Biopsychosocial Pathways to Externalizing Behavior in Children and Adolescents

Externalizing behaviors in childhood and adolescence—including aggression, conduct problems, and related antisocial behaviors—represent major public health and clinical concerns, with enduring consequences for mental health, social functioning, and life-course outcomes. A growing body of research highlights the importance of biological processes, such as stress physiology, arousal regulation, and neural functioning, in shaping vulnerability to externalizing behavior. At the same time, developmental psychopathology emphasizes that biological functioning unfolds within psychological and social contexts, including emotion regulation capacities, socioemotional development, parenting, adversity, and peer environments.Despite substantial progress, research on biological, psychological, and social mechanisms often remains fragmented across disciplines. This Research Topic brings together interdisciplinary work to advance an integrated biopsychosocial understanding of externalizing problems in children and adolescents. A focused yet integrative examination of biologically grounded pathways can advance theoretical models, clarify individual differences in risk and resilience, and inform more precise prevention and intervention efforts for youth externalizing behavior.The goal of this Research Topic is to advance understanding of biologically informed pathways to externalizing behavior in children and adolescents by integrating biological processes within a broader biopsychosocial framework. While externalizing behaviors are widely recognized as multifaceted, biological functioning is increasingly understood as shaping how psychological traits and social contexts confer risk or protection. This Topic aims to clarify heterogeneity in externalizing behavior, identify mechanisms of vulnerability and resilience, and refine developmental psychopathology models by highlighting interdisciplinary research that bridges biological, psychological, and social levels of analysis. Ultimately, this work seeks to inform assessment, early identification, and intervention efforts for youth with externalizing problems.This Research Topic welcomes contributions that include a clear biological component in the study of externalizing behavior in children and adolescents. Submissions may focus on biological mechanisms alone or examine biological processes in interaction with psychological and/or social factors. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:• autonomic or neuroendocrine functioning• stress reactivity and regulation• arousal processes• reward or threat processing• emotion regulation and dysregulation• empathy, callous-unemotional traits and moral development• early adversity and contextual risk• parenting and family dynamics• peer and school influences• protective or resilience processes.We welcome diverse methodological approaches, including cross-sectional or longitudinal designs, experimental paradigms, psychophysiological or neurobiological assessments, behavioral or qualitative methods, and mixed-methods research. Theoretical, conceptual, and integrative reviews that center biological mechanisms within a biopsychosocial framework are also encouraged.If you were not directly invited by the Topic Editors but wish to submit, you are welcome to do so; however, please contact us at childandadolescentpsychiatry@frontiersin.org before submitting and wait for our confirmation that your manuscript is within scope. Topic editors: Frances R Chen, Yu Gao, Bess Yin-Hung Lam, Joseph Schwartz Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/77825/biopsychosocial-pathways-to-externalizing-behavior-in-children-and-adolescents