Neuropsychological evidence supports the developmental taxonomy theory of antisocial behavior, suggesting that abnormal brain development distinguishes life-course-persistent from adolescence-limited antisocial behavior. Recent neuroimaging work confirmed that prospectively-measured life-course-persistent antisocial behavior is associated with differences in cortical brain structure. Whether this extends to subcortical brain structures remains uninvestigated. This study compared subcortical gray-matter volumes between 672 members of the Dunedin Study previously defined as exhibiting life-course-persistent, adolescence-limited or low-level antisocial behavior based on repeated assessments at ages 7–26 years. Gray-matter volumes of 10 subcortical structures were compared across groups. The life-course-persistent group had lower volumes of amygdala, brain stem, cerebellum, hippocampus, pallidum, thalamus, and ventral diencephalon compared to the low-antisocial group. Differences between life-course-persistent and adolescence-limited individuals were comparable in effect size to differences between life-course-persistent and low-antisocial individuals, but were not statistically significant due to less statistical power. Gray-matter volumes in adolescence-limited individuals were near the norm in this population-representative cohort and similar to volumes in low-antisocial individuals. Although this study could not establish causal links between brain volume and antisocial behavior, it constitutes new biological evidence that all people with antisocial behavior are not the same, supporting a need for greater developmental and diagnostic precision in clinical, forensic, and policy-based interventions.

Children’s relationships inform their internal working models (IWMs) of the world around them. Attachment and emotional security theory (EST) emphasize the importance of parent–child and interparental relationships, respectively, for IWM. The current study examined (a) data-driven classes in child attachment and emotional security IWM, (b) associations between IWM classes and demographic variables, maltreatment, intimate partner violence (IPV), and maternal depressive symptoms, and (c) consistency in attachment and emotional security IWM classes, including as a function of maltreatment, IPV, and maternal depressive symptoms. Participants were 234 preschool-aged children (n = 152 experienced maltreatment and n = 82 had not experienced maltreatment) and their mothers. Children participated in a narrative-based assessment of IWM. Mothers reported demographics, IPV, and maternal depressive symptoms. Latent class analyses revealed three attachment IWM classes and three emotional security IWM classes. Maltreatment was associated with lower likelihood of being in the secure attachment class and elevated likelihood of being in the insecure dysregulated attachment class. Inconsistencies in classification across attachment and emotional security IWM classes were related to maltreatment, IPV, and maternal depressive symptoms. The current study juxtaposes attachment and EST and provides insight into impacts of family adversity on children’s IWM across different family relationships.

Recent developments in the application life history theory to human development indicate two fundamental dimension of the early environment – harshness and unpredictability – are key regulators life history strategies. Few studies have examined the manner with which these dimensions influence development, though age at menarche (AAM) and age at first sexual intercourse have been proposed as possible mechanisms among women. Data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (N = 3,645) were used to examine direct and indirect effects of harshness (financial difficulties) and unpredictability (paternal transitions) on lifetime and past year sexual partners during adolescence and young adulthood. Genetic confounding was addressed using an AAM polygenic score (PGS) and potential gene-by-environment interactions were also evaluated using the PGS. Path model results showed only harshness was directly related to AAM. Harshness, unpredictability, and AAM were indirectly related to lifetime and past year sexual partner number via age at first sexual intercourse. The PGS did not account for any of the associations and no significant interactions were detected. Implications of these results for developmental models derived from life history theory are discussed as well as the role of PGSs in gene–environment interplay research.

Children who have experienced maltreatment are more likely to have disrupted attachments, fewer psychosocial strengths, and poorer long-term psychosocial outcomes. However, few studies have examined the interplay between attachment security and psychosocial strengths among children involved in therapeutic services in the context of the child welfare system. The present longitudinal study examines the insecure attachment behaviors and psychosocial strengths of 555 children referred to the Therapeutic Family Care program (TFCP) in Cobourg, Ontario between 2000 and 2019. The children were assessed by their caregivers on a regular basis using the Assessment Checklist for Children (ACC) and the complementary strengths-focused ACC+ measure. Average age of children at baseline was 9.57 years (SD = 3.51) and 229 (41.26%) were female. We conducted growth curve and random intercepts cross-lagged panel models to test the longitudinal interplay between insecure attachment behaviors and strengths. Results suggest that females’ attachment security improved, males’ attachment security worsened, and both males and females developed strengths over time. Further, analyses revealed a directional effect, whereby fewer insecure attachment behaviors predicted more psychosocial strengths approximately 6 months later. Implications for attachment-oriented and strengths-based services in the context of child welfare are discussed.

We examined the long-term causal effects of an evidence-based parenting program delivered in infancy on children’s emotion regulation and resting-state functional connectivity (rs-fc) during middle childhood. Families were referred to the study by Child Protective Services (CPS) as part of a diversion from a foster care program. A low-risk group of families was also recruited. CPS-involved families were randomly assigned to receive the target (Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up, ABC) or a control intervention (Developmental Education for Families, DEF) before infants turned 2. Both interventions were home-based, manualized, and 10-sessions long. During middle childhood, children underwent a 6-min resting-state functional MRI scan. Amygdala seed-based rs-fc analysis was completed with intervention group as the group-level predictor of interest. Fifty-seven children (NABC = 21; NDEF = 17; NCOMP = 19; Mage = 10.02 years, range = 8.08–12.14) were scanned successfully. The DEF group evidenced negative left amygdala↔OFC connectivity, whereas connectivity was near zero in the ABC and comparison groups (ABCvsDEF: Cohen’s d = 1.17). ABC may enhance high-risk children’s regulatory neurobiology outcomes ∼8 years after the intervention was completed.

Researchers have suggested that psychopathic traits among adults may be, at least in part, an adaptive and/or a learned response for securing socially adaptive outcomes in adverse environments, but there is a lack of developmental evidence supporting this hypothesis among adolescents. Therefore, we examined the indirect links from self-perceived adverse environments (parental neglect, socioeconomic status, school competition, neighborhood violence) to evolutionarily relevant social outcomes (social power, dating behavior) through psychopathic traits. A community sample of 396 adolescents completed measures for the study (Mage = 14.64, SD = 1.52). As predicted, there were significant indirect effects from higher levels of parental neglect, school competition, and neighborhood violence to both forms of socially adaptive outcomes through psychopathic traits, but unexpectedly, there were no indirect effects with socioeconomic status. There were also direct effects between environment and socially adaptive outcomes. Results support the hypothesis that psychopathic traits may be, in part, an adaptive and/or learned response to cues from adverse social environments as a means to acquire evolutionarily relevant social outcomes. Interventions could be designed to target the adverse social issues that might be facilitating the development of psychopathy and should be sensitive to the social outcomes adolescents may acquire from these traits.

Inhibitory control plays an important role in children’s cognitive and socioemotional development, including their psychopathology. It has been established that contextual factors such as socioeconomic status (SES) and parents’ psychopathology are associated with children’s inhibitory control. However, the relations between the neural correlates of inhibitory control and contextual factors have been rarely examined in longitudinal studies. In the present study, we used both event-related potential (ERP) components and time-frequency measures of inhibitory control to evaluate the neural pathways between contextual factors, including prenatal SES and maternal psychopathology, and children’s behavioral and emotional problems in a large sample of children (N = 560; 51.75% females; Mage = 7.13 years; Rangeage = 4–11 years). Results showed that theta power, which was positively predicted by prenatal SES and was negatively related to children’s externalizing problems, mediated the longitudinal and negative relation between them. ERP amplitudes and latencies did not mediate the longitudinal association between prenatal risk factors (i.e., prenatal SES and maternal psychopathology) and children’s internalizing and externalizing problems. Our findings increase our understanding of the neural pathways linking early risk factors to children’s psychopathology.

In a sample of 112 psychiatric inpatients with mild mental retardation, lower premorbid social competence was significantly related to symptom expression in action compared to thought. Both of these variables were correlated with length of current hospitalization. Premorbid social competence and thought-action orientation have been major variables in developmental research on psychopathology in patients without mental retardation. These results indicate that these variables can be applied to differentiate developmental level among inpatients with mild mental retardation and that these developmental distinctions are related to other clinical variables, as has been found for inpatients without mental retardation. The findings also attest to the heterogeneity in developmental level among inpatients with mild mental retardation.

Negative emotionality (NE) was evaluated as a candidate mechanism linking prenatal maternal affective symptoms and offspring internalizing problems during the preschool/early school age period. The participants were 335 mother–infant dyads from the Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability and Neurodevelopment project. A Confirmatory Bifactor Analysis (CFA) based on self-report measures of prenatal depression and pregnancy-specific anxiety generated a general factor representing overlapping symptoms of prenatal maternal psychopathology and four distinct symptom factors representing pregnancy-specific anxiety, negative affect, anhedonia and somatization. NE was rated by the mother at 18 and 36 months. CFA based on measures of father, mother, child-rated measures and a semistructured interview generated a general internalizing factor representing overlapping symptoms of child internalizing psychopathology accounting for the unique contribution of each informant. Path analyses revealed significant relationships among the general maternal affective psychopathology, the pregnancy- specific anxiety, and the child internalizing factors. Child NE mediated only the relationship between pregnancy-specific anxiety and the child internalizing factors. We highlighted the conditions in which prenatal maternal affective symptoms predicts child internalizing problems emerging early in development, including consideration of different mechanistic pathways for different maternal prenatal symptom presentations and child temperament.

This study addressed the role of deficits in the organization of the self, or narcissistic pathology, among widows who evidenced depressive outcomes following the loss of their husbands. The significance of object representations and self-regulatory capacities (introjects) within the self-representation in predicting psychiatric status in a sample of 77 widows 1 year after spousal loss was examined. In addition, the link between functional deficits within the self and observable state markers of such deficits as they related to depression was investigated. A combination of projective and self-report measures were used to assess self and object representation. The General Health Questionnaire (Goldberg & Hillier, 1979) and the Structured Clinical Interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed.) (Spitzer & Williams, 1985) were employed as measures of psychiatric disorder. Analyses revealed that functional aspects of self representations, or introjects, differentiated clinically depressed widows from those experiencing “normal” mourning. However, object representations were relatively weak predictors of depression following bereavement and evidenced little association with self representation. Observable markers of self-pathology were strongly related to functional impairments in the self but did not operate causally to predict depressive outcome. Theoretical and clinical implications of the linkage between functional deficits in the self and depression are discussed.

Children and adolescents display varying trajectories of conduct problems (CP), but it is unclear if these CP trajectories can be distinguished by childhood antecedents and adolescent outcomes. Therefore, we tested if child- and environmental-level risk factors predict CP trajectory membership and if CP trajectories are associated with developmental outcomes in adolescence. Six waves of data (teacher-, parent- and child self-reports) were used from 2,045 children. General growth mixture modeling identified four CP trajectories (waves 2–5): childhood-persistent, childhood-limited, adolescent-onset, and low CP. Relative to the adolescent-onset CP trajectory, wave 1 child- and environmental-level risk factors increased the likelihood of being in the childhood-persistent CP trajectory, though all but two (callous-unemotional traits and non-intact family) antecedents lost significance after controlling for wave 1 conduct problems. Few significant differences emerged in risk factors when comparing childhood-persistent and childhood-limited CP trajectories. Individuals identified in the adolescent-onset and childhood-persistent CP trajectories faced a higher risk for later maladjustment than those in the childhood-limited CP trajectory, whereas the adolescent-onset and childhood-persistent CP trajectories only differed in three out of 13 outcomes. Overall, findings indicate that individuals with CP are at risk for later maladjustment, but predicting the childhood-persistent trajectory of CP in young children is difficult.

Decades of research shows that sexual minority youth (SMY) display heightened risk for mental health problems, although the onset of such disparities remains unclear. The Millennium Cohort Study is the largest nationally representative longitudinal study of adolescents in the United Kingdom. In this study, participants (N = 10,047, 50% female) self-reported their sexual identity at age 17 and had parent-reported mental health data, from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, reported across five waves at ages 5, 7, 11, 14, and 17. Multilevel linear spline models, stratified by sex, were used to examine mental health trajectories between sexual identity groups (completely heterosexual, mostly heterosexual, SMY). SMY showed heightened peer problems from the baseline assessment at age five, increasing over time, and heightened emotional problems from age 11, increasing over time. Mostly heterosexual youth showed heightened emotional problems at age 11 in males, and at age 17 in females. Findings are discussed in light of the literature on minority stress and gender conformity in youth. The use of parent-reported mental health data means that estimates are likely to be conservative. We conclude that interventions supporting SMY should start early and be available throughout adolescence.

This multi-method longitudinal study evaluated how changes in maternal sensitive parenting may operate as an indirect factor linking family instability and the development of child externalizing problems over time. This study also investigated how mothers’ stress reactivity within the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) may moderate the association between family instability and the development of maternal sensitivity. Participants were 235 families with a young child (Mage = 2.97 years at the first measurement occasion) and these families were followed for two annual measurement occasions. Maternal sensitivity was observed during two discipline tasks (i.e., forbidden toy, discipline discussion tasks), and maternal SNS stress reactivity was indicated by their salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) reactivity to an interpersonal stressor. Findings revealed significant direct effects of family instability and family instability-x-sAA reactivity interaction in association with the change in maternal sensitivity over time. For both tasks, mothers with greater sAA reactivity exhibited stronger associations between family instability and the growth of their sensitivity. Tests of indirect effects indicated that change in maternal sensitivity operated as an indirect factor between family instability-x-sAA reactivity interaction and the change in child externalizing problems. The present findings have important implications for understanding parental and child sequelae associated with unstable family contexts.

Personality pathology is hypothesized to be an important factor in shaping identity, yet longitudinal evidence linking dimensional measures of identity and personality pathology remains scarce. To address this knowledge gap and shed light on the reciprocal dynamics proposed by the alternative model of personality disorder, we conducted a comprehensive seven-year study involving 372 emerging adults from a community sample (MageT1 = 21.98 years, SDT1 = 1.13; 57% females). Pathological personality traits were assessed using the short form of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5 SF) while identity was assessed with the Dimensions of Identity Development Scale (DIDS). Cross-lagged analyses in Mplus revealed that personality pathology consistently predicts subsequent different levels of identity seven years later, whereas only one significant pathway from identity to personality pathology was found. Notably, negative affectivity and detachment emerge as the most influential pathological personality trait, whereas no significant effects were found for disinhibition and psychoticism. In summary, our study uncovered compelling longitudinal associations that underscore the pivotal role of pathological personality traits in the development of identity. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The reward positivity (RewP) is an event-related potential that indexes reinforcement learning and reward system activation. The RewP has been shown to increase across adolescence; however, most studies have examined the RewP across two assessments, and no studies have examined within-person changes across adolescence into young adulthood. Moreover, the RewP has been identified as a neurobiological risk factor for adolescent-onset depression, but it is unclear whether childhood psychosocial risk factors might predict RewP development across adolescence. In a sample of 317 8- to 14-year-old girls (Mage = 12.4, SD = 1.8), the present study examined self-report measures of depression symptoms and stressful life events at baseline and the ΔRewP during the doors guessing task across three timepoints. Growth modeling indicated that, across all participants, the ΔRewP did not demonstrate linear change across adolescence. However, baseline anhedonia symptoms predicted within-person changes in the ΔRewP, such that individuals with low anhedonia symptoms demonstrated a linear increase in the ΔRewP, but individuals with high anhedonia symptoms had no change in the ΔRewP across adolescence. Similar patterns were observed for stressful life events. The present study suggests that childhood risk factors impact the development of reward-related brain activity, which might subsequently increase risk for psychopathology.

Developmental psychopathology has successfully advanced an understanding of risk and protective factors in multivariate models. However, many areas have relied on top-down approaches that define psychological constructs based largely or solely on their physical form. In this paper, we first describe how top-down approaches have significantly hindered progress by generating generic risk and protective models that yield little more than the conclusion that axiomatically positive and negative factors respectively beget an interchangeable array of positive and negative child sequelae. To advance precision and novelty as central priorities, we describe behavioral systems frameworks rooted in evolutionary theory that infuse both form (i.e., what it looks like) and function (what it is designed to do) into psychological constructs. We further address how this paradigm has generated new growing points for developmental models of interparental relationships and parenting. In the final section, we provide recommendations for expanding this approach to other areas of developmental psychopathology. Throughout the paper, we document how the focus on functional patterns of behavior in well-defined developmental contexts advance precision and novelty in understanding children’s response processes to threats, opportunities, and challenges in associations between their developmental histories and their psychological sequelae.

Depression is transmitted within families, but the mechanisms involved in such transmission are not clearly defined. A potential marker of familial risk is the neural response to errors, which may play a role in depression symptoms and is known to be partially heritable. Here, 97 mother-daughter dyads completed a Flanker task while electroencephalography markers of error monitoring were recorded: the error-related negativity (ERN) and response-locked delta and theta power. We assessed whether these measures of neural response to errors 1) were associated with history of recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD) and current depression symptoms among mothers, 2) were correlated among mother-daughter dyads, and 3) were associated with maternal history of recurrent MDD and maternal symptoms of depression among daughters. A history of recurrent MDD was associated with blunted delta and increased theta among mothers. Across mothers, delta and theta were negatively and positively associated, respectively, with current depression symptoms. Mothers’ and daughters’ ERN were positively correlated. Finally, current maternal depression symptoms were negatively associated with delta power in daughters. These results suggest that neural responses to errors may be implicated in the intergenerational transmission of depression. These results also support the relevance of delta oscillations to understanding pathways to depression.