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The Role of Context in the Development of Psychopathology: A Conceptual Framework and Some Speculative Propositions
Abstract
Despite the explosion of studies assessing relations between various contextual factors and various forms of psychological disturbance, about the only firm conclusion one can draw regarding the environment's role in the development of psychopathology is that "bad" things have "bad" effects among some-but not all-people, some-but not all-of the time. We argue that extant research has confused two different roles of context and suggest that (1) environmental factors act as nonspecific stressors in the elicitation of psychopathology by provoking autonomic arousal, with specificity of expressed psychopathology governed by individual differences in endogenous factors; and that (2) context is specific in affecting the course of psychopathology by influencing the extent to which the behavioral, affective, or cognitive components of the pathology are repeated.
... Children who are socially competent are likely to demonstrate low reactivity to stress and have high self-control of their attention and behavior (Eisemberg et al., 1997;Marshall and Watt, 1999). However, the psychosocial context in which a child develops seems to play a central role in the maturation of interpersonal skills and selfemotions regulation systems (Sroufe et al., 2005;Steinberg and Avenevoli, 2000). Children living in supportive and encouraging family contexts are more likely to develop socialcompetencies and self-regulation skills (Carr, 1999). ...
... As children move outside the family, influences from peers, school, and the community become increasingly significant (Marshall and Watt, 1999;Mash and Wolfe, 2001). One of the most important findings that these novel epistemological and research methodologies have revealed is the confirmation of clinical data showing multiple factors within and outside the child dynamically interact to generate developmental and psychosocial instabilities and dysfunctions (Avenevoli and Steinberg, 2000;Carr, 1999;Fraser, 2004;Rutter, 2000;Wilmshurst, 2009). ...
... Although contemporary developmental psychopathology considers the emotional and behavioral difficulties of children within the pathology or the disorder conceptual framework, it takes into account to a much higher degree variables that are related to developmental stages, transitions, and individual needs of children, as well as to intrapsychic and interpersonal dynamics and to family interactional patterns (see Carr, 1999;Dishion and Patterson, 2006;O'Connor, et al., 1998;Sroufe et al., 2000;Steinberg and Avenevoli, 2000;Wilmshurst, 2009;Wyman, 2003). ...
... Children who are socially competent are likely to demonstrate low reactivity to stress and have high self-control of their attention and behavior (Eisemberg et al., 1997;Marshall and Watt, 1999). However, the psychosocial context in which a child develops seems to play a central role in the maturation of interpersonal skills and selfemotions regulation systems (Sroufe et al., 2005;Steinberg and Avenevoli, 2000). Children living in supportive and encouraging family contexts are more likely to develop socialcompetencies and self-regulation skills (Carr, 1999). ...
... As children move outside the family, influences from peers, school, and the community become increasingly significant (Marshall and Watt, 1999;Mash and Wolfe, 2001). One of the most important findings that these novel epistemological and research methodologies have revealed is the confirmation of clinical data showing multiple factors within and outside the child dynamically interact to generate developmental and psychosocial instabilities and dysfunctions (Avenevoli and Steinberg, 2000;Carr, 1999;Fraser, 2004;Rutter, 2000;Wilmshurst, 2009). ...
... Although contemporary developmental psychopathology considers the emotional and behavioral difficulties of children within the pathology or the disorder conceptual framework, it takes into account to a much higher degree variables that are related to developmental stages, transitions, and individual needs of children, as well as to intrapsychic and interpersonal dynamics and to family interactional patterns (see Carr, 1999;Dishion and Patterson, 2006;O'Connor, et al., 1998;Sroufe et al., 2000;Steinberg and Avenevoli, 2000;Wilmshurst, 2009;Wyman, 2003). ...
This book aims to present an extensive review of the available research evidence regarding children with behavioral problems, together with a synthesis of new theoretical and epistemological models whose purpose is to examine and address critical issues within the school and family context. The key elements that characterize the intrapsychic and interpersonal functioning, as well as the family dynamics of these children, are presented analytically from a developmental and transactional perspective. Additionally, the risk and protective factors related to schools and academic inclusion of children with behavioral problems are analyzed and discussed in the light of current research data. Particular emphasis is also given to presenting the main features of contemporary psychoeducational and psychotherapeutic interventions which address the wide range of disruptive behaviors in order to successfully include these children in mainstream schools. A central argument of this book is that professionals who work with these children should go beyond symptomatic reactions to meet the vulnerable and suffering child behind the disordered behavior. The final purpose of this work is to suggest a holistic model of treating behavioral problems using a meaningful synthesis of various theoretical approaches and techniques. More specifically, an ecological comprehensive child-centered model is proposed that takes into account each child's particular traits, vulnerabilities and strengths, as well as the dynamics of his/her family and school environment. Finally, the author argues against both the classical clinical approaches of behavioral problems that decontextualize and pathologize every behavioral deviation, and a strict adherence to manualized approaches that impose on teachers and other professionals an experimentally tested intervention model that often has little ecological validity. The book is enriched by a series of brief clinical cases aimed at outlining the emotional reactions of parents and teachers, as well as presenting the psychological interventions that might be appropriate in each particular case of behavioral difficulties. This is a thought-provoking book that integrates contemporary theoretical considerations with practical clinical and educational guidelines. For this reason, it can be useful for clinical and school psychologists, classroom teachers, special educators, and all mental health professionals who work or are in contact with children with varying degrees and forms of behavioral problems.
... In the same line, over pampering or over intimacy with caregivers also would lead to insecure and related psychopathological development. This is strong evidence that there are external influences like environment and context in personality development which researchers such as Steinberg and Avenevoli (2000) have scientifically proved. It is rational to state that there are good and bad sides of personality and both are motivated by seen and unseen phenomena and circumstances. ...
... Willcox (1895) postulates that inspiration, which influenced the Bible, is beyond ordinary secularists' definition and understanding of inspiration. Willcox further states that God's deeds are two-sided one against the other such as good vs bad (for scientific claims of good and bad see Steinberg and Avenevoli's (2000) study on the role of context on development of psychopathology). Notwithstanding, some of the rationalists such as Thrash and Elliot (2003) supported the ideas of the theologians on inspiration as a psychological construct. ...
... Furthermore, those that are inspired mostly are modest. In essence, inspiration related to good (see Dahl & Stengel, 1978;Thrash & Elliot's, 2003;and Steinberg & Avenevoli's, 2000). While the literature was very supportive in proving the influence of inspiration, its contrast (i.e. if one is not inspired, the opposite will surely suffice) "insinuation" had been given little or never been giving adequate attention such as those given to conscious and unconscious phenomena personality and personality and behavioral developments. ...
Is insinuation one of the most influential phenomena in the early and continuous development of human behavior? Yes. Does previous scientific study give ample of time to understand unconsciousness and its manifestation from this point of view? No. As we have demonstrated in the following pages, insinuation does hold a high view in the divine scriptures as an opposite to inspiration. The scientific views on unconsciousness theory further ascertained its influence on human activities. A number of scientists however, denounced this clear evidence due to lack of laboratory prove of inspiration-cum-insinuation effects rather termed unconsciousness. In this essay, through dedicated analysis using both induction and deduction methods we showed that their theories failed to study unconsciousness from a holistic perspective. It only focused on those that have psychological and psychopathological problems in exclusion of reasonable human beings, thus, contained numerous errors that even contradicted their scientific findings. Following in-depth and dedicated analysis, we showed the influences of unseen phenomena that are beyond human control from Islamic philosophy viewpoints affirming earlier biblical claims of insinuation influences. We concluded by mentioning some of the physical evidences justified by the Islamic scripture “Qur’an” and some of the implications of these findings for certain aspects of the contemporary “inspiration and insinuation debates”.
... literature of similar quality about the effects of environment on affective development tends to focus on psychological disturbance. Steinberg and Avenevoli (2000), in a thorough examination of the research bases regarding the contexts of behavioral problems, concluded that negative environmental situations yield behaviorally negative outcomes and that affective development is shaped by environmental dynamics including location, home life, and timing. In addition, recent brain development research indicates that brain maturation continues throughout adolescence, particularly in the areas of the brain that manage behavior, emotion, and the ability to assess risks and rewards (Steinberg, 2005). ...
... The way that others view giftedness and exceptionalities like ADHD, impacts behavioral choices, affective development and identity of the 2e adult. Steinberg and Avenevoli (2000) examined the research of contextualized behavioral problems and concluded that negative environmental situations lead to behaviorally negative outcomes, and that affective development is shaped by environmental dynamics within the contexts of location, home life and timing. 2e adults that have not been properly diagnosed tend to inaccurately contextualize their struggles and then create affective schemas centered on self-blame, incompetence and failure. ...
Individuals who must juggle the seemingly incompatible dichotomy of attentional/behavioral disabilities while possessing significant gifts and talents represent a group straddling two subpopulations. Termed “twice exceptional” or “2e,” such individuals have increasingly served as the topic of theory and research alike aimed at children and adolescents (Reis & McCoach, 2000), yet little has been postulated about their development into adulthood (Nauta & Corten, 2002).
... Developmental psychologists generally agree that children interact with environmental features in a bidirectional, reciprocal manner that influences their adjustment (e.g., Boyce & Ellis, 2005;Steinberg & Avenevoli, 2000), though some youth are more reactive and sensitive to context than others (e.g., Ellis & Boyce, 2008). Context-sensitive children, who are sometimes compared to orchids or plants that are highly sensitive to environmental variation, may possess characteristics that confer greater physiological responsiveness across environmental conditions (Dobbs, 2012;Kennedy, 2013). ...
... Associations among child-specific features (genetic, endophenotypic, and phenotypic) with youth's outcomes are not uniform and may be influenced by contextual features such as parenting behaviors. Consistent with ecological systems theory, the initiation or maintenance of positive or problematic behaviors often occurs through the transactions between an individual's characteristics and his or her environment (Boyce, 2016;Bronfenbrenner, 1986;Meaney, 2010;Steinberg & Avenevoli, 2000). Proximal environments, such as parent-child interactions, are an important contextual mechanism that may differentially impact youth that are more sensitive to context (e.g., Bates, Pettit, Dodge, & Ridge, 1998;Gallagher, 2002;Kiff, Lengua, & Bush, 2011). ...
Children vary in their sensitivity to parenting practices, which may influence their competence and development of psychological symptoms. Three theoretical frameworks that address youth's sensitivity to parenting and potential outcomes include the diathesis-stress model, differential susceptibility hypothesis, and the vantage sensitivity hypothesis. The purpose of the present review is to examine the relations among child genetic, endophenotypic, and phenotypic attributes with parenting, and links to social and emotional adjustment and symptoms from infancy to young adulthood (18 years of age) that support the diathesis-stress model, differential susceptibility hypothesis, or vantage sensitivity hypothesis. We also examined whether (a) the assessment method (e.g., questionnaires , observations) and (b) developmental period (e.g., early childhood, adolescence) during which variables were assessed influenced support for the theoretical perspectives considered. Support was found for each framework but differed across studies. This inconsistent support may be because some child-specific features act as vulnerabilities, whereas others operate as plasticity factors; the parenting dimension under consideration may influence the adjustment of youth differently; or sex differences in child-specific features may differentially predict youth social and emotional competence or symptom development. Other potential explanations involve issues related to informants and contextual variations in children's behaviors, different analytic approaches, the assessment method, and developmental period of assessment.
... It also became clear that risky conditions often co-occurred, such that some youth faced very hazardous transitions to adolescence, fraught with stressful experiences and little in the way of positive resources; psychopathology was often associated with high net or cumulative risk (Masten & Coatsworth, 1998;Masten & Narayan, 2012;Sameroff, Gutman, & Peck, 2003). Moreover, strong overlap was noted among risk factors, with a given risk factor such as a chaotic home environment or unsafe neighborhood being associated with multiple forms of psychopathology (Monahan, Oesterle, Rhew, & Hawkins, 2014;Steinberg & Avenevoli, 2000). ...
... That is, it is difficult to find links between specific contextual stressors (either chronic or acute) and specific manifestations of dysfunction. Divorce, poverty, maltreatment, exposure to neighborhood violence, and peer rejection, for example, are risk factors for many types of problems in adolescence (Bond, Toumbourou, Thomas, Catalano, & Patton, 2005;Monahan, Oesterle, et al., 2014;Steinberg & Avenevoli, 2000). Thus, it appears likely that specificity in the manifestations of emotional and behavioral disorder (i.e., why one individual develops depression but another develops alcohol dependence) likely reflects individual differences (genetic or acquired) in biological diatheses rather than specific differences in contextual experience. ...
Adolescence is a period of transformation, marked by significant changes in biology, cognition, and contextual experiences. In recent years, advances in neuroscience have increased our understanding of how developmental changes at the biological level place adolescents at risk for psychopathology. Paradoxically, these same changes that place a youth at risk for psychopathology are also indicative of increased plasticity during the adolescent years, potentially signaling adolescence as a key developmental period for potential intervention efforts. The present chapter integrates the last ten years of research on developmental neuroscience with the study of contextual influences on psychopathology. We hope to stimulate an active line of new research that integrates the study of developmental neuroscience with context, promoting better understanding of effective means of preventing psychopathology during adolescence.
... During the adolescence period, adolescents are more likely to rely on close friends as compared to their parents as trusted individuals and central support sources (Furman & Buhrmester, 1992;Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers, & Robinson, 2007). Therefore, it is common for adolescents to ask friends for help in understanding and managing difficulties (Miller-Slough & Dunsmore, 2016;Reindl, Gniewosz, & Reinders, 2016;Steinberg & Avenevoli, 2000;Thompson, 1994;Zaki & Williams, 2013). Indeed, previous studies have shown that sharing social plight with friends and friends' emotional support can reduce internalizing symptoms for adolescents (Schacter & Juvonen, 2019a;Vannucci, Fagle, Simpson, & Ohannessian, 2021). ...
This study examined the moderating role of co-rumination with friends on the relations between peer victimization and psychological maladjustment (depressive symptoms, anxiety) in Chinese adolescents. Participants included 282 adolescents (118 boys, Mage = 12.90 years, SD = 0.71) who had same-gender reciprocated best friends in rural China. Data on peer victimization, co-rumination with friends, depressive symptoms, and anxiety were collected from peer nomination and self-reports. The findings revealed that the associations between peer victimization and psychological maladjustment were stronger among adolescents who had a higher level of co-rumination with friends. This result suggests that co-rumination with friends may worsen the psychological problems that victimized adolescents face. The results can inform prevention and intervention efforts to improve victimized adolescents' psychological problems by considering the role of victims' high-level of co-rumination with friends.
... Emotion control requires the ability to control one's emotions on the basis of many different abilities (Thompson, 1994). Past studies have indicated that emotional difficulties may lead to a greater risk for psychopathological integration, such as anxiety and depressive disorders (Steinberg & Avenevoli, 2000;Steinberg et al., 2006). Nonetheless, the processes of emotion-regulation can increase or decline emotional reaction (see Berking et al., 2013;Hofmann et al., 2012). ...
Depression is a major public health issue both in Bangladesh and in the world and should be
given more focus, in particular to the identification of prevention and intervention targets.
The research aimed at researching relationships between the strategy of emotional regulation
and adolescent depression.This quantitative study chose the youth population in Dhaka City,
Bangladesh. The researcher selected the participants randomly from among those in the 7th
to 10th grades. A class with 40 participants was selected. The researcher sent questionnaires
to the participants and obtained their responses to the questionnaires. The data from this
study were used to examine the relationship between emotional control and depression in
adolescents in Bangladesh by using the Spearman correlation analysis. The findings show that
the relationships between emotional regulation and depression, higher extents of
‘suppression-focused’ emotional regulation styles appear to be related to the reporting of
more borderline clinical depression, while more cognitive ‘reappraisal-focused’ styles are not
significantly associated with the symptoms of depression.The outcomes concerning the
connections between cognitive strategies for emotional regulation and depression may serve
as potential targets for a mental health intervention for adolescents in developing countries.
This study outcome will also contribute to the adolescent crisis intervention strategy among
adolescent in Bangladesh. In the individual and group treatment sessions, the therapists may
use a strategy plan for adaptive emotional regulations to prevent depression.
Keyword: Depression, Suppression, Cognitive Reappraisal, Adolescent
... Entrainment refers to the role of environments in structuring neural pathways implicated in automatic overlearned response patterns [34]. Child characteristics such as response perseveration, behavioural inhibition and irritability may be shaped through thousands of interactions and routines within the family and broader social contexts across development [35]. Theories of these processes have proposed, for example, that the development and maintenance of self-regulation, a key aspect of temperament, are influenced by how parents manage the home environment and both scaffold and model appropriate behaviour and self-regulation for their children [36]. ...
Child and adolescent mental health is understood to be highly embedded in the family system, particularly the parent-child relationship. Indeed, models of risk pathways to psychopathology emphasise interactions and transactions between the family environment and individual differences at the child-level, including gene-environment interplay. Therapist knowledge regarding the role of the family in these pathways is central to the clinical competencies involved in the evidence-based treatment of children and adolescents. This chapter provides an overview of current theory regarding family contributions to the major forms psychopathology seen among children and adolescents. Attention is given to key family and parenting variables as they are conceptualised in the current literature, the mechanisms by which these variables contribute to the emergence and maintenance of psychopathology, and the origins and determinants of parenting.
... Adolescence is also a period in which youth perceive less parental support and increasingly rely on close friends as trusted confidants and sources of instrumental support (Furman and Buhrmester 1992;Morris et al. 2007). As such, adolescence is a critical stage for the development of more refined emotional competencies in which youth learn how to manage strong and complex emotional experiences within peer contexts, such as close friendships, without the assistance of an adult (Miller-Slough and Dunsmore 2016; Steinberg and Avenevoli 2000). The manner in which adolescents manage and respond to emotions within peer contexts has important implications for their emotional adjustment (Klimes-Dougan et al. 2014;Reindl et al. 2016). ...
Research suggests co-rumination during adolescence has developmental tradeoffs that result in elevated self-disclosure and intimacy between friends but also can be associated with increases in depression (Rose et al. 2007; Rose 2002). The current study further examined this paradox by assessing the role of emotional competencies in co-rumination as they predict depressive symptoms over a 2-year period. We tested whether co-rumination moderated the relation between emotional awareness and emotion regulation and depressive symptoms in reciprocated best friend dyads. At Time 1, 202 adolescents (101 same-sex best friend dyads; Mage = 12.68, 52.5% girls, 76.6% White, middle-class) reported on their emotional competencies (i.e., emotional awareness and perceptions of their friend’s anger and sadness regulation), and depressive symptoms as well as engaged in a discussion task where co-rumination was observed. Multilevel modeling (Actor-Partner Interdependence Modeling) was used to account for similarity within friend dyads. The results indicated that when girls engaged in high levels of co-rumination, poor emotional awareness was related to greater depressive symptoms in their friend. Regarding the analyses of emotion regulation, at high levels of co-rumination, Friend A’s perceptions of stronger anger regulation by Friend B predicted fewer depressive symptoms in Friend A. Stronger sadness regulation in Friend B at high levels of co-rumination predicted fewer depressive symptoms in Friend B. Our findings highlight the potentially adaptive nature of emotional competencies that may ameliorate the negative sequelae of co-rumination as adolescents are afforded the opportunity to discuss problems, better understand their emotions, skills that are then associated with fewer depressive symptoms over time.
... Thus, the brain-based relation between early childhood wariness and subsequent expression of social anxiety symptom expression was linked to exposure to peer victimization. These results support a diathesis-stress model (Steinberg & Avenevoli, 2000) for the development of social anxiety. Such a model predicts that wariness is a vulnerability that interacts with exposure to the social stress of peer victimization, to influence brain function. ...
Wariness in early childhood manifests as shy, inhibited behavior in novel social situations and is associated with increased risk for developing social anxiety. In youth with childhood wariness, exposure to a potent social stressor, such as peer victimization, may potentiate brain-based sensitivity to unpredictable social contexts, thereby increasing risk for developing social anxiety. To test brain-based associations between early childhood wariness, self-reported peer victimization, and current social anxiety symptoms, we quantified neural responses to different social contexts in low- and high-victimized pre-adolescents with varying levels of early childhood wariness. Measures of early childhood wariness were obtained annually from ages 2-to-7-years. At age 11, participants were characterized as having low (N = 20) or high (N = 27) peer victimization. To index their neural responses to peer evaluation, participants completed an fMRI-based Virtual School paradigm (Jarcho et al. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 13, 21–31, 2013a). In highly victimized, relative to low-victimized participants, wariness was differentially related to right amygdala response based on the valence and predictability of peer evaluation. More specifically, in highly victimized participants, wariness was associated with greater right amygdala response to unpredictably positive peer evaluation. Effects of wariness were not observed in participants who reported low levels of victimization. Moreover, in victimized participants, high wariness and right amygdala response to unpredictably positive peer evaluation was associated with more severe social anxiety symptoms. Results can be interpreted using a diathesis-stress model, which suggests that neural response to unexpectedly positive social feedback is a mechanism by which exposure to peer victimization potentiates the risk for developing social anxiety in individuals exhibiting high levels of early childhood wariness.
... life events and the ways in which offspring physiologically react to such events (Goodman and Gotlib 1999;Steinberg and Avenevoli 2000). The primary goal of the current study was to examine the interaction of adversities and physiological reactivity to stress to prospectively predict depressive symptoms among high-and low-risk youth. ...
Adverse life events have been causally linked to depression among youth at high risk for depression. But given that not all high-risk youth develop depression following adversity, individual differences in various processes, including physiological reactivity to stress, are likely to be at play. This longitudinal prospective study tested the hypothesis that, among high-risk youth exposed to adversities, extent of physiological reactivity to laboratory stress (indexed as respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA) would predict subsequent depressive symptoms. Subjects were youth at high (n = 80) and low (n = 74) familial risk for depression. At Time 1 (T1), RSA was assessed during a cognitive stress task. At Time 2 (T2) about 2 years later, parents reported on adversities experienced by their offspring during the interim. At T1 and T2, youth received a diagnostic evaluation, which included assessment of their depressive symptoms. The three-way interaction of group-X-adversities-X-RSA predicted T2 depressive symptoms (controlling for T1 depressive symptoms). This interaction was mostly driven by the moderating effect of RSA among high-risk youth, such that adversities predicted higher depressive symptoms for those who displayed greater RSA reactivity to stress. Among low-risk youth, an inverse marginal moderating effect of RSA was found, such that adversities tended to predict depressive symptoms for those who displayed blunted RSA reactivity to stress. Thus, high physiological stress reactivity appears to be an additional risk factor for depressive symptoms only among youth at elevated risk for such outcomes, and should be taken into consideration in efforts to prevent depression in these populations.
... Their problem behavior is often combined with psychiatric disorders and/or intellectual disabilities (ID; Frensch and Cameron 2002), and up to 90% has been exposed to traumatic experiences such as neglect and/or abuse (Briggs et al. 2012). Thus, youths in residential care often show many risk factors and few protective factors (e.g., supportive caregivers, structured home settings) for behavioral and emotional problems, which contributes to the development and maintenance of these problems (Pollard and Hawkins 1999;Steinberg and Avenevoli 2000). ...
Residential care is among the most intensive forms of treatment in youth care. It serves youths with severe behavioral problems and is primarily focused on targeting externalizing problems. Despite best efforts, effect sizes remain moderate, which may be due to the disregarding of internalizing symptoms – in particular anxiety - and to limitations regarding the delivery model of interventions. This initial randomized controlled trial (n = 37) aimed to examine the effectiveness of a biofeedback videogame intervention (Dojo) as an addition to treatment as usual for youths with and without intellectual disability (ID) in residential care with clinical levels of anxiety and externalizing problems. Dojo targets both anxiety and externalizing problems, and incorporates the principles of conventional treatment, while addressing its limitations. Youths were randomly assigned to play Dojo (eight 30-min gameplay sessions) or to treatment as usual (TAU). Measurements of anxiety and externalizing problems were conducted at baseline, posttreatment, and 4-months follow-up through youths’ self-report and mentor-report. Completers-only analyses revealed decreases in self-reported anxiety and externalizing problems, and mentor-reported anxiety at posttreatment for participants in the Dojo condition compared to the control condition. Only mentor-reported anxiety was maintained at follow-up. No effect was found for mentor-reported externalizing problems. These findings provided preliminary evidence that Dojo is a promising, innovative intervention that engages high-risk youths. Practical implications are discussed.
... Based on the view that early trauma may predispose individuals to have emotion regulation difficulties, a number of authors have advocated for treatments that bolster adaptive emotion regulation strategies (Cloitre, Koenen, Cohen, & Han, 2002;Ehring & Ehlers, 2014;Wolfsdorf & Zlotnick, 2001). This may be especially important in adolescence, which is a crucial developmental period in which individuals learn to regulate affect in adaptive ways with increasing independence (Steinberg & Avenevoli, 2000;Steinberg, Blatt-Eisengart, & Cauffman, 2006). Addressing emotion regulation difficulties may increase the effectiveness of evidence-based treatment interventions for depression and PTSD symptoms. ...
Objective:
Sexual abuse experienced in childhood and adolescence is associated with severity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depressive symptoms, and emotion regulation difficulties. The current study examined the relationships among these factors in a sample of adolescents with sexual abuse-related PTSD. It was hypothesized that (a) self-perceived emotion regulation difficulties would predict severity of PTSD and depressive symptoms, and that (b) depressive symptoms would mediate the relationship between emotion regulation difficulties and PTSD.
Method:
Ninety treatment-seeking female adolescents with a history of sexual abuse were evaluated using the Child PTSD Symptom Scale-Interview and completed the Negative Mood Regulation Questionnaire and the Beck Depression Inventory as part of a baseline evaluation.
Results:
Greater emotion regulation difficulties were associated with greater severity of PTSD and depressive symptoms. In addition, the relationship between emotion regulation difficulties and PTSD severity was mediated by depressive symptoms. However, the reverse was also true: the relationship between emotion regulation difficulties and depressive symptoms was mediated by PTSD symptoms.
Conclusions:
Mediation analyses showed that emotion regulation difficulties were associated with both PTSD and depressive symptoms rather than fitting a unidirectional model. These findings are consistent with and extend previous research and highlight the importance of emotion regulation in adolescent survivors of sexual abuse. (PsycINFO Database Record
... Other systems are established early and continue to be relatively stable over time such as vagal tone (baseline heart rate) [113]. Vagal regulation refers to how the body regulates the heart during stressful situations. ...
... In the light of emerging theories, the observations described here relating to parent-child conversations are of particular importance, since the social maladjustment has been linked to difficulties in regulating affect [38,39]. Emotional experience is especially intense in adolescence and the prevalence of affective and behavioural disorders increases dramatically during this phase of life. ...
... One transdiagnostic feature receiving increased attention is emotion regulation, a term which incorporates emotion understanding, awareness, acceptance, identification, and behavioral regulation/decision-making during periods of emotional distress (Gratz and Roemer 2004). Early and middle adolescence (11-14 years of age referring to early adolescence, 15-17 years of age referring to middle adolescence) represent especially important developmental periods in which to study emotion regulation, and are the focus of the present study, as they include a multitude of changes in autonomy and social relationships that require these youth, perhaps for the first time, to develop and use emotion regulation strategies largely independent of parental guidance (American Academy of Pediatrics 2015; Larson and Richards 1991;Steinberg and Avenevoli 2000). They also represent important time periods in which to study mental health disorders, due to significant cognitive and neurodevelopmental changes (Blakemore and Choudhury 2006;Blakemore 2008), the high prevalence of mental health symptoms, and the emergence of several adult disorders within these age groups (Patton et al. 2014;Paus et al. 2008). ...
Although experiencing child abuse (i.e., physical abuse, sexual abuse, exposure to violence) is associated with a variety of mental health difficulties, simple exposure to abuse does not produce symptoms in every individual. The current study explored emotion regulation as a mediator in the relationship between a history of child abuse and symptoms of posttraumatic stress and depression. Adolescent females (ages 11–17 years) were asked to retrospectively report on their exposure to child abuse, current symptoms of PTSD/depression, and emotion regulation abilities. Caregiver report of adolescent emotional difficulties was also obtained. Analyses revealed that child abuse-exposed females, when compared to females without a trauma history, had worse emotion regulation abilities and increased mental health difficulties. Moreover, emotion regulation significantly mediated the relationship between child abuse and all assessed mental health symptoms. These findings extend previous work from adult samples, underscoring the importance of assessing emotion regulation abilities in abuse-exposed youth.
... Research suggests that difficulties with emotion regulation may confer greater risk for internalizing psychopathology, such as anxiety and depressive disorders (Steinberg and Avenevoli 2000;Steinberg et al. 2006). Indeed, emotion regulation processes can augment or diminish emotional responding (c.f. ...
Social anxiety and depression are common mental health problems among adolescents and are frequently comorbid. Primary aims of this study were to (1) elucidate the nature of individual differences in specific emotion regulation deficits among adolescents with symptoms of social anxiety and depression, and (2) determine whether repetitive negative thinking (RNT) functions as a transdiagnostic factor. A diverse sample of adolescents (N = 1065) completed measures assessing emotion regulation and symptoms of social anxiety and depression. Results indicated that adolescents with high levels of social anxiety and depression symptoms reported decreased emotional awareness, dysregulated emotion expression, and reduced use of emotion management strategies. The hypothesized structural model in which RNT functions as a transdiagnostic factor exhibited a better fit than an alternative model in which worry and rumination function as separate predictors of symptomatology. Findings implicate emotion regulation deficits and RNT in the developmental psychopathology of youth anxiety and mood disorders.
... Problem solving in the context of emotion regulation often includes attempts to ameliorate social situations that induce negative emotions (D'Zurilla et al. 2004) and it requires a set of cognitive and behavioral skills, such as knowledge about how situations influence emotions and how they can be modified (Eisenberg et al. 2010;Zimmer-Gembeck and Skinner 2011). While especially younger children often consult their parents about feeling negatively (Thompson and Goodman 2010), a central developmental demand of adolescence is to learn how to adaptively cope with negative emotional events while parental support decreases (Steinberg and Avenevoli 2000). Therefore, it seems coherent that the use of problem solving is related to a lower level of depressive and anxiety symptoms as it may aide adolescents in coping with demanding emotional events. ...
The role of emotion regulation in subclinical symptoms of mental disorders in adolescence is not yet well understood. This meta-analytic review examines the relationship between the habitual use of prominent adaptive emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal, problem solving, and acceptance) and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (avoidance, suppression, and rumination) with depressive and anxiety symptoms in adolescence. Analyzing 68 effect sizes from 35 studies, we calculated overall outcomes across depressive and anxiety symptoms as well as psychopathology-specific outcomes. Age was examined as a continuous moderator via meta-regression models. The results from random effects analyses revealed that the habitual use of all emotion regulation strategies was significantly related to depressive and anxiety symptoms overall, with the adaptive emotion regulation strategies showing negative associations (i.e., less symptoms) with depressive and anxiety symptoms whereas the maladaptive emotion regulation strategies showed positive associations (i.e., more symptoms). A less frequent use of adaptive and a more frequent use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies were associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms comparably in the respective directions. Regarding the psychopathology-specific outcomes, depressive and anxiety symptoms displayed similar patterns across emotion regulation strategies showing the strongest negative associations with acceptance, and strongest positive associations with avoidance and rumination. The findings underscore the relevance of adaptive and also maladaptive emotion regulation strategies in depressive and anxiety symptoms in youth, and highlight the need to further investigate the patterns of emotion regulation as a potential transdiagnostic factor.
... Adolescents experience more frequent and stronger emotions than both younger and older people (Larson & Lampman-Petraitis, 1989). It is important for adolescents to regulate emotions in adaptive ways, without the assistance of the adults who guide them in their childhood (Steinberg & Avenevoli, 2000). Adolescents who were less capable of regulating negative feelings during actual-life emotional experiences mentioned more problems compared with those who handled negative experiences more readily (Silk, Steinberg, & Morris, 2003). ...
Although recent studies have provided some explanation about the relationship between difficulties in emotion regulation and aggression in adolescence, the role of intervening variables in this connection has been ignored. The purpose of this research was to understand the relationship between adolescents’ emotion regulation and aggression and to focus on the mediator function of social problem-solving and anger control. Participants comprised 413 adolescents (252 females and 161 males; mean age 15 years). The findings provided evidence for the partial mediator role of anger control and social problem-solving. The author discusses the theoretical and practical implications of these results in this study.
... In the light of emerging theories, the observations described here relating to parent-child conversations are of particular importance, since the social maladjustment has been linked to difficulties in regulating affect [38,39]. Emotional experience is especially intense in adolescence and the prevalence of affective and behavioural disorders increases dramatically during this phase of life. ...
... Such events are non-victimization experiences or contextual factors that increase the risk of developing a mental disorder and other adjustment problems. In the developmental research field, many adverse conditions were identified as risk factors for the development of psychopathology: harsh physical discipline, inconsistent parenting, residential instability, parental verbal conflict, parental psychopathology, parental substance use (drug) and abuse (alcohol), academic difficulties, conflict with peers, and so on [28,29]. Because these family dysfunctions are often and perhaps usually present, it is unclear whether the negative outcome attributed to abuse are specific effects of abuse experience. ...
Objective: With a life course perspective, we have identified the diverse pathways in which cumulative adversity in childhood and adolescence lead to detrimental outcomes: psychopathology and suicide. This study's design allowed us to address some major, controversial developmental issues surrounding the contribution of multiple forms of adversity (victimization events versus non-victimization events) to negative outcomes, specifically mental health disorders and suicide.
Method: We combined three statistical analyses: discrete time survival (DTS), latent class growth analysis (LCGA) and path analysis to identify the sequence of events and conditions that contribute to the development of psychopathology and suicide.
Results: Our results show that the process implicates early childhood adversities that act in a cascading manner and are cumulative in two ways: quantitatively and qualitatively. Therefore, pathways with more severe adverse experiences in childhood (victimization such as abuse or neglect) or with a greater number of adversity events (non-victimization) both tend to produce mental health problems and suicidal behavior early in life, contrary to pathways with fewer or less severe adversities.
... Although children with lower temperamental flexibility are at risk for psychological symptoms relative to youth higher in temperamental flexibility, it is likely that contextual factors, such as parenting, influence risk, resilience, and symptom severity among young children and adolescents who differ in temperamental flexibility (Bates, Dodge, Pettit, & Ridge, 1998;Drabick & Steinberg, 2011;Kiff, Lengua, & Bush, 2011). Consistent with a developmental psychopathology framework, the initiation or maintenance of problematic behaviors often occurs through the transactions between an individual's characteristics and his or her environment (Meaney, 2010;Steinberg & Avenevoli, 2000). Much research has shown that parenting behaviors interact with a child's temperamental features (e.g., negative affectivity, impulsivity) to influence the onset and course of maladaptive behaviors (e.g., Bates et al., 1998;Ellis & Boyce, 2011;Oldehinkel, Veenstra, Ormel, de Winter, & Verhulst, 2006); however, there is a dearth of research examining whether parenting practices exacerbate or diminish risk for symptoms depending on youth varying in temperamental flexibility. ...
Temperamental flexibility and lower positive parenting are associated with internalizing and externalizing problems; however, youth varying in flexibility may be differentially affected by positive parenting in the prediction of symptoms. We examined whether children's flexibility moderated prospective relations between maternal and paternal positive parenting and youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms during adolescence. Participants (N = 775, 71% male) and their caregivers completed measures when youth were 10–12 and 12–14 years old. Father positive parenting interacted with child flexibility to predict father-reported internalizing and externalizing problems. Consistent with the diathesis-stress model, children lower in flexibility experienced greater symptoms than children higher in flexibility in lower positive parenting contexts. Among children lower in flexibility, lower paternal positive parenting was associated with greater internalizing and externalizing symptoms compared to higher paternal positive parenting. However, among youth higher in flexibility, symptom levels were similar regardless of whether youth experienced lower or higher paternal positive parenting.
... Although parent depressive symptoms are a robust predictor of adjustment problems in offspring, some offspring of depressed parents are resilient to such problems. Developmental theorists have proposed that psychophysiological factors may help to explain the variability in youths' vulnerability to negative environments (Obradovic´&Obradovic´Obradovic´& Boyce, 2009; Steinberg & Avenevoli, 2000). Psychophysiological reactivity to stress, and autonomic reactivity in particular, has been highlighted as a likely moderator of links between aspects of the family environment and youth adjustment (El-Sheikh & Erath, 2011; Obradovic´,Obradovic´, 2012). ...
When studying factors that may heighten risk for relational aggression in youth, it is important to consider characteristics of both the individual and their environment. This research examined the associations between parental psychological control and reactive and proactive relational aggression in emerging adults in college. Given that sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activation may underlie differences between reactive and proactive aggression and has been shown to moderate the effects of parenting on youth development, the moderating role of SNS reactivity [indexed by skin conductance level reactivity (SCLR)] was also examined. Emerging adults (N = 180; 77.2 % female) self-reported on perceptions of parental psychological control and reactive and proactive relational aggression. SCLR was assessed in response to an interpersonal laboratory challenge task. Parental psychological control was positively associated with reactive relational aggression only for emerging adults who exhibited high SCLR. Parental psychological control was positively associated with proactive relational aggression only among emerging adults who showed low SCLR. This study extends previous research on parenting and aggression and suggests that parental psychological control is differentially associated with reactive versus proactive relational aggression, depending on emerging adults' SCLR to interpersonal stress.
Temperamental sensitivity (TS), which is a correlated suite of traits reflecting a lower threshold of environmental stimulation and heightened responsivity to a range of environmental contexts, is an empirically documented susceptibility factor that increases children’s plasticity to supportive and harsh family environments. To expand the limited options for assessing TS, this article tested the psychometric properties of a new Q-set measure (i.e., TS Q-scale) derived from the California Child Q-Set (CCQ-Set) and completed by experimenters. Participants in Study 1 consisted of 243 mothers, their partners, and their preschool children (Mage = 4.60 years; 56% girls; 54% Black or multiracial; 16% Latinx). For Study 2, participants included 201 mothers and their young children (Mage = 2.25 years; 44% girls; 63% Black or multiracial; 11% Latinx). Both longitudinal studies utilized multimethod, multiinformant measurement batteries. The TS Q-scale evidenced satisfactory internal consistencies across both studies. Support for the convergent and discriminant validity in Study 1 was evident in its large, unique, and significantly stronger association with a standard, more extensive, observational assessment of TS when compared with conventional dimensions of temperament. In each study, the TS Q-scale significantly moderated the association between family functioning and latent change analyses of children’s functioning for most of the forms of child adjustment. Supporting its predictive validity as a differential susceptibility attribute, children with higher scores on the TS Q-scale exhibited substantially better functioning than their peers in supportive socialization contexts and considerably worse functioning in harsh rearing conditions.
War exposure has extensive detrimental effects on the mental health and psychological well-being of children and adolescents. Many factors moderate and mediate the complex relationship between the war trauma itself and subsequent psychiatric morbidity, including resilience. Post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety are the most common disorders after traumatic events. The clinical presentation of distress in children depends on their development level and must be understood from the standpoint of the child’s social, emotional, and cognitive development. Cognitive behavioral therapy and trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy are validated therapeutic approaches for children and adolescents who suffer from trauma-related symptoms.KeywordsMental healthTraumaPsychological interventionsArmed conflictPost-traumatic stress disorderChildren’s mental healthResiliencePsychosocial interventions
The chapter is a discussion of the connection between spirituality, work, and family. First, an explanation is offered of how social change has necessitated a renaissance of interest in meaning and purpose. This is followed by an historical perspective of work from the standpoint of religion, culture, and psychology. Next, there is a brief introduction to the postmodern theories and definitions that make possible serious study of spirituality as it is perceived by individuals at home and at work. Practical issues that people face and their implications for therapy are illustrated. Finally, the importance to psychologists and psychotherapists of understanding the connection that exists between spirituality, work, and family is illustrated.
Background
Resilience in children with early family life adversity is linked with successful adulthood psychological outcomes. However, whether resilience influences daily emotional responses to stress remains unclear. This study examined whether resilience capacity in the context of early family risks predicts better daily stress and affect outcomes during a stressful transition.
Methods
International and interstate undergraduates (N = 98; aged 18–25 years) were grouped as Resilient (high family risk, high resilience), Vulnerable (high family risk, low resilience), or Control (low family risk, average anxiety and depression). Daily negative (NA) and positive affect (PA), perceived stress, and stressors were assessed 4-times daily across 14 consecutive days (4333 total surveys; 73.7% completion rate). Affect reactivity was operationalized as the NA and PA slopes on perceived stress from each survey.
Results
The Resilient group did not differ from the Control group on all outcomes. The Vulnerable group reported significantly higher number of stressors, perceived stress levels, NA, and NA reactivity than the Resilient and Control groups (all p < .001); as well as significantly lower PA (p = .024) and PA reactivity (p = .003) than the Control group.
Limitations
Our findings are not generalizable to other populations and cannot determine causality.
Conclusions
Our findings suggest that resilience capacity is protective against the effects of early family risks on a daily basis. However, significant findings were limited to emotional distress outcomes and not supported for PA, suggesting resilience capacity may attenuate emotional distress but not positive emotions in response to stress in emerging adults with family risk.
Research Findings: This study examines the development of problem behavior in classroom contexts characterized by peer interaction among a nationally representative sample (N = 3,827) of U.S. low-income children from preschool entry to first grade. Latent growth mixture modeling was employed to identify unobserved subpopulations (latent classes) with shared trajectories of change, examine subpopulation members’ social and academic outcomes in first grade, and identify demographic characteristics that serve as risk or protective factors for membership in different trajectory classes. Analyses reveal four common change trajectories (Progressive Optimal Adjustment, Stable Good Adjustment, Stable Adequate Adjustment, Progressive At-Risk Adjustment), which are differentiated by higher versus lower levels of problem behavior and relative change versus relative stability of the problem behavior trajectory. Classes with greater peer context behavior problems had typically poorer student-teacher relationships, greater parent-observed behavior problems, and lower reading and math skills at the end of first grade. Multiple child and family characteristics were differentially associated with class membership. Practice or Policy: These findings highlight the transition to formal schooling as a critical period in the development of peer context behavior for some—but not all—children, and suggest that children with peer context behavior problems may benefit from targeted academic and social-emotional support before entering first grade.
This study examined the contributions of parents’ characteristics, normative stressors, coping strategies, and social support to psychological distress and neuroticism among 1000 Syrian refugees. The conditions of being older, mothers, partnered parents, and resettlement in Lebanon increased the risk of mental health problems. Mental health problems decreased with fathers’ employment, large families, and time spent in the host country. Types of daily stressors had differential effects on psychological distress and neuroticism. While emotion-focused coping increased psychological distress and neuroticism, the use of problem-focused coping, and informational support reduced neuroticism. The clinical and policy implications of these conclusions were discussed.
Background:
Since the outbreak of the conflict in Syria, many people, including children and adolescents, have fled their homes into neighboring countries. Little research exists on the psychosocial adjustment of refugee children and adolescents resettled in Lebanon and Jordan.
Objective:
This study investigated the prevalence and predictors of PTSD and emotion dysregulation in Syrian refugee children and adolescents who resettled in Lebanon and Jordan. It was hypothesized that a combination of pre-trauma variables (age and gender), trauma-specific variables (traumatic events and time spent in host country, and host country), and post-trauma variables (coping strategies, family relationships, and school environment) would be associated with PTSD and emotion dysregulation.
Participants and setting:
Participants were 1000 Syrian refugee children and adolescents aged 7-18 years attending formal and non-formal schools representing various governorates in Lebanon and Jordan.
Methods:
The trauma exposure scale, DSM-IV criteria for the assessment of PTSD, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale Short Form, Kidcope, Family relationship scales, and school environment scale were administered in an interview format with children and adolescents at school by two trained psychologists. Multivariate binary logistic regression was used to predict PTSD whereas hierarchical multiple regression was used to predict emotion dysregulation.
Results:
Results indicated that 45.6% of the refugees have developed PTSD with excessive risk for comorbidity with emotion dysregulation. Emotion dysregulation was reported by older refugee children and adolescents. The prevalence of PTSD was higher in refugee children and adolescents who had resettled in Lebanon than for those who had resettled in Jordan. Refugee children and adolescents who were exposed to higher levels of war atrocities evidenced the greatest prevalence of PTSD and emotion dysregulation. PTSD symptomatology and emotion dysregulation in children and adolescents varied according to coping styles, family relationships, and school environment. Both decreased significantly with the passage of time spent in host country.
Conclusions:
The results may be used to formulate cognitive-behavioral coping interventions that can lead to optimal developmental outcomes in the posttrauma environment.
Young adolescents (N = 68) completed questionnaires concerning perceptions of neighborhood stress (i.e., high negative influences, low cohesion, and connectedness). Youth self-reported their own depressive symptoms and participated in a public speaking task designed to be moderately stressful. Increases in skin conductance in response to this laboratory-based challenge task were measured (i.e., skin conductance level reactivity; SCLR). Higher levels of depressive symptoms were associated with greater perceptions of neighborhood stress, with the effects of neighborhood stress particularly strong among boys. For boys only, the association between perceived neighborhood stress and depressive symptoms was moderated by SCLR. For boys with average or above average levels of SCLR, greater perceptions of neighborhood stress were associated with more depressive symptoms.
Objective: The purpose of this study is to compare the
severity of posttraumatic stress symptoms between adolescents
who were exposed to traumatic events and
those who were exposed to distressing events in the previous
year. Besides, the severity of the posttraumatic
stress symptoms with respect to the event characteristics
(namely interpersonal and not interpersonal), and gender
was investigated. Method: Study group was composed
of 781 adolescents in total. From among them,
325 adolescents exposed to traumatic or distressing
events in the previous year were selected. The age range
of the participants was between 14-19 years (16.24
±1.02). Data were collected through The Post Traumatic
Diagnostic Scale and The Traumatic Experiences
Information Form. Results: According to results, the
total severity scores of traumatic symptoms, total score
of re-experiencing, avoidance and arousal subscales did
not show difference with respect to the type of trauma
(traumatic event, distressing event and both traumatic
and distressing event). Besides, the group of participants
exposed to interpersonal trauma had significantly higher
scores on the severity of traumatic symptoms than those
exposed to non-interpersonal trauma. Finally, women
had significantly higher scores on the severity of traumatic
symptoms, as well as on re-experiencing, avoidance
and arousal subscales. Discussion: Findings suggest
that negative life events which happened within the
previous year, regardless of meeting the diagnostic criteria,
may create a risk for PTSD for adolescents suffering
from highly severe traumatic symptoms, which is a critical
factor in effective intervention planning. Additionally,
the findings contributes to the discussion about the
expanding the A Criteria.
Interest concerning the effects of trauma on the mental health of children has grown markedly during the past few years. At least three factors contribute to this growing concern.
403 adolescents (239 boys and 164 girls) were administered self-report measures of attachment, feelings of depression, problem behaviours, and suicidal ideation. The data showed significant gender and age differences: girls scored higher than boys on feelings of depression and suicidal ideation; middle-adolescents scored higher than youngest adolescents on externalizing and internalizing problems and than oldest adolescents on suicidal ideation. Anxious attachment style contributed to the onset of internalizing problem behaviours, feelings of depression and suicidal ideation. Moreover, internalizing problems and feelings of depression had a mediation effect in the relation between anxious attachment style and suicidal ideation.
This chapter reviews empirical knowledge on the association between interparental conflict and child adjustment problems. We begin with a brief historical overview. We then deconstruct the concept of interparental conflict, describing key dimensions of incidents of such conflict (topic, behavioral tactics, emotions, and resolution) that have been linked to children's adjustment. Next, we turn to a presentation of theories on the link between interparental conflict and child adjustment problems, highlighting key variables and processes implicated by these theories. We examine child attributes and family and community factors that influence how interparental conflict can contribute to child adjustment problems. We then discuss translational implications of this research, providing examples of how it has been used to inform practice. We conclude with suggestions for future research. Throughout the chapter, we illustrate how the use and contributions of disparate assessment methods and how principles of developmental psychopathology have contributed to and strengthened knowledge on this topic.
Rationale:
Peer victimization in children and adolescents is a serious public health concern. Growing evidence exists for negative consequences of peer victimization, but research has mostly been short term and little is known about the mechanisms that moderate and mediate the impacts of peer victimization on subsequent antisocial behavior.
Objective:
The current study intended to examine the longitudinal relationship between peer victimization in adolescence and antisocial behavior in young adulthood and to determine whether sleep problems influence this relationship.
Methods:
In total, 2006 adolescents participated in a prospective study from 2009 to 2013. The moderating role of sleep problems was examined by testing the significance of the interaction between peer victimization and sleep problems. The mediating role of sleep problems was tested by using bootstrapping mediational analyses. All analyses were conducted using SAS 9.3 software.
Results:
We found that peer victimization during adolescence was positively and significantly associated with antisocial behavior in young adulthood (β = 0.10, p < 0.0001). This association was mediated, but not moderated by sleep problems. Specifically, peer victimization first increased levels of sleep problems, which in turn elevated the risk of antisocial behavior (indirect effect: 0.01, 95% bootstrap confidence interval: 0.004, 0.021).
Conclusion:
These findings imply that sleep problems may operate as a potential mechanism through which peer victimization during adolescence leads to increases in antisocial behavior in young adulthood. Prevention and intervention programs that target sleep problems may yield benefits for decreasing antisocial behavior in adolescents who have been victimized by peers.
Human afflictions were due almost exclusively to the acute and chronic, cumulative influences of environmental agents of disease. Such agents included psychological stressors, impoverished living conditions, physical toxins, infectious pathogens, and inadequate or malevolent parenting. Prevention and treatment required alterations in these causative environmental exposures. Emerging at the pinnacle of the first by virtue of a revolution in molecular biology, human disorder was thought to be principally the result of biological frailties built into the structure of the heritable genome. In the field of developmental psychopathology, for example, knowledge of the gene polymorphisms associated with risk for anxiety and affective disorders could potentially lead to school-based interventions capable of preventing entry onto trajectories toward such disorders. Whatever the future of gene therapies, the potential for psychosocial and societal intercessions into human adversities could paradoxically be served in unparalleled ways by the study of interactions between biology and context.
Objective:
Binge eating behavior is a public health concern due to its negative physical and mental health consequences. Little is known about the interplay of personality traits, coping styles, and binge eating in the general adolescent population. We examined the associations among the combination of neuroticism and impulsivity (NI), maladaptive coping styles (poor problem solving, distraction, and escape-avoidance), and lifetime prevalence of binge eating in a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents. We also explored coping as a moderator of the NI-lifetime binge eating association and gender as a moderator of the NI-coping associations and coping-lifetime binge eating associations.
Methods:
We used data from the National Comorbidity Survey: Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A: 2001-2004), a cross-sectional nationally representative study of adolescents aged 13 to 18years (n=10,028). We studied the associations of NI and coping with lifetime binge eating using multivariate regression models.
Results:
High NI was significantly associated with all three coping styles, especially escape-avoidance (β=3.96, confidence interval [CI]=3.62, 4.29, p<0.001). Gender was a significant moderator of the NI-distraction coping association (β=-0.68, CI=-1.33, -0.03, p=0.041), indicating a stronger association in males (β=1.20, CI=0.81, 1.58, p<0.001) than females (β=0.53, CI=0.02, 1.03, p=0.042). Lifetime prevalence of binge eating was 1.13 times higher with increased escape-avoidance coping (CI=1.10, 1.18, p<0.001).
Discussion:
Our findings indicate significant associations among high NI, increased escape-avoidance coping, and higher lifetime prevalence of binge eating in adolescents. Findings of our study have potential to inform development of interventions that target modification of maladaptive personality traits and coping styles to reduce problematic eating.
The Nature-Nurture Culture Wars By and large, investigators and scholars contributing to the Millennium Dialogue on Early Child Development (described in more detail in the Acknowledgments at the beginning of this volume), including the author of this chapter, were academically reared within a scientific generation marked by a confluence of two irreconcilable views on the origins of human disorders. Within a single generation, physicians, clinical and developmental psychologists, social workers, and laboratory investigators were steeped in the twin, sequential agendas of environmental and biological determinism. In the former of these views, prominent in the scientific world of the 1960s and 1970s, disease and disorder were held to be products of contextual exposures and adversities. Human afflictions, it was believed, were due almost exclusively to the acute and chronic, cumulative influences of environmental agents of disease. Such agents included psychological stressors, impoverished living conditions, physical toxins, infectious pathogens, and insufficient or malevolent parenting. Prevention and treatment were taken to mandate alterations in these causative environmental exposures. Thus, schizophrenia was viewed as the product of psychological “double-binds” within dysfunctional family units, autism was regarded as the legacy of cold, distant mothers, and maternal overprotectiveness figured prominently in the presumed etiology of childhood anxiety disorders.
Toward greater specificity in the prediction of externalizing problems in the context of interparental conflict, interactions between children's parasympathetic an sympathetic nervous system (PNS and SNS) activity were examined as moderators. PNS activity was indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and RSA reactivity (RSA-R) to lab challenges. SNS activity was indexed by skin conductance level (SCL) and SCL reactivity (SCL-R) to lab challenges. Moderation hypotheses were examined in 3 multi-informant studies with children ranging in age between 7 and 9 in Studies 1 and 2 and between 6 and 12 in Study 3. Findings are robust across studies and provide the first reported evidence of interactions between PNS and SNS activity as moderators of the association between children's exposure to marital conflict and externalizing behaviours. More specifically, opposing action of the PNS and SNS (i.e., coactivation and coinhibition) operated as a vulnerability factor for externalizing behaviour in the context of marital conflict. Conversely, coordinated action of the PNS and SNS (i.e., reciprocal PNS or SNS activation) operated as a protective factor. Results are supportive of the authors' proposed biopyschosocial framework in which individual differences in the coordination of the activity of the PNS and SNS can function as vulnerability or protective factors in the context of family risk. Findings extend current theory indicating the importance of multisystem investigations for clarifying inconsistencies and discrepancies in the literature linking environmental stress, physiological responses, and child adjustment.
This commentary on the special section on clinical adolescent psychology (G. Holmbeck & P. Kendall, 2002) reviews and critiques the conceptual and empirical articles that this compilation comprises. As articulated in the conceptual contributions to this collection. two fundamental principles should guide research on the etiology, prevention. and treatment of psychological disorder and dysfunction during adolescence: First. drawing on the field of developmental psychopathology, the study of clinical adolescent psychology should focus on the trajectories of disorder that precede. characterize. and follow adolescence. Second, drawing on the literature on normative adolescent development, the study of clinical adolescent psychology must proceed with an explicit recognition of the unique biological, cognitive, psychosocial, and contextual features that define adolescence as a developmental period. The empirical contributions to this compilation are evaluated with respect to the extent to which they reflect these tenets, Although the study of clinical adolescent psychology. as evidenced by this collection of articles. is appropriately grounded in the broader enterprise of developmental psychopathology, less progress has been made with respect to the integration of the study of clinical phenomena in adolescence with the study of normative adolescent development.
This study examined the influences of parent-child conflict and conflict resolution on behavior problems experienced in early adolescence by both boys and girls, and investigated whether conflict resolution had any moderating effects upon the relation between parent-child conflict and these behavior problems. The participants of this study were 397 first and second graders (193 boys and 204 girls) from three middle schools located in Seoul and Gyoung-gi province. To measure the research variables, the Korean-Youth Self Report by Oh et al. (2010), the short version of Conflict Behavior Questionnaire (Homes, 2012), and the Thomas Kilman Conflict Mode Instrument (Cha & Cheon, 2011) were used. The data were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics, t-test, multiple regression analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis. The results indicated that both for boys and girls, the level of parent-child conflict increased the levels of both externalizing and internalizing behavior problems whereas conflict resolution had no significant effect on behavior problems. In addition, in the case of boys only, conflict resolution moderated the effect of father-child conflict on internalizing behavior problems.
Pediatric anxiety disorders are relatively common and moderately predictive of anxiety and depressive disorders in adulthood, but there is little evidence of consistency in specific long-term risks associated with specific types of anxiety. While few antecedents have been established, early inhibited temperament is moderately related to later social anxiety. There is a modest influence of genetic transmission, with non-shared environmental factors playing a greater role. In terms of underlying neural correlates, the brain circuits that regulate fear in animals are well conserved across species, including human, and these circuits have been implicated in anxiety disorders. Treatment of anxiety disorders encompasses psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological interventions. Treatment studies typically include a mixture of anxiety disorders. There is evidence of short-term and sustained improvement with Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) also have been shown effective in reducing anxiety in a diagnostically mixed group of anxiety disorders. A combination of CBT and an SSRI has been found superior to either treatment alone.
This chapter discusses the role of social factors in ill health, with a particular focus on depression. Major life events increase the risk of most depressive disorders. In a longitudinal study carried out in the early 1980s of 400 mothers in Islington, 1 in 10 developed a depressive disorder within a year, and most of those had a severely threatening life event not long before. This chapter also summarises the three forms of meaning relevant for the aetiology of depression. First, the role-based meanings of severe events relate to traditional anthropological and sociological concerns. Second, the evolutionary-derived meanings show that the experience of humiliation following a severe event is critical in the development of depression. Finally, the memory-linked emotional schemas influence a person's vulnerability to events.
Although the psychosocial difficulties associated with adolescent depression are relatively well known, the extent to which these problems are specific to depression has received little attention. The authors examined the specificity to depression of a wide range of psychosocial variables in the following 3 groups of adolescents: depressed cases (n = 48), nonaffective disorder cases (n = 92), and never mentally ill participants (n = 1,079). The authors found 3 of the 44 variables assessed in this study to be strongly specific to depression, and only the depressed participants exhibited more problematic functioning than did the never mentally ill controls. Three variables are as follows: self-consciousness, self-esteem and a reduction in activities because of physical illness or injury. Eight variables were more strongly associated with depression than with nonaffective disorder, and 8 variables characterized both depressed and nonaffective disorder adolescents. Implications of these findings for psychosocial theories of depression are discussed.
In this article, I argue that experience-induced changes in the brain may be a useful way of viewing the course of human development. Work from the neurosciences supports the claim that most of the behavioral phenomena of interest to psychologists (e.g., cognition, perception, language, emotion) are instantiated by the process of neural plasticity. When development is viewed in this manner, the fallaciousness of the long-standing and often contentious debate over nature versus nurture becomes apparent. Moreover, by utilizing theneuroscientific tools used to examine the effects of experience on brain and behavioral development (e.g., functional neuroimaging), we may improve how we conceptualize our notions of intervention, competence, and resilience.
Initiation of substance use before the age of 15 to 16 is a distinct risk factor for a variety of mental health problems and eventual drug abuse. Using multimethod, multi-agent measures of child, family, and peer antecedents at age 9 to 10, we studied the longitudinal effects in an at-risk sample of 206 boys. Event history analysis was used to examine the antecedents to patterned alcohol and tobacco use as well as experimentation with marijuana between ages 11 and 16. Univariate models revealed that at Grade 4, most constructs were prognostic of boys’ early substance use. Multivariate event history models clarified the risk and protective structure associated with tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use. The level of intercorrelation among the predictor variables, however, suggested that family, peer, and child characteristics were inextricably connected within an ecology of development. A structural equation prediction model suggested a higher order construct, “childhood risk structure. ”
Research on the relation between social information processing and social adjustment in childhood is reviewed and interpreted within the framework of a reformulated model of human performance and social exchange. This reformulation proves to assimilate almost all previous studies and is a useful heuristic device for organizing the field. The review suggests that overwhelming evidence supports the empirical relation between characteristic processing styles and children's social adjustment, with some aspects of processing (e.g., hostile attributional biases, intention cue detection accuracy, response access patterns, and evaluation of response outcomes) likely to be causal of behaviors that lead to social status and other aspects (e.g., perceived self-competence) likely to be responsive to peer status. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Nature and nurture do not operate independently of each other, and, to an important degree, genetic effects on behavior come about because they either influence the extent to which the individual is likely to be exposed to individual differences in environmental risk or they affect how susceptible the individual is to environmental adversities. The time has come for an explicit research focus on the forms of interplay between genes and environment and on how this interplay is involved in the causal mechanisms for the origins of antisocial behavior and for its persistence or desistance over time. Molecular genetics has an even greater potential than quantitative genetics for understanding environmental risk mechanisms and the interplay between nature and nurture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Studied social networks and aggressive behavior in school in 2 cohorts of boys and girls in the 4th and 7th grades (
N = 695). Measures of social networks yielded convergent findings. Highly aggressive subjects (both boys and girls) did not differ from matched control subjects in terms of social cluster membership or in being isolated or rejected within the social network. Peer cluster analysis and reciprocal "best friend" selections indicated that aggressive subjects tended to affiliate with aggressive peers. Even though highly aggressive children and adolescents were less popular than control subjects in the social network at large, they were equally often identified as being nuclear members of social clusters. Aggressive subjects did not differ from matched control subjects in the number of times they were named by peers as "best friend," nor did the two groups differ in the probability of having friendship choices reciprocated by peers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study focuses on the prediction of early adolescent involvement with antisocial peers from boys' experiences in school, family, and behavior at age 10 yrs. 206 boys and their families were assessed at school, interviewed, observed in the home, and then followed up at age 12 yrs. Poor parental discipline and monitoring practices, peer rejection, and academic failure at age 10 yrs were prognostic of involvement with antisocial peers at age 12 yrs. Considerable continuity was also found between the boys' antisocial behavior and contact with antisocial peers at age 10 yrs. After controlling for such continuity, only academic failure and peer rejection remained as significant predictors. These data indicate a need to study the ecological context of deviant peer networks in middle childhood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
We examined whether the interaction of resting frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry and social behavior during peer play was related to the occurrence of maladaptive behavior in preschoolers. Two independent cohorts of children were observed interacting in same-age and -gender play quartets at 4 years of age. Each child was also seen individually for a psychophysiology session during which time measures of EEG activity were recorded. We found that highly sociable children who exhibited greater relative right frontal EEG asymmetry were more likely to exhibit externalizing problems than sociable children who exhibited greater relative left frontal EEG asymmetry. We also found that shy children who exhibited greater relative right frontal EEG asymmetry were more likely to exhibit internalizing problems than shy children who exhibited left frontal EEG asymmetry. These findings suggest that the pattern of frontal EEG asymmetry in combination with social behavioral style is a significant predictor of maladaptive behavior problems during the preschool period.
The relations of regulation and emotionality to elementary school children's problem behavior was examined. Parents and teachers reported on children's problem behavior. One parent and teachers rated children on various measures of regulation (including resiliency) and emotionality; children's baseline heart rate and facial reactivity were assessed; and physiological and facial distress and gaze aversion while viewing a distress film sequence were measured. In general, low regulation, negative emotionality, and general and positive emotional intensity predicted problem behaviors. Teachers' reports of negative emotionality and regulation interacted in their relation to problem behaviors, with regulation apparently buffering the effects of moderate and high negative emotionality. Baseline heart rate and facial distress were related to low levels of problem behavior, and gaze aversion during the distress film segment was associated with low levels of problem behavior.
While research has well documented that urban youth are exposed to increasing rates of community violence, little is known about what increases risk for violence exposure, what protects children from exposure to violence, and what factors reduce the most negative outcomes associated with witnessing violence. This study expands on current research by evaluating the relations between exposure to violence, family relationship characteristics and parenting practices, and aggression and depression symptoms. Data were drawn from a sample of 245 African-American and Latino boys and their caregivers from economically disadvantaged inner-city neighborhoods in Chicago. Rates of exposure could not be predicted from family relationship and parenting characteristics, although there was a trend for discipline to be related. Exposure to community violence was related to increases in aggressive behavior and depression over a 1-year period even after controlling for previous status. Future studies should continue to evaluate the role of exposure to violence on the development of youth among different neighborhoods and communities. Implications for intervention and policy are discussed.
The authors developed reliable clinical rating scales to compare 35 children with school phobia and their families with a matched sample of children with other neuroses and their families. Twice as many school phobic children as children with other neuroses showed excessive separation anxiety, dependency, and depression. Although a mutually hostile-dependent interaction was found in most of the families of children with school phobia, the development of school phobia appeared to be dependent on defects in character development in the children as well. The authors discuss the etiological significance of the almost universal parental pathology and family malfunction for both groups of children.
The rat dentate gyrus is unusual among mammalian brain regions in that it shows cell birth well into adulthood. During development, dentate gyrus cell birth is regulated by adrenal steroids. However, it is presently unknown whether cell division in the adult is also mediated by these same factors. In order to determine whether this is the case, we combined adrenalectomy, with or without corticosterone (CORT) replacement, and 3H-thymidine autoradiography, Nissl staining, and immunohistochemistry for the glial cell markers vimentin and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) as well as for the neuronal marker neuron-specific enolase. Removal of circulating adrenal steroids resulted in a greater density of both GFAP-immunoreactive and vimentin-immunoreactive cells compared to sham-operated animals; CORT replacement prevented increases in both of these cell types. The increase in the density of vimentin-immunoreactive cells probably resulted from an increase in the birth of these cells, as adrenalectomized rats showed greater numbers of 3H-thymidine-labeled vimentin-positive cells compared to sham rats. In contrast, no changes in the number of 3H-thymidine-labeled GFAP-positive cells were observed with adrenalectomy, indicating that the increase in this cell type probably does not involve cell birth. In addition, the density of 3H-thymidine-labeled cells that were not immunoreactive for either glial cell marker and that showed neuronal characteristics was dramatically increased with adrenalectomy. These results suggest that adrenal hormones normally suppress the birth of both glia and neurons in the adult rat dentate gyrus.
The effect of stressful events on depression has been amply demonstrated, but the opposite relation is also important. I examined event occurrence over 1 year in 14 women with unipolar depression who were compared with demographically matched groups of women with bipolar disorder (n = 11), chronic medical illness (n = 13), or no illness or disorder (n = 22). Interview assessments of life events, severity, and independence of occurrence confirmed the hypothesis that unipolar women were exposed to more stress than the normal women, had significantly more interpersonal event stress than all others, and tended to have more dependent events than the others. The implication is that unipolar women by their symptoms, behaviors, characteristics, and social context generate stressful conditions, primarily interpersonal, that have the potential for contributing to the cycle of symptoms and stress that create chronic or intermittent depression.
Marital problems have been related to numerous indexes of maladjustment in children. Although several parameters of this association have been identified, the process by which exposure to interparental conflict gives rise to adjustment problems in children is largely unexplored. Research on the link between marital conflict and child maladjustment therefore is critically evaluated, and a framework is presented that organizes existing studies and suggests directions for future research on processes that may account for the association. According to the framework, the impact of marital conflict is mediated by children's understanding of the conflict, which is shaped by contextual, cognitive, and developmental factors. The implications of the framework for children's adjustment are discussed.
In this review, we examine the oft-made claim that peer-relationship difficulties in childhood predict serious adjustment problems in later life. The article begins with a framework for conceptualizing and assessing children’s peer difficulties and with a discussion of conceptual and methodological issues in longitudinal risk research. Following this, three indexes of problematic peer relationships (acceptance, aggressiveness, and shyness/withdrawal) are evaluated as predictors of three later outcomes (dropping out of school, criminality, and psychopathology). The relation between peer difficulties and later maladjustment is examined in terms of both the consistency and strength of prediction. A review and analysis of the literature indicates general support for the hypothesis that children with poor peer adjustment are at risk for later life difficulties. Support is clearest for the outcomes of dropping out and criminality. It is also clearest for low acceptance and aggressiveness as predictors, whereas a link between shyness/withdrawal and later maladjustment has not yet been adequately tested. The article concludes with a critical discussion of the implicit models that have guided past research in this area and a set of recommendations for the next generation of research on the risk hypothesis.
The study tested alternative intervention strategies to reduce escalation in problem behaviors among high-risk young adolescents (11 to 14 years old). A total of 158 families with young adolescents (male and female) participated in this study. Of these, 119 families were randomly assigned to 1 of the following intervention conditions: (a) parent focus, (b) teen focus, (c) parent and teen focus, (d) self-directed change (materials only). In addition, 39 families of young adolescents were recruited as a quasi-experimental control. Parent focus and teen focus interventions resulted in immediate beneficial effects in observed and reported family conflict. The parent intervention conditions showed immediate beneficial effects on behavior problems at school. Longitudinal trends suggest that the parent focus condition may reduce subsequent tobacco use, compared with all other approaches. Interventions that aggregated high-risk youths into groups, however, showed the highest escalations in tobacco use and problem behavior at school, beginning at termination and persisting to follow-up. These findings are discussed with respect to the need to re-evaluate strategies that aggregate high-risk youths into intervention programs and focus more on strategies to engage parents in prevention.
A review of 45 studies clearly demonstrated that sexually abused children had more symptoms than nonabused children, with abuse accounting for 15-45% of the variance. Fears, posttraumatic stress disorder, behavior problems, sexualized behaviors, and poor self-esteem occurred most frequently among a long list of symptoms noted, but no one symptom characterized a majority of sexually abused children. Some symptoms were specific to certain ages, and approximately one third of victims had no symptoms. Penetration, the duration and frequency of the abuse, force, the relationship of the perpetrator to the child, and maternal support affected the degree of symptomatology. About two thirds of the victimized children showed recovery during the first 12-18 months. The findings suggest the absence of any specific syndrome in children who have been sexually abused and no single traumatizing process.
Self-organization can be approached in terms of developmental processes occurring within and between component systems of temperament. Within-system organization involves progressive shaping of cortical representations by subcortical motivational systems. As cortical representations develop, they feed back to provide motivational systems with enhanced detection and guidance capabilities. These reciprocal influences may amplify the underlying motivational functions and promote excessive impulsivity or anxiety. However, these processes also depend upon interactions arising between motivational and attentional systems. We discuss these between-system effects by considering the regulation of approach motivation by reactive attentional processes related to fear and by more voluntary processes related to effortful control. It is suggested that anxious and impulsive psychopathology may reflect limitations in these dual means of control, which can take the form of overregulation as well as underregulation.
Longitudinal sociometric data on adolescent friendship pairs, friends-to-be, and former friends are examined to assess levels of homophily on four attributes (frequency of current marijuana, use, level of educational aspirations, political orientation, and participation in minor delinquency) at various stages of friendship formation and dissolution. In addition, estimates are developed of the extent to which observed homophily in friendship dyads results from a process of selection (assortative pairing), in which similarity precedes association and the extent to which it results from a process of socialization in which association leads to similarity. The implications of the results for interpreting estimates of peer influence derived from cross-sectional data are discussed.
This investigation examined gender differences in growth rates of externalizing and internalizing problems over a 5-year period, from early to late adolescence. It also examined the role of parental warmth, low hostility, and child management practices in inhibiting the growth trajectories of these developmental problems. Specifically, parenting was hypothesized to exhibit either a compensatory or buffering effect on age-related increases in adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems. Data were collected annually from 319 mothers, fathers, and their adolescent children (168 girls, 151 boys). The results demonstrated significant gender differences in growth trajectories of externalizing and internalizing problems. Both the compensatory and buffering hypotheses were supported with regard to externalizing problems. A compensatory effect of parenting practices on levels of internalizing problems also was demonstrated.
Debate continues regarding the magnitude and importance of parenting effects on the development of children's externalizing behavior problems, in, spite of the evidence that environments (as well as genes) contribute to individual differences in these behaviors. Research has demonstrated an association between harsh physical discipline and child aggression and conduct problems, a likely causal mechanism that probably operates as a shared environmental factor. We offer four hypotheses about the relation between discipline practices and child externalizing problems that may resolve same debate and help lead toward a more comprehensive understanding of how and when discipline practices will make a substantial difference: 1. The association between discipline and child aggression includes a nonlinear component. 2. The parent behavior-child behavior link varies across cultural groups. 3. Parental discipline effects on children vary according to the context of the broader parent-child relationship. 4. The discipline effect is maximized in same-gender parent-child dyads. Discussion focuses on the role of children's mental representations of discipline experiences as a mediator of discipline effects, and research implications with respect to sampling, measurement, and analytic strategies are noted.
Examined various homophilic mechanisms by which adolescents affect, and are affected by, levels of internalized distress within their immediate peer groups. The sample included approximately 6,000 14- to 18-yr-olds who were assessed twice over a 1-yr period. Results showed that adolescents tend to associate with peers who report similar levels of internalized distress and that internalizers are no less successful than others at establishing friendships. Moreover, homophily of internalizing symptoms develops from 3 distinct sources: (1) Adolescents tend to choose friends who possess similar levels of internalized distress (selection effect); (2) in male, but not female, peer groups, individual distress levels grow increasingly similar to peer levels over time (socialization effect); and (3) peer group distress levels vary according to the distress of individual members (contagion effect). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Nature and nurture do not operate independently of each other, and, to an important degree, genetic effects on behavior come about because they either influence the extent to which the individual is likely to be exposed to individual differences in environmental risk or they affect how susceptible the individual is to environmental adversities. The time has come for an explicit research focus on the forms of interplay between genes and environment and on how this interplay is involved in the causal mechanisms for the origins of antisocial behavior and for its persistence or desistance over time. Molecular genetics has an even greater potential than quantitative genetics for understanding environmental risk mechanisms and the interplay between nature and nurture.
This chapter examines the effects of multiple environmental risks and protective factors on child development by providing data emerging from a study of close to 500 families with a youth between the ages of 11 and 14. Risk factors were divided into 6 groupings reflecting different ecological relationships to the adolescent: family process, mothers' education/mental health, family structure/economy, management of community, peers, and community. The 5 outcomes examined were psychological adjustment of the adolescent, self-competence and problem behavior, activity involvement, and academic performance.
Results indicated that there were risks at every ecological level associated with child outcomes and that the more risk factors the worse the outcomes, the more protective factors the better the outcomes. When taken as part of a constellation of environmental influences on child development, most contextual variables in the parents, the family, the neighborhood, and the culture at large seem to be dimensional, aiding in general child development at one end and inhibiting it at the other. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Presents a comprehensive overview of the historical context, major theories, research, and treatment of childhood psychopathology, emphasizing the need to view it as separate and distinct from adult psychopathology. Treatment approaches and research on their effectiveness are presented, along with the theories and descriptions of each type of disorder. (66 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Uses case studies to illustrate a theory of anorexia nervosa as a psychosomatic disease. The authors present a new diagnosis that places the locus of the illness not in the individual but in the family. The method requires the active involvement of the therapist as an agent of change within the family. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The goal of this chapter is to summarize what the author knows about the origins, continuity, and change of individual differences in personality. The answers are sometimes obvious, sometimes surprising, and sometimes unsatisfactory. The chapter is divided into four sections. The first section offers a personality primer and sketches the conceptual and methodological concerns of modern personality research. The second section summarizes research evidence about the genetic and environmental origins of personality differences, and explores how early-emerging temperamental differences become elaborated into personality differences. The third section looks at personality from a longitudinal perspective and examines processes that promote continuity across the life course. The fourth section examines the multiple meanings of the term change and seeks to answer whether people can and do change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The maturation of corticolimbic systems that neurobiologically mediate essential affective and social regulatory functions is experience dependent. During the first and second years of life, the infant's affective experiences, especially those embedded in the relationship with the primary caregiver, elicit patterns of psychobiological alterations that influence the activity of subcortically produced trophic bioamines, peptides, and steroids that regulate the critical period growth and organization of the developing neocortex. Interactive attachment experiences of psychobiological attunemcnt, stressful misattunement, and stress-regulating repair and reattunement that maximize positive and minimize negative affect are imprinted into the orbitofrontal cortex — the hierarchical apex of the limbic system that is expanded in the early developing right hemisphere. During the critical period of maturation of this system, prolonged episodes of intense and unregulated interactive stress are manifest in disorganizing experiences of heightened negative affect and altered levels of stress hormones, and this chaotic biochemical alteration of the internal environment triggers an extensive apoptotic panellation of corticolimbic circuitries. In this manner less than optimal affect-regulating experiences with the primary caregiver are imprinted into the circuits of this frontolimbic system that is instrumental to attachment functions, thereby producing orbitofrontal organizations that neurobiologically express different patterns of insecure attachments. Such pathomorphogenetic outcomes result in structurally defective systems that, under stress, inefficiently regulate subcortical mechanisms that mediate the physiological processes that underlie emotion. The functional impairments of the cortical-subcortical circuitries of this prefrontal system are implicated in an enduring vulnerability to and the pathophysiology of various later forming psychiatric disorders.
Accumulating evidence suggests that social contexts in early life have important and
complex
effects on childhood psychopathology. Spurred by the lack of an explicit operational definition
that could guide the study of such effects, we define a social context operationally as “a
set of interpersonal conditions, relevant to a particular behavior or disorder and external to, but
shaped and interpreted by, the individual child.” Building on this definition, we offer a
series of recommendations for future research, based on five theoretically derived propositions:
(a) Contexts are nested and multidimensional; (b) contexts broaden, differentiate, and deepen
with age, becoming more specific in their effects; (c) contexts and children are mutually
determining; (d) a context's meaning to the child determines its effects on the child and
arises from the context's ability to provide for fundamental needs; and (e) contexts should
be selected for assessment in light of specific questions or outcomes. As reflected in an
increasingly rich legacy of literature on child development and psychopathology, social contexts
appear to influence emerging mental disorders through dynamic, bidirectional interactions with
individual children. Future research will benefit from examining not only statistical interactions
between child- and context-specific factors, but also the actual transactions between
children and contexts and the transduction of contextual influences into pathways of
biological mediation. Because adverse contexts exert powerful effects on the mental health of
children, it is important for the field to generate new, more theoretically grounded research
addressing the contextual determinants of psychological well-being and disorder.
Dramatic changes take place in the neural physiology and emotional behavior of the human infant during the first 2 years of life. Evidence suggests that certain variations in the infant's early social environment, such as disturbances in mother-infant interaction that are associated with maternal depression, influence the development of biological systems related to the expression and regulation of emotion, particularly those systems involved in frontal lobe, autonomic, and adrenocortical functioning. In this essay, we provide an overview of the links between maternal depression and disruptions in early social and emotional development, and we highlight parallels between disturbances in biological systems found in depressed adults and those found in infants of mothers experiencing depression. We then discuss the possibility of sensitive periods for the enduring influences of maternal depression on the emotional development of these children and for increased risk for affective disorder. Finally, we point to directions for further research on the nature of the intergenerational transmission of emotional disturbance.
A model of asymmetric contributions to the control of different subcomponents of approach- and withdrawal-related emotion and psychopathology is presented. Two major forms of positive affect are distinguished. An approach-related form arises prior to goal attainment, and another form follows goal attainment. The former is hypothesized to be associated with activation of the left prefrontal cortex. Individual differences in patterns of prefrontal activation are stable over time. Hypoactivation in this region is proposed to result in approach-related deficits and increase an individual's vulnerability to depression. Data in support of these proposals are presented. The issue of plasticity is then considered from several perspectives. Contextual factors are superimposed upon tonic individual differences and modulate the magnitude of asymmetry. Pharmacological challenges also alter patterns of frontal asymmetry. A diverse array of evidence was then reviewed that lends support to the notion that these patterns of asymmetry may be importantly influenced by early environmental factors that result in enduring changes in brain function and structure.
Family processes affecting the socioemotional functioning of children living in poor families and families experiencing economic decline are reviewed. Black children are of primary interest in the article because they experience disproportionate shares of the burden of poverty and economic loss and are at substantially higher risk than white children of experiencing attendant socioemotional problems. It is argued that (a) poverty and economic loss diminish the capacity for supportive, consistent, and involved parenting and render parents more vulnerable to the debilitating effects of negative life events, (b) a major mediator of the link between economic hardship and parenting behavior is psychological distress deriving from an excess of negative life events, undesirable chronic conditions, and the absence and disruption of marital bonds, (c) economic hardship adversely affects children's socioemotional functioning in part through its impact on the parent's behavior toward the child, and (d) father-child relations under conditions of economic hardship depend on the quality of relations between the mother and father. The extent to which psychological distress is a source of race differences in parenting behavior is considered. Finally, attention is given to the mechanisms by which parents' social networks reduce emotional strain, lessen the tendency toward punitive, coercive, and inconsistent parenting behavior, and, in turn, foster positive socioemotional development in economically deprived children.
We propose a family process model that links economic stress in family life to prosocial and problematic adolescent adjustment. Employing a sample of 205 seventh-grade boys aged 12 to 14 years (M = 12.7) and living in intact families in the rural Midwest, the theoretical constructs in the model were measured using both trained observer and family member reports. In general, results were consistent with the proposed model. Objective economic conditions such as per capita income and unstable work were related to parents' emotional status and behaviors through their perceptions of increased economic pressures such as the inability to pay monthly bills. These pressures were associated with depression and demoralization for both parents, which was related to marital conflict and disruptions in skillful parenting. Disrupted parenting mediated the relations between the earlier steps in the stress process and adolescent adjustment. The emotions and behaviors of both mothers and fathers were almost equally affected by financial difficulties, and disruptions in each parent's child-rearing behaviors had adverse consequences for adolescent development.
This study examined the association between cumulative family stressors (divorce, interparental conflict, maternal depression) and adolescent functioning as well as the protective role of the parent-adolescent relationship as perceived by the adolescent when family stressors are present. Two hundred and thirty-one adolescents, their mothers, and their social studies teachers served as the subjects. Results indicated that, as family stressors increased, adolescent functioning deteriorated. Furthermore, a positive parent-adolescent relationship as perceived by the adolescent was associated with less deterioration in all areas of functioning. The role of the relationship in protecting the adolescent supported both a stress buffering model and a main effect model.
Family processes affecting the socioemotional functioning of children living in poor families and families experiencing economic decline are reviewed. Black children are of primary interest in the article because they experience disproportionate shares of the burden of poverty and economic loss and are at substantially higher risk than white children of experiencing attendant socioemotional problems. It is argued that (a) poverty and economic loss diminish the capacity for supportive, consistent, and involved parenting and render parents more vulnerable to the debilitating effects of negative life events, (b) a major mediator of the link between economic hardship and parenting behavior is psychological distress deriving from an excess of negative life events, undesirable chronic conditions, and the absence and disruption of marital bonds, (c) economic hardship adversely affects children's socioemotional functioning in part through its impact on the parent's behavior toward the child, and (d) father-child relations under conditions of economic hardship depend on the quality of relations between the mother and father. The extent to which psychological distress is a source of race differences in parenting behavior is considered. Finally, attention is given to the mechanisms by which parents' social networks reduce emotional strain, lessen the tendency toward punitive, coercive, and inconsistent parenting behavior, and, in turn, foster positive socioemotional development in economically deprived children.
In an epidemiological longitudinal study, 356 out of 399 8-yr old children were re-examined at age 13. Prevalence rates for psychiatric disorders of about 16% remained constant during adolescence. The course of emotional disorders proved very promising, while that of conduct disorders was extremely unfavorable. Remission of psychiatric disorders was also influenced by an improved psychosocial environment within the family. Development of disorders in initially healthy children was related to prior learning disabilities and stressful life events. More effective approaches in the treatment of conduct disorders as well as early detection of detrimental familial conditions and learning disabilities are called for.
Stressful events in the lives of 309 10- to 15-year-olds and stressful events and psychological symptoms reported by their parents were examined in a 9-month study. Ss' self-reported emotional/behavioral problems were predicted by their reports of stressful events and their fathers' reports of psychological symptoms in cross-sectional analyses. Analyses at follow-up after controlling for initial reports of emotional/behavioral problems and prospective analyses predicting from first assessment to follow-up yielded significant effects for Ss' self-reported stressful events. Mothers' reports of children's problems were predicted by mothers' psychological symptoms in cross-sectional analyses and at follow-up after controlling for initial emotional/behavioral problems. Only prior levels of maternal reports of emotional/behavioral problems predicted mothers' reports of their children's problems 9 months later.
We propose a theory of development in which experience is directed by genotypes. Genotypic differences are proposed to affect phenotypic differences, both directly and through experience, via 3 kinds of genotype leads to environment effects: a passive kind, through environments provided by biologically related parents; an evocative kind, through responses elicited by individuals from others; and an active kind, through the selection of different environments by different people. The theory adapts the 3 kinds of genotype-environment correlations proposed by Plomin, DeFries, and Loehlin in a developmental model that is used to explain results from studies of deprivation, intervention, twins, and families.
To determine the specificity to major depressive disorder (MDD) of a wide array of psychosocial risk factors in older adolescents (aged 14 through 18 years).
Diagnostic and psychosocial assessments were conducted with 1,507 randomly selected high school students at T1 and after approximately 1 year (T2). Three diagnostic groups were compared: those who had an episode of MDD during that year (n = 90), those who had an episode of substance use disorder during that year (SUD) (n = 42), and a control group with no disorder (n = 1,189).
Risk factors specific to MDD were stress (minor and major events), emotional reliance, physical symptoms and disease, history of suicide attempt, and a past episode of depression or anxiety disorder. Risk factors specific to SUD were tobacco use, academic difficulties, and a past episode of SUD. Risk factors that were shared were current depression symptoms, internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, coping skills, interpersonal conflict with parents, and dissatisfaction with grades.
By determining the number of risk factors for MDD, for SUD, or those that are general to both disorders, clinicians can make informed predictions concerning the probable future onset of a full-fledged episode of MDD and/or SUD in individual cases. The results of this study allow for the identification of adolescents who are at elevated risk for MDD and SUD. The results also have implications for the design of interventions aimed at preventing the occurrence of these disorders. Such interventions should target change on risk factors of the type identified in this study.
Research on depressive phenomena during adolescence has focused on 3 separate constructs: depressed mood, depressive syndromes, and depressive disorders. Approaches to the assessment, taxonomy, and diagnosis of these 3 conceptualizations are reviewed. Each of the approaches is represented by different assessment tools measuring related but distinct aspects of depressive phenomena. The constructs share a common set of symptoms reflecting negative affectivity but differ in their inclusion of symptoms of anxiety, somatic problems, and disrupted concentration and in the duration and severity of the symptoms they include. Depressed mood, syndromes, and disorders are integrated as 3 levels of depressive phenomena in a hierarchical and sequential model, and moderating factors are hypothesized to account for the relationships among the 3 levels. The need for a stronger developmental focus to understand depressive phenomena during adolescence is emphasized.
SYNOPSIS
The objective of the study was to determine whether the families of anorexia nervosa (AN) patients were more dysfunctional than those of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients and well controls. Data were collected from self-report questionnaires, from an interview rated for Expressed Emotion (EE) and from direct observation of a family problem solving task which was rated for evidence of Minuchin's ‘psychosomatic family’ dimensions. A total of 87 families participated. Most self-report measures of family functioning did not distinguish between groups. There were no differences in levels of EE criticism. AN and CF households showed more EE emotional over-involvement than did the well households. Over-involvement correlated with illness severity. More households in the AN group were enmeshed, over-protective and poor at problem solving than in the CF and well groups. Minuchin's conceptualization of the anorexia nervosa family was partly supported.
This article examines the intervening pathways linking parental divorce with adolescent depression, using both cross-sectional and prospective data from a study of high school students in the Boston metropolitan area. Overall, findings reveal that parental divorce is linked with adolescent depression in two ways: (1) it is a source of numerous secondary problems and stresses that are causally related to depression, and (2) it alters youths' reactivity to these stresses, in some cases enhancing, but in other cases mitigating, their depressive effects. Analyses demonstrated the central role of economic hardship in linking family status with depression, with the strength of this indirect pathway partly attributable to the greater vulnerability of youths in single-parent families to financial stresses. In contrast, family conflict did not account for the distress of youths in single-parent families, largely because of their immunity to the effects of such conflict. Finally, prospective data failed to support the hypothesis that differences between youths in single-parent and intact families predate the divorce.