Parent–child dyadic rigidity and negative affect contribute to children's higher levels of externalizing problems. The present longitudinal study examined whether the opposite constructs of dyadic flexibility and positive affect predicted lower levels of externalizing behavior problems across the early childhood period. Mother–child (N = 163) and father–child (n = 94) dyads engaged in a challenging block design task at home when children were 3 years old. Dynamic systems methods were used to derive dyadic positive affect and three indicators of dyadic flexibility (range, dispersion, and transitions) from observational coding. We hypothesized that the interaction between dyadic flexibility and positive affect would predict lower levels of externalizing problems at age 5.5 years as rated by mothers and teachers, controlling for stability in externalizing problems, task time, child gender, and the child's effortful control. The hypothesis was supported in predicting teacher ratings of child externalizing from both mother–child and father–child interactions. There were also differential main effects for mothers and fathers: mother–child flexibility was detrimental and father–child flexibility was beneficial for child outcomes. Results support the inclusion of adaptive and dynamic parent–child coregulation processes in the study of children's early disruptive behavior.

Using data from two long-term longitudinal projects, we investigated reciprocal relations between maternal reports of physical discipline and teacher and self-ratings of child externalizing behavior, accounting for continuity in both discipline and externalizing over time. In Study 1, which followed a community sample of 562 boys and girls from age 6 to 9, high levels of physical discipline in a given year predicted high levels of externalizing behavior in the next year, and externalizing behavior in a given year predicted high levels of physical discipline in the next year. In Study 2, which followed an independent sample of 290 lower income, higher risk boys from age 10 to 15, mother-reported physical discipline in a given year predicted child ratings of antisocial behavior in the next year, but child antisocial behavior in a given year did not predict parents' use of physical discipline in the next year. In neither sample was there evidence that associations between physical discipline and child externalizing changed as the child aged, and findings were not moderated by gender, race, socioeconomic status, or the severity of the physical discipline. Implications for the reciprocal nature of the socialization process and the risks associated with physical discipline are discussed.

The goal of the study was to examine several factors that may explain the development of anxiety symptoms in middle childhood. Using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care (n = 1,364 families), we examined mother–child relationships, other aspects of family context, and child characteristics as predictors of anxiety in preadolescence. Latent growth curve analyses revealed that children who were more anxious at the beginning of middle childhood had been more behaviorally inhibited as preschoolers, and in middle childhood lived in families who experienced more negative life events and had mothers who were more anxious. Children who became more anxious across middle childhood were less behaviorally inhibited as preschoolers and in middle childhood perceived less security in their attachments to their mothers, experienced more negative life events, and had mothers who were more anxious. The findings illustrate the need to include a broad set of risk factors in etiological models of anxiety. In addition, the evidence for cumulative effects suggests several possible points of intervention with anxious children and their parents.

Transactional models suggest that peer victimization results from both individual and context differences, and understanding these differences may point to important targets for prevention and interventions that reduce victimization. Multilevel modeling was used to examine within-person (aggression and emotional dysregulation), between-person (sex and age), and between-school (participation in a victimization prevention program) factors that influence changes in physical and relational victimization over the first three years of elementary school. Children (n = 423) reported their experiences of peer victimization at entry into Grade 1 and at the end of Grade 1, Grade 2, and Grade 3. On average, trajectories of both physical and relational victimization declined. However, for individual children, teacher-rated aggression was associated with increases in physical and relational victimization, while emotional dysregulation was associated with attenuation of longitudinal declines in physical victimization and increases in relational victimization. Individual differences in sex and age at entry into Grade 1 did not significantly influence victimization trajectories over Grades 1 to 3. Children who participated in the WITS® victimization prevention program showed significant declines in physical and relational victimization. Levels of victimization among nonparticipants remained stable. Implications of child and context characteristics for preventing peer victimization in elementary school are discussed.

We examined Genotype × Environment (G × E) interactions between children's genotypes (the serotonin transporter linked promoter region [5-HTTLPR] gene) and maternal responsive care observed at 15, 25, 38, and 52 months on three aspects of children's competence at 67 months: academic skills and school engagement, social functioning with peers, and moral internalization that encompassed prosocial moral cognition and the moral self. Academic and social competence outcomes were reported by both parents, and moral internalization was observed in children's narratives elicited by hypothetical stories and in a puppet interview. Analyses revealed robust G × E interactions, such that children's genotype moderated the effects of maternal responsive care on all aspects of children's competence. Among children with a short 5-HTTLPR allele (ss/sl), those whose mothers were more responsive were significantly more competent than those whose mothers were less responsive. Responsiveness had no effect for children with two long alleles (ll). For academic and social competence, the G × E interactions resembled the diathesis–stress model: ss/sl children of unresponsive mothers had particularly unfavorable outcomes, but ss/sl children of responsive mothers had no worse outcomes than ll children. For moral internalization, the G × E interaction reflected the differential susceptibility model: whereas ss/sl children of unresponsive mothers again had particularly unfavorable outcomes, ss/sl children of responsive mothers had significantly better outcomes than ll children.

This prospective longitudinal study focused on self-regulatory, social–cognitive, and parenting precursors of individual differences in children's peer-directed aggression at early school age. Participants were 199 3-year-old boys and girls who were reassessed following the transition to kindergarten (5.5–6 years). Peer aggression was assessed in preschool and school settings using naturalistic observations and teacher reports. Children's self-regulation abilities and theory of mind understanding were assessed during a laboratory visit, and parenting risk (corporal punishment and low warmth/responsiveness) was assessed using interview-based and questionnaire measures. Individual differences in children's peer aggression were moderately stable across the preschool to school transition. Preschool-age children who manifested high levels of aggressive peer interactions also showed lower levels of self-regulation and theory of mind understanding, and experienced higher levels of adverse parenting than others. Our main finding was that early corporal punishment was associated with increased levels of peer aggression across the transition from preschool to school, as was the interaction between low maternal emotional support and children's early delays in theory of mind understanding. These data highlight the need for family-directed preventive efforts during the early preschool years.

This study examined the relations among temperament, emotion regulation, and depressive symptoms in early adolescents. Early adolescents provided self-reports of temperament on two occasions, as well as reports on emotion regulation and depressive symptomatology. Furthermore, 163 of these adolescents participated in event-planning and problem-solving interactions with their mothers. Adolescents with temperaments that were high in negative emotionality or low in effortful control displayed more emotionally dysregulated behaviors during the interaction tasks, reported having maladaptive responses to negative affect more often and adaptive responses less often, and had more depressive symptoms. In particular, adolescents with the high negative emotionality and low effortful control temperament combination reported the highest levels of depressive symptomatology. Sequential analyses of family interactions indicated that adolescents with more depressive symptoms were more likely to reciprocate their mothers' negative affective behaviors. Adolescents' adaptive and maladaptive responses to negative affect mediated the associations between their temperament and concurrent depressive symptoms.

This study examined the prospective relations of adolescents' perceptions of discrimination and their genetic status with increases in conduct problems. Participants were 461 African American youths residing in rural Georgia (Wave 1 mean age = 15.5 years) who provided three waves of data and a saliva sample from which a polymorphism in the SCL6A4 (serotonin transporter [5-HTT]) gene polymorphism known as the 5-HTT linked promoter region (5-HTTLPR) was genotyped. Data analyses using growth curve modeling indicated that perceived discrimination was significantly related to the slope of conduct problems. As hypothesized, interactions between perceived discrimination and genetic status emerged for male but not female youths. Compared with those carrying two copies of the long allele variant of 5-HTTLPR, male youths carrying one or two copies of its short allele variant evinced higher rates of conduct problems over time when they perceived high levels of racial discrimination. These findings are consistent with resilience and differential susceptibility propositions stating that genes can both foster sensitivity to adverse events and confer protection from those events.

Extensive developmental research has linked peer rejection during adolescence with a host of psychopathological outcomes, including depression. Moreover, recent neuroimaging research has suggested that increased activity in the subgenual region of the anterior cingulate cortex (subACC), which has been consistently linked with depression, is related to heightened sensitivity to peer rejection among adolescents. The goal of the current study was to directly test the hypothesis that adolescents' subACC responses are predictive of their risk for future depression, by examining the relationship between subACC activity during peer rejection and increases in depressive symptoms during the following year. During a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan, 20 13-year-olds were ostensibly excluded by peers during an online social interaction. Participants' depressive symptoms were assessed via parental reports at the time of the scan and 1 year later. Region of interest and whole-brain analyses indicated that greater subACC activity during exclusion was associated with increases in parent-reported depressive symptoms during the following year. These findings suggest that subACC responsivity to social exclusion may serve as a neural marker of adolescents' risk for future depression and have implications for understanding the relationship between sensitivity to peer rejection and the increased risk of depression that occurs during adolescence.

This study focuses on the association between language skills and core cognitive processes relative to the duration of institutionalization in children adopted from orphanages abroad. Participants in the adoptive group (n = 46) had arrived in the United States between the ages of 2 and 84 months (mean = 24 months), and had been living in the United States for 1–9 years. Drawing on both experimental and standardized assessments, language skills of the international adoptees differed as a function of length of time spent in an institution and from those of 24 nonadopted controls. Top-down cognitive assessments including measures of explicit memory and cognitive control differed between adopted and nonadopted children, yet differences between groups in bottom-up implicit learning processes were unremarkable. Based on the present findings, we propose a speculative model linking language and cognitive changes to underlying neural circuitry alterations that reflect the impact of chronic stress, due to adoptees' experience of noncontingent, nonindividualized caregiving. Thus, the present study provides support for a relationship between domain-general cognitive processes and language acquisition, and describes a potential mechanism by which language skills are affected by institutionalization.

This study examined exposure to peer delinquency as a mediator between pubertal timing and self-reported delinquency longitudinally and whether this mediational model was moderated by either gender or maltreatment experience. Data were obtained from Time 1, 2, and 3 of a longitudinal study of maltreatment and development. At Time 1 the sample comprised 454 children aged 9–13 years. Analyses via structural equation modeling supported full mediation. Gender did not moderate this mediational relationship, but maltreatment experience did. The results show that early maturing males and females are both at risk for being exposed to peers that may draw them into delinquent behavior. In addition, the mechanism linking early pubertal timing to delinquency differs depending on maltreatment experience.

Economic exchange games have rarely been applied to examine psychopathology in youth. In the current study we adapted a trust game to investigate the relations between externalizing behavior problems, trust, and trustworthiness. We were particularly interested in the differential modulating impact of “known identity” (vs. anonymous) condition of the task. Second, we examined whether anomalies in trust behavior would correspond to social cognition manifested in children with externalizing problems. A total of 171 (79 age-matched pairs) boys (mean age = 12.84; SD = 1.80) were recruited from community groups where social networks and relationships amongst peers have been established. A trust game was played under two conditions: an anonymous version where the identity of the trust game partner was not known and a “known identity” version where identities were revealed. Results supported the conclusion that boys with externalizing behavior problems are generally less trustworthy, but not less trusting and that this was true especially for the known identity version of the game. Moreover, anomalies in trust behavior were associated with hostile intentions, but not reflective of a general theory of mind deficit. This study contributes to an emerging literature using economic exchange games to investigate real-time, real-life exchanges in relation to psychopathology.

This investigation examined the relation between developmental trajectories jointly estimated for social and physical aggression and adjustment problems at age 14. Teachers provided ratings of children's social and physical aggression in Grades 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 for a sample of 255 children (131 girls, 21% African American, 52% European American, 21% Mexican American). Participants, parents, and teachers completed measures of the adolescent's adjustment to assess internalizing symptoms, rule-breaking behaviors, and borderline and narcissistic personality features. Results showed that membership in a high and rising trajectory group predicted rule-breaking behaviors and borderline personality features. Membership in a high desister group predicted internalizing symptoms, rule-breaking behaviors, and borderline and narcissistic personality features. The findings suggest that although low levels of social and physical aggression may not bode poorly for adjustment, individuals engaging in high levels of social and physical aggression in middle childhood may be at greatest risk for adolescent psychopathology, whether they increase or desist in their aggression through early adolescence.

Although establishing a coherent identity is often viewed as a normative developmental task of adolescence, an important question is whether forms of identity disturbance seen in adult personality disorders can also be distinguished in adolescents. If so, such disturbances would constitute an essential target for research and clinical interventions. The goal of this study is to investigate the nature of identity disturbance in an adolescent clinical sample and to explore its links with personality pathology, particularly borderline personality disorder. A national random sample of 139 psychiatrists and clinical psychologists completed a battery of instruments on a randomly selected adolescent patient in their care, including measures of Axis II symptoms and the Identity Disturbance Questionnaire—Adolescent Version, an instrument designed for clinically experienced observers that assesses a wide range of manifestations of potential identity disturbance among adolescents. Factor analysis of the Identity Disturbance Questionnaire—Adolescent Version yielded four clinically and conceptually coherent factors that resembled dimensions previously identified in adults: lack of normative commitment, role absorption, painful incoherence, and lack of consistency. As in adults, identity disturbance in adolescents is a clinically meaningful, multidimensional construct exhibiting significant relationships with different forms of severe personality pathology, most notably borderline personality disorder. As such, identity disturbance can be a manifestation of psychopathology above and beyond the typical Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) of adolescence.

Effortful control is thought to foster adaptive action in defensive contexts and may thereby protect individuals against anxious inhibition and focus on their own distress. We examined if effortful control predicted adolescents' perceived arousal, unpleasantness, and control as well as autonomic (heart rate [HR]) and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis (cortisol) responses during social stress. The data came from a focus sample of the Tracking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey, a prospective population study of Dutch adolescents (N = 715, 50.9% girls; mean age = 16.11, SD = 0.59), who participated in a laboratory session including a social stress task (public speaking and mental arithmetic). Perceived and physiological stress measures were assessed before, during, and after the social stress task. Effortful control was measured using various questionnaires and informants, as well as by means of a reaction time (RT) task assessing response inhibition. Overall, adolescents with high questionnaire-based effortful control tended to feel more relaxed, pleasant, and in control during the laboratory session than adolescents with lower levels of control and had stronger HR responses to the stress test. Adolescent girls with high inhibitory control as measured by the RT task also had strong HR responses, but inhibitory control was associated with high rather than low perceived arousal. Our results suggest that both questionnaire and RT measures of effortful control predict strong HR responses to challenging situations, but associational patterns diverge with regard to perceived stress measures.

Educational attainment and occupational status are key markers of success in adulthood. We expand upon previous research that focused primarily on the contributions of academic competence and family socioeconomic status (SES) by investigating the role of mental health in predicting adult SES. In a longitudinal study spanning 30 years, we used structural equation modeling to examine how parental mental health in early childhood and family SES, offspring academic competence, and offspring mental health in adolescence relate to occupational and educational attainment at age 30. Results were that adolescent academic competence predicted adult educational attainment, and that educational attainment then predicted occupational attainment. The pathways between academic competence and occupational attainment, family SES and educational attainment, and family SES and occupational attainment were not significant. In contrast, adolescent mental health not only predicted educational attainment, but was also directly related to adult occupational attainment. Finally, early maternal mental health was associated with offspring's adult socioeconomic attainment through its relations with adolescent academic competence and mental health. These results highlight the importance of mental health to adult socioeconomic attainment.

This study prospectively examined the effect of intimate partner violence (IPV) on adrenocortical reactivity and recovery during early childhood. The sample (n = 1102 mother–infant dyads; 49.2% male) was racially diverse and from predominantly low-income, rural communities. To measure IPV exposure mothers completed the Conflicts Tactics Scale, and her caretaking behaviors were observed when her child was approximately 7, 15, and 24 months of age. Children's saliva samples, later assayed for cortisol, were collected around challenge tasks designed to elicit emotional reactivity. IPV was related to a trajectory of increased cortisol reactivity from infancy to toddlerhood. By contrast, the trajectory for non-IPV-exposed children decreased in cortisol reactivity across 7 to 24 months of age. At the 24-month assessment, on average, toddlers did not exhibit a cortisol reaction; however, those exposed to high levels of violence continued to have reactivity. Accumulative levels of IPV across the first 2 years of life predicted cortisol reactivity at 24 months of age. Early (7-month) sensitive maternal behavior moderated this relationship, so that only children exposed to both early insensitivity and high accumulated IPV exhibited increased reactivity at the 24-month assessment. Findings are discussed in relation to the risky family framework.