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Abstract
Personality and cognition both offer robust and parsimonious frameworks to understand the individual differences associated with externalizing behaviors. However, these literatures have historically been siloed. The present study used comprehensive tests of interactions in nonlinear regression models to examine the utility of empirically integrating models of personality and cognition to understand incidence of externalizing behaviors in young adulthood (Human Connectome Project [HCP]; N = 1,179) and middle/late childhood (Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development [ABCD]; N = 11,448). In general, the main effects of general personality traits in young adulthood and the main effects of impulsigenic traits and cognitive composites in middle/late childhood demonstrate the utility of additively integrating personality and cognition to understand incidence of early onset externalizing behaviors. Although detected interaction effects reflected intriguing patterns in the data, they were exceedingly small in magnitude and practically negligible in their explanation of variance in externalizing behaviors. Results support the need to primarily focus on additively integrating these literatures.