Psychopathology developments involve the study of abnormal behaviors in relation to their causes and processes that lead to their manifestations. There is therefore a high interaction in the psychopathology development in relation to sex, gender, and age.
Psychopathology differs across boys and girls in relation to the sex differences, where boys show externalizing disorder in a higher level as opposed to girls on internalizing disorder. Emotional maladjustment is higher in girls as compared to that of boys, while behavioral problems are higher in boys (Pathé, 2002).
Gender influences the responses portrayed by children in relation to their environmental experiences, which includes the disciplinary practices by the parents. Girls are known to be more submissive and in expressing emotional dependence, while boys portray physical aggression and a state of roughness.
Internalizing and externalizing disorders in girls is as a result of permissiveness and parent hostility respectively, opposite to that of the boys on parent hostility and permissiveness respectively. The interaction between age and psychopathology is well expressed as the anxiety disorder which is more numerous during childhood and also in early adolescence.
Depressive disorder starts at the late adolescence towards the stages of early adulthood. Thus, anxiety disorders are associated with younger age in all sexes up to around 14 years while mood disorders are high in 15 years and above. Anxiety disorders are higher than mood disorders until the age of 25 years after which the mood disorders cumulate.
References
Pathé, P. E. (2002). Stalking. Crime and Justice , 273-318.