.
When behaviour functions as a response to distress
Another useful theoretical framework is Robert Agnew’s general strain theory. The theory proposes that exposure to certain forms of strain can generate negative emotional states and create pressure for corrective action, with offending representing one possible response rather than an inevitable consequence.
Experiences such as loss, financial difficulties, dysfunctional family environments or interpersonal adversity may therefore interact with individual coping resources. Under some circumstances, rule-breaking may become one behavioural response to overwhelming emotional states.
Understanding this process does not excuse harmful behaviour or remove personal responsibility. Explanation and justification are fundamentally different.
Instead, psychological formulation encourages professionals to consider the function that a particular behaviour may serve.
For one individual, rule-breaking may be associated primarily with impulsivity and immediate reward. For another, it may reflect attempts to obtain peer acceptance or social status. Research has demonstrated that peer relationships can play an important role in adolescent delinquency. In another case, aggression may occur when an ambiguous interpersonal interaction is perceived as threatening.
The same observable behaviour can therefore emerge through markedly different psychological pathways.
Moving beyond punishment
These distinctions have important implications for intervention.
When professionals focus exclusively on suppressing observable behaviour, there is a risk that the psychological mechanisms maintaining that behaviour remain unaddressed. A trauma-informed approach does not require assuming that every individual who breaks rules has experienced trauma. Rather, it involves recognising that previous experiences can influence present behaviour and assessing those experiences where clinically appropriate.
Intervention may therefore benefit from addressing emotional regulation, cognitive distortions, coping strategies, relational security and impulse control alongside clear behavioural boundaries.
Protective factors are equally important. Supportive relationships, positive peer networks, resilience, self-efficacy and adaptive coping strategies may reduce the likelihood that psychological vulnerability develops into persistent behavioural difficulties. Research on social relationships and resilience similarly highlights the importance of interpersonal resources in adapting to adversity.
This perspective has particular relevance across forensic psychology, rehabilitation and educational settings. Understanding the developmental pathway leading to behaviour may allow practitioners to move beyond managing its immediate consequences and towards addressing the mechanisms that contribute to its recurrence.
Asking “Why did this person break the rule?” may provide only part of the psychological picture. A more informative question may be: “What preceded this behaviour, what function did it serve, and what might enable this individual to respond differently in the future?”
Diana-Irina Iordache holds an MSc in Forensic Psychology from Goldsmiths, University of London. She researches childhood trauma, attachment, personality and rule-breaking behaviour, and how these inform prevention, intervention and rehabilitation.
