Article

A Behavior-Genetic Study of the Legacy of Early Caregiving Experiences: Academic Skills, Social Competence, and Externalizing Behavior in Kindergarten

Authors:
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

Abstract

A critique of research examining whether early experiences with primary caregivers are reflected in adaptation is that relevant longitudinal studies have generally not employed genetically informed research designs capable of unconfounding shared genes and environments. Using the twin subsample (N = 485 pairs) of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, the current study provides evidence that early parental support (derived from observations at 24 months and around age 4, in prekindergarten) is associated with academic skills (r = .32), social competence (r = .15), and externalizing behavior (r = -.11) in kindergarten. Crucially, the shared environment accounted for virtually all of the correlation between parenting and academic skills, roughly half of the association between parenting and social competence, and approximately one fourth of the correlation between parenting and externalizing behavior.

No full-text available

Request Full-text Paper PDF

To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.

... A. Foster et al., 2005;T. D. Foster et al., 2016;Melhuish et al., 2008;Roisman & Fraley, 2012;Son & Morrison, 2010;Tamis LeMonda et al., 2019). ...
... However, the existing literature on home learning environment has primarily focused on either proximal or distal parental involvement as separate constructs, or oversimply viewed home learning environment as a unidimensional factor (e.g., Anders et al., 2012;Melhuish et al., 2008;Raikes et al., 2006). While different components of the home learning environment may have varying effects on children with different characteristics, little attention has been paid to studying the full complexity of this environment (Anders et al., 2012;Connor et al., 2005;Dettmers et al., 2019;McCormick et al., 2020;Melhuish et al., 2008;Payne et al., 1994;Raikes et al., 2006;Roisman & Fraley, 2012;Sénéchal et al., 1998;Wolf & McCoy, 2019). ...
... Accordingly, significant attention has been paid to investigating how the quality of children's early home learning environment is related to children's cognitive development and their academic skills (Connor et al., 2005;M. A. Foster et al., 2005;Melhuish et al., 2008;Roisman & Fraley, 2012;Son & Morrison, 2010;Tamis LeMonda et al., 2019). In this study, children's academic skills include both language and mathematics during their time in kindergarten. ...
... Similarly Roisman and Fraley (2012) examined the role of supportive parental behavior on kindergartners' academic skills using a sample of twins. They found that parental support was predictive of a child's academic skills. ...
... Note that in each of these recent studies, Roisman and Fraley (2012), Fraley et al. (2013) and Raby et al. (2015), the authors refer to the cognitive outcome variables as academic competence or skills, but the measures used (i.e., Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised; Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement; Peabody Individual Achievement Test. Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test) are strong indicators of general intelligence. ...
Article
Data from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (N = 1075) were used to test the hypothesis that maternal supportiveness (measured at three waves from 14 to 36 months) is positively and prospectively associated with a child's general intelligence (measured at five waves from 14 months to 10 years). Bivariate correlations showed that maternal supportiveness was consistently and positively associated with a child's general intelligence. For example, maternal supportiveness as measured at 14 months was correlated with a child's general intelligence at age 10; r = 0.35. Results of autoregressive cross-lagged panel models showed maternal supportiveness directly predicted future general intelligence through age four and indirectly, via age four general intelligence, up to age 10. Additional analyses verified that the effect of maternal supportiveness was on general intelligence and not specific abilities. The results point to the importance of maternal supportiveness on general intelligence in the first decade of life.
... Affection or warmth, that is, physically or verbally expressing positive emotions and regard toward the child, is another key component of this system (WHO, 2020;Roggman et al., 2013). Teaching (cognitive stimulation, joint attention, and shared play) and encouragement (supporting children's efforts, exploration, choices, and creativity) parental skills are also strongly linked to better developmental outcomes (Fay-Stammbach, Hawes, & Meredith, 2014;Mermelshtine & Barnes, 2016;Roisman & Fraley, 2012;Topping, Dekhinet & Zeedyk, 2013;WHO, 2018, WHO, 2020). ...
... Our findings suggest that the inputs provided by our psychosocial intervention, such as information, resources and behaviour demonstration, were especially meaningful for mothers who were socially disadvantaged. Responsive parenting, including encouragement skills, is related to language and cognitive development improvements (Mermelshtine & Barnes, 2016;Topping, Dekhinet & Zeedyk, 2013;WHO, 2020), enhanced executive functioning (Fay-Stammbach, Hawes, & Meredith, 2014), and better academic performance (Roisman & Fraley, 2012). Developing these children's skills may be critical for breaking the intergenerational circle of poverty (Andrew et al., 2020;McCormick et al.;1998;Pascoe, Wood, Duffee, & Kuo, 2016;Shonkoff & Fischer, 2013;WHO, 2020) ...
Article
Introduction Early parent-child relationships shape children’s future. Child development and parent-child interactions are multidetermined, and the combination of biological risks and social disadvantages can further compromise both outcomes. Interventions that promote responsive parenting may mitigate the risks for child development. We examined the effectiveness of a longitudinal psychosocial intervention to strengthen maternal interactive skills and the moderative role of biological and contextual variables. Methods: The present study is part of a large study designed as a pragmatic quasi-experimental trial. The intervention was implemented in a public mother-child healthcare service, which is a reference for high-risk deliveries. The sample was a convenience subsample of the large project, comprised 67 mother-child dyads. The Intervention Group (IG) and Comparison Group (CG) included 33 and 34 dyads, respectively. The intervention consisted of two individual Newborn Behavioral Observation (NBO) sessions and six group sessions with the mothers. It was delivered at childbirth and 2, 4, 6, 9, and 12 months of child age. CG received usual care at the same age. IG and CG mothers were video recorded playing with their 12-month-old children; maternal interactive skills were assessed using the Parenting Interactions with Children: Checklist of Observations Linked to Outcomes (PICCOLO). PICCOLO captures mothers’ skills across four domains: affection, responsiveness, encouragement, and teaching. We performed a multiple linear regression to identify the moderative effect of the intervention on maternal interactive skills; the initial model included biological and contextual variables, the group, and the interaction between potential moderators and the group. Results: In general, most infants were boys, born preterm, and with low birth weight. On average, the mothers studied for 10 years, and most families were classified as having low or very low socioeconomic status. In general, IG mothers’ mean scores were higher than CG mothers’ in all PICCOLO domains, although without statistical significance. Lower maternal schooling moderated the effect of the intervention on mothers’ overall interaction and encouragement skills. Lower gestational age moderated the effect on PICCOLO total scores. Final regression models explained 22% and 14% of the variability of PICCOLO total and encouragement scores, respectively; no intervention’s effect was observed in other domains. Conclusion: The effects of our longitudinal psychosocial intervention on maternal interactive skills were moderated by infants’ gestational age and maternal years of schooling. These findings suggest that the intervention was more effective for vulnerable groups, specifically for mothers with less schooling and whose infants were born extremely preterm, confirming our hypothesis of the differential effect of the intervention.
... Though there have been very few studies examining resilience to adversity using genetically informed designs, there have been several investigations examining social, psychological, and academic competencies more generally. The latter literatures converge in suggesting that, while all of these outcomes are influenced by both genes and the environment, social competence is predominantly environmental in origin (Edelbrock et al. 1995;Roisman and Fraley 2012;Saudino et al. 2008), whereas academic competence and the absence of psychopathology are predominantly genetic in origin (Edelbrock et al. 1995;Hudziak et al. 2003;Burt 2009). These studies, however, have not examined how the etiological mechanisms underlying these constructs might change in the face of significant adversity. ...
Article
Full-text available
Parenting behaviors are among the most robust predictors of youth resilience to adversity. Critically, however, very few studies examining these effects have been genetically-informed, and none have considered parenting as an etiologic moderator of resilience. What's more, despite the multidimensionality of resilience, extant etiologic literature has largely focused on a single domain. The current study sought to fill these respective gaps in the literature by examining whether and how parental nurturance shapes the etiology of academic, social, and psychological resilience, respectively. We employed a unique sample of twins (N = 426 pairs; ages 6-11) exposed to moderate-to-severe levels of environmental adversity (i.e., family poverty, neighborhood poverty, community violence) from the Twin Study of Behavioral and Emotional Development in Children. As expected, parental nurturance was positively correlated with all forms of resilience. Extended univariate genotype-by-environment interaction models revealed that parental nurturance significantly moderated genetic influences on all three domains of resilience (academic resilience A1= -0.53, psychological resilience A1= -1.22, social resilience A1= -0.63; all p < .05), such that as parental nurturance increased, genetic influences on youth resilience decreased. Put another way, children experiencing high levels of parental nurturance were more resilient to disadvantage, regardless of their genetic predisposition towards resilience. In the absence of nurturing parenting, however, genetic influences played an outsized role in the origins of resilience. Such findings indicate that parental nurturance may serve as a malleable protective factor that increases youth resilience regardless of genetic influences.
... Specifically, how children are parented might be, in part, based on inherited characteristics of the child that elicit specific responses from the parent (Plomin et al., 1977;Scarr and McCartney, 1983;Knopik et al., 2017). Consistent with this possibility, studies have found that children's early regulatory capacities, anger, and social competence are partially influenced by genetics (Edelbrock et al., 1995;Hudziak et al., 2003;Van Hulle et al., 2007;Roisman and Fraley, 2012;Van Ryzin et al., 2015). Furthermore, genetically informed studies have found that evocative rGE partially explains the relationship between child behaviors such as child regulatory behaviors and emotions and parenting in infancy and toddlerhood Klahr et al., 2013Klahr et al., , 2017Natsuaki et al., 2013;Ulbricht et al., 2013;Klahr and Burt, 2014;Hajal et al., 2015). ...
Article
Full-text available
Identification of early promotive and risk factors for social competence is important for fostering children’s successful social development; particularly given social competence is essential for children’s later academic and psychological well-being. While research suggests that the early parent–child relationship, genetics, and prenatal influences are associated with social competence, there is less research considering how these factors may operate together to shape children’s social competence in early childhood. Using a genetically informed sample from the Early Growth and Development Study (N = 561), we examined multiple levels of influence (i.e., genetic, prenatal, parenting, and child characteristics) on children’s social competence at 4.5 years old. Results from structural equation models showed adoptive mother overreactivity at 18 months was positively associated with child dysregulation at 27 months, which, in turn, was associated with lower levels of social competence at 4.5 years. Also, child reactivity at 18 months was independently associated with higher levels of adoptive mother overreactivity at 27 months, which, in turn, was associated with lower levels of social competence at 4.5 years. Finally, we found an evocative effect on adoptive fathers’ overreactivity at 18 months such that prenatal birth mother distress was negatively associated with adoptive fathers’ overreactivity at 18 months. Overall, this study found evidence for genetic influences, and bidirectional associations between parent and child in toddlerhood that are related to lower levels of social competence when children were 4.5 years old. We also found that the prenatal environment was associated with parenting, but not with child behavior directly. This study’s ability to simultaneously examine multiple domains of influence helps provide a more comprehensive picture of important mechanisms and developmental periods for children’s early social competence.
... Another key domain of parenting practices are the behaviours parents engage in to build strong and positive relationships with their children. A large body of evidence, including large-scale experimental research and behaviourgenetic studies (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) indicate that children will have better academic, behavioural, social, and psychological outcomes across childhood and into adolescence when parents are warm, sensitive, encouraging, and responsive to their physical, emotional and psychological needs (Biglan et al., 2012). In comparison to the research on discipline practices, much less research has explored the relationship between social disadvantage and warm and supportive parenting. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
In this chapter we use rich longitudinal data to examine the typical growth of vocabulary in children as they age from 4 years onwards. Vocabulary is a robust indicator of language development and of early cognitive growth. The data demonstrate the surprising variability among children of similar ages in their early cognitive growth. This variability leads to difficulties in predicting early vulnerability and in subsequently selecting children for targeted interventions. By examining the developmental circumstances that accelerate or retard changes in the growth of this aspect of language development we assess the implications of the findings for the subsequent population reach and actual participation of children in programs designed to reach those who are variously vulnerable.
... Another key domain of parenting practices are the behaviours parents engage in to build strong and positive relationships with their children. A large body of evidence, including large-scale experimental research and behaviourgenetic studies (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) indicate that children will have better academic, behavioural, social, and psychological outcomes across childhood and into adolescence when parents are warm, sensitive, encouraging, and responsive to their physical, emotional and psychological needs (Biglan et al., 2012). In comparison to the research on discipline practices, much less research has explored the relationship between social disadvantage and warm and supportive parenting. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
In this chapter we provide a brief summary of the key themes of the book, identify emerging directions and challenges in life course theory and data designs and highlight some policy challenges for researchers going forward.
... Another key domain of parenting practices are the behaviours parents engage in to build strong and positive relationships with their children. A large body of evidence, including large-scale experimental research and behaviourgenetic studies (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) indicate that children will have better academic, behavioural, social, and psychological outcomes across childhood and into adolescence when parents are warm, sensitive, encouraging, and responsive to their physical, emotional and psychological needs (Biglan et al., 2012). In comparison to the research on discipline practices, much less research has explored the relationship between social disadvantage and warm and supportive parenting. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
The intergenerational transmission of socio-economic status is driven to a significant extent through parents with higher socio-economic status providing advantages to their children as they move through the education system. At the same time, attainment of higher education credentials constitutes an important pathway for upwards social mobility among individuals from low socio-economic family backgrounds. Given the critical importance of higher education for socio-economic outcomes of children, this chapter focuses on young people’s journeys into and out of university. Drawing on the life course approach and opportunity pluralism theory, we present a conceptual model of the university student life cycle that splits individuals’ higher education trajectories into three distinct stages: access, participation and post-participation. Using this model as a guiding framework, we present a body of recent Australian evidence on differences in pathways through the higher education system among individuals from low and high socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds. In doing so, we pay attention to factors such as family material circumstances, students’ school experiences and post-school plans, and parental education and expectations—all of which constitute important barriers to access, participation and successful transitions out of higher education for low SES students. Overall, our results indicate that socio-economic background plays a significant role in shaping outcomes at various points of individual’s educational trajectories. This is manifested by lower chances amongst low-SES individuals to access and participate in higher education, and to find satisfying and secure employment post-graduation. Our findings bear important implications for educational and social policy.
... Another key domain of parenting practices are the behaviours parents engage in to build strong and positive relationships with their children. A large body of evidence, including large-scale experimental research and behaviourgenetic studies (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) indicate that children will have better academic, behavioural, social, and psychological outcomes across childhood and into adolescence when parents are warm, sensitive, encouraging, and responsive to their physical, emotional and psychological needs (Biglan et al., 2012). In comparison to the research on discipline practices, much less research has explored the relationship between social disadvantage and warm and supportive parenting. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
Loneliness is emerging as a significant issue in modern societies with impacts on health and wellbeing. Many of the existing studies on loneliness focus on its contemporaneous correlates. Drawing on life course and cumulative disadvantage theory and data from qualitative interviews with 50 older adults living in the community, we examine how past events shape variations in later-life loneliness. We identify four factors that are of significance for understanding loneliness: (1) Formation of social networks; (2) history of familial support; (3) relocation and migration, and (4) widowhood and separation. Our findings point to the importance of maintenance of social ties over the adult life course while at the same time highlighting how disruptions to social networks impact on later-life loneliness. We also find that loneliness and disadvantage, like other social or health outcomes, compound over time.
... Another key domain of parenting practices are the behaviours parents engage in to build strong and positive relationships with their children. A large body of evidence, including large-scale experimental research and behaviourgenetic studies (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) indicate that children will have better academic, behavioural, social, and psychological outcomes across childhood and into adolescence when parents are warm, sensitive, encouraging, and responsive to their physical, emotional and psychological needs (Biglan et al., 2012). In comparison to the research on discipline practices, much less research has explored the relationship between social disadvantage and warm and supportive parenting. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
There is an emerging academic and public policy discourse about better research engagement, impact and policy translation. In this chapter we examine the place of research in making ‘real world’ impact on the social policies and practices affecting Australian families, especially the transmission of (dis)advantage over the life course and across generations. We begin by briefly reflecting on the influence of ‘policy research’ in shaping Australia’s early social development through the 1907 Basic Wage Case by Justice Higgins (The Harvester judgement), which placed the intersection of work and family life at the centre of economic and social policy debates. While historical, these reforms laid the foundations for what can be seen as tentative life course social policy frameworks engaged in the dynamics of family life from birth to death, changing family structures, and increasing economic and gender inequality. We then examine selected historical and contemporary social policy episodes consistent with the book’s central themes where research from academia, the public sector and civil society has been impactful in key national and state-based policy systems such as social security, balancing work and family, child care, addressing gender inequality and support for vulnerable and complex families.
... Another key domain of parenting practices are the behaviours parents engage in to build strong and positive relationships with their children. A large body of evidence, including large-scale experimental research and behaviourgenetic studies (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) indicate that children will have better academic, behavioural, social, and psychological outcomes across childhood and into adolescence when parents are warm, sensitive, encouraging, and responsive to their physical, emotional and psychological needs (Biglan et al., 2012). In comparison to the research on discipline practices, much less research has explored the relationship between social disadvantage and warm and supportive parenting. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
Connection with Country, community, and culture lies at the heart of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ health and wellbeing. Although there is some evidence on the role of cultural identity on the mental health of Indigenous adults, this relationship is relatively unexplored in the context of Indigenous Australian children. Robust empirical evidence on the role of cultural identity for social and emotional wellbeing is necessary to design and develop effective interventions and approaches for improving the mental health outcomes for Indigenous Australian children. Drawing on data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC), we explore social and emotional wellbeing in Indigenous Australian children and assesses whether cultural identity protects against social-emotional problems in Indigenous children. The results show that Indigenous children with strong cultural identity and knowledge are less likely to experience social and emotional problems than their counterparts. Our work provides further evidence to support the change from a deficit narrative to a strengths-based discourse for improved health and wellbeing of Indigenous Australian children.
... Another key domain of parenting practices are the behaviours parents engage in to build strong and positive relationships with their children. A large body of evidence, including large-scale experimental research and behaviourgenetic studies (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) indicate that children will have better academic, behavioural, social, and psychological outcomes across childhood and into adolescence when parents are warm, sensitive, encouraging, and responsive to their physical, emotional and psychological needs (Biglan et al., 2012). In comparison to the research on discipline practices, much less research has explored the relationship between social disadvantage and warm and supportive parenting. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
Having a job is an important indicator of economic and social wellbeing, and two-earner families are becoming the norm rather than the exception. As a result, many more women, including mothers, are in the labour force now than ever before. Balancing family and work responsibilities therefore becomes ever more important, not just for women but also men who are sharing the caring load with their partners, especially when young pre-school children are present. However, employment is not equally distributed across families, and some families have noone in a job which leads to financial vulnerability. Even one-earner families that depend on a low-skilled, low-wage earner may struggle to get by and provide their children with the opportunities to succeed in life and achieve mental, physical and financial wellbeing. This may lead to the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage and poor outcomes from parents to children. Gender inequality and ongoing inequalities relating to gender divisions in work and family may lead to women being particularly vulnerable in terms of earnings capacity and retirement savings when a relationship ends. One-parent families are specifically at risk as they often have no partner with whom to share the care-taking role, making work-family balance difficult to achieve. In this chapter we review the Australian evidence on these issues and provide policy implications.
... Another key domain of parenting practices are the behaviours parents engage in to build strong and positive relationships with their children. A large body of evidence, including large-scale experimental research and behaviourgenetic studies (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) indicate that children will have better academic, behavioural, social, and psychological outcomes across childhood and into adolescence when parents are warm, sensitive, encouraging, and responsive to their physical, emotional and psychological needs (Biglan et al., 2012). In comparison to the research on discipline practices, much less research has explored the relationship between social disadvantage and warm and supportive parenting. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
Whether the children of immigrant populations, including refugees, integrate into the host society is a key challenge facing all countries with large immigrant populations. In Australia, this is crucial given rising numbers and anxieties over refugee settlement in recent decades. Forced migration and displacement due to violence, persecution, or natural disasters with families undertaking perilous journeys fleeing their homes often could mean a turning point and at the same time a stressful event that may have severe negative psychosocial and long-term effects. This can be particularly acute among refugee children, who are typically the least prepared to migrate, have experienced hardship associated with violence and persecution, and must grow up in a new country. From a life course perspective, the integration and wellbeing of refugee children is shaped by the timing and context of migration, including their age at migration and country of origin. In this chapter we draw on longitudinal data from Building a New Life in Australia (BNLA) to offer new evidence in our understanding of the integration and wellbeing of refugee children in Australia and policy recommendations to address the social disadvantages facing this population. Our findings indicate that refugee children are outperforming their parents, making intergenerational progress. However, we find some major differences by gender and national origin across a range of outcomes.
... Another key domain of parenting practices are the behaviours parents engage in to build strong and positive relationships with their children. A large body of evidence, including large-scale experimental research and behaviourgenetic studies (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) indicate that children will have better academic, behavioural, social, and psychological outcomes across childhood and into adolescence when parents are warm, sensitive, encouraging, and responsive to their physical, emotional and psychological needs (Biglan et al., 2012). In comparison to the research on discipline practices, much less research has explored the relationship between social disadvantage and warm and supportive parenting. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
In this chapter, we describe the life course approach and explain key concepts and principles. We also review variations in life course theory across disciplines including differences in terminology and understanding of core elements of life course theory. We outline why the life course approach is useful for examining intergenerational transmission of inequality and why a focus on family background is important. We review research on intergenerational inequality, family dynamics and variations across social groups and conclude by briefly outlining new directions in life course theory toward a more integrated theoretical framework.
... Another key domain of parenting practices are the behaviours parents engage in to build strong and positive relationships with their children. A large body of evidence, including large-scale experimental research and behaviourgenetic studies (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) indicate that children will have better academic, behavioural, social, and psychological outcomes across childhood and into adolescence when parents are warm, sensitive, encouraging, and responsive to their physical, emotional and psychological needs (Biglan et al., 2012). In comparison to the research on discipline practices, much less research has explored the relationship between social disadvantage and warm and supportive parenting. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
The period during which young people are financially and residentially dependent on their parents is lengthening and extending into adulthood. This has created an in-between period of “emerging adulthood” where young people are legal adults but without the full responsibilities and autonomy of independent adults. There is considerable debate over whether emerging adulthood represents a new developmental phase in which young people invest in schooling, work experiences, and life skills to increase their later lifetime chances of success or a reflection of poor economic opportunities and high living costs that constrain young people into dependence. In this chapter we examine the incidence of emerging adulthood and the characteristics and behaviours of emerging adults, investigating data from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. We find that a majority of young Australians who are 22 years old or younger are residentially and financial dependent on their parents and thus, emerging adults. We also find that a substantial minority of 23- to 25-year-olds meet this definition and that the proportion of young people who are emerging adults has grown over time. Emerging adults have autonomy in some spheres of their lives but not others. Most emerging adults are enrolled in school. Although most also work, they often do so through casual jobs and with low earnings. Young people with high-income parents receive co-residential and financial support longer than young people with low-income parents. Similarly, non-Indigenous young people and young people from two-parent families receive support for longer than Indigenous Australians or young people from single-parent backgrounds. The evidence strongly supports distinguishing emerging adulthood from other stages in the life course.
... Another key domain of parenting practices are the behaviours parents engage in to build strong and positive relationships with their children. A large body of evidence, including large-scale experimental research and behaviourgenetic studies (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) indicate that children will have better academic, behavioural, social, and psychological outcomes across childhood and into adolescence when parents are warm, sensitive, encouraging, and responsive to their physical, emotional and psychological needs (Biglan et al., 2012). In comparison to the research on discipline practices, much less research has explored the relationship between social disadvantage and warm and supportive parenting. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
This chapter examines parenthood, arguably one of the most significant life course transitions in an individual’s life with consequences not just for the adults involved, but also children whose developmental outcomes are strongly influenced by parenting styles, practices and resources. We examine how parenting practices are influenced by social disadvantage, including disadvantage at the individual, family and community levels, arguing that this influence is complex and multi-directional, with reciprocal associations among children, parents, family systems and the broader social and economic ecology. Parenting support programs are an important means of interrupting the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage, but these programs require rigorous evaluation to ensure optimal use of resources and outcomes for children. We conclude by drawing attention to the need for programs that support parenting across all stages of the life course, including during emerging adulthood and grandparenthood.
... Another key domain of parenting practices are the behaviours parents engage in to build strong and positive relationships with their children. A large body of evidence, including large-scale experimental research and behaviourgenetic studies (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) indicate that children will have better academic, behavioural, social, and psychological outcomes across childhood and into adolescence when parents are warm, sensitive, encouraging, and responsive to their physical, emotional and psychological needs (Biglan et al., 2012). In comparison to the research on discipline practices, much less research has explored the relationship between social disadvantage and warm and supportive parenting. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
Married couples generally experience higher levels of subjective wellbeing than cohabiting couples or single people, though the relationship between wellbeing and partnering is context-specific. Marriage has different benefits for different demographic and subgroups and varies by gender, nativity, birth region, and country contexts. We find that across several measures of socioeconomic wellbeing, married individuals show better outcomes than their cohabiting counterparts and single individuals. Married individuals are more likely to be employed, own a home, and have access to emergency funds, net of various socioeconomic and demographic controls. These advantages remain even when we consider their outcomes after they have transitioned to marriage controlling for unobserved and observed bias. We find no substantive differences in health and wellbeing across individuals of different marital statuses. We conclude that policies aimed at supporting individuals to achieve fulfilling lives must recognise increased diversity in partnership arrangements and provide strong supports to those who choose not to pursue traditional marital arrangements.
... Another key domain of parenting practices are the behaviours parents engage in to build strong and positive relationships with their children. A large body of evidence, including large-scale experimental research and behaviourgenetic studies (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) indicate that children will have better academic, behavioural, social, and psychological outcomes across childhood and into adolescence when parents are warm, sensitive, encouraging, and responsive to their physical, emotional and psychological needs (Biglan et al., 2012). In comparison to the research on discipline practices, much less research has explored the relationship between social disadvantage and warm and supportive parenting. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
Adolescence is a time when developmental and contextual transitions converge, increasing the risk for adverse outcomes across the life course. It is during this period that self-concept declines, mental health problems increase and when young people make educational and occupational plans for their future. Considerable research has shown that parent engagement in their child’s learning has positive effects on academic and wellbeing outcomes and may be a protective factor in adolescence. However, it is during adolescence that parent engagement typically declines. Most studies focus on early childhood or use cross-sectional designs that do not account for the high variability in both the child’s development and the parent-child relationship over time. In this chapter, we examine the association between parent engagement and students’ outcomes—self-concept, mental health, and educational aspirations—drawing on national data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, while accounting for the school context—school belonging, peer connection problems, and bullying—and parenting styles using panel fixed effects models. We then explore perceptions of parental engagement and educational aspirations among a sample of adolescent students from highly disadvantaged backgrounds using interviews from the Learning through COVID-19 study. Findings show that parent engagement is important for students’ outcomes such as self-concept, mental health and aspirations in early and middle adolescence, even when accounting for family and school context factors. Further, parent engagement in late adolescence, with students from highly disadvantaged backgrounds, continues to be important for positive student outcomes.
... Third, child effects (e.g., temperament and agency) should not be ignored (Kuczynski & Parkin, 2007) and relations between parenting and child development may be the result of shared genes (Kendler & Baker, 2006;Scarr, 1992). However, a genetically informed study (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) suggested that a significant and often large part of the link between supportive parenting and child adjustment is attributable to shared environments. ...
Article
Full-text available
The purpose of this paper is to bring together and highlight common conceptual elements and findings from constructs that involve parents' consideration of children's viewpoints and experiences: parental sensitivity, empathy, perspective taking, responsiveness, autonomy support, and scaffolding. Research on each of these constructs suggests that consideration in the parenting role is associated with better child development, learning, and well‐being. We examine definitions and measures of the constructs to address how parental consideration has been conceptualized. We also review positive child development indicators that have been associated with it, across various periods, contexts, and domains of development. By drawing attention to this common denominator and adopting an integrative perspective, we hope to contribute to future research and help transfer knowledge to parents about this key, facilitative parenting dimension.
... For example, van der Voort et al. (2014) defined sensitivity as supportive presence, intrusiveness, sensitivity and timing, and clarity of instruction during play, whereas Kok et al. (2013) included cooperation, supportiveness, no intrusiveness, and consideration in their definition of maternal sensitivity. Yet, all these aspects are positively related to behavioral adjustment in children throughout literature (e.g., Jaffari-Bimmel et al., 2006;Roisman and Fraley, 2012). ...
Article
Full-text available
It has widely been accepted that play has a major role in human development. The play situation is considered a save and controlled space in which children can learn to express their problems and to regulate their emotions, thus promoting emotional and behavioral adjustment. In early childhood, this process is thought to emerge in close interaction with caregivers. Parent-child play is thus viewed as an ideal window for parents to connect with their children and to support them in their social-emotional development. In this preregistered systematic review, we sought to integrate evidence from developmental and clinical psychology to shed more light on the role of parents in the relationship between parent-child play and children's behavioral adjustment as expressed in internalizing or externalizing behavior. Our review revealed that increased harsh control during play interactions as well as a lack of parental responsiveness, warmth and sensitivity were found to be associated with increased behavioral problems. Yet, no protective effect of warmth or responsiveness could be found in the context of risk groups. Moreover, the included studies indicated that positive affect expressed by parents during parent-child play was associated with fewer behavior problems in children, while negative affect was associated with more behavior problems. In general, this review revealed that quality and quantity of playful parent-child interactions were reduced in children with behavioral problems of both domains compared to children without behavioral problems. These findings illustrate the important role of parental characteristics during play interactions and their possible impact on children's behavioral adjustment.
... Shared environmental influences appear to play a key role in enabling social resilience and to a lesser extent, psychiatric resilience (Burt, 2009). Such findings are consistent with past research pointing to the importance of family (e.g., parental warmth) and community-level factors (e.g., social cohesion) (Roisman & Fraley, 2012). In comparison, genetic factors were the largest influence for academic resilience (Edelbrock et al., 1995;Hudziak et al., 2003) though they were also important in social resilience (Edelbrock et al., 1995). ...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Although early-life exposure to chronic disadvantage is associated with deleterious outcomes, 40-60% of exposed youth continue to thrive. To date, little is known about the etiology of these resilient outcomes. Methods: The current study examined child twin families living in disadvantaged contexts (N=417 pairs) to elucidate the etiology of resilience. We evaluated maternal reports of the Child Behavior Checklist to examine three domains of resilience and general resilience. Results: Genetic, shared, and nonshared environmental influences significantly contributed to social resilience (22%, 61%, 17%, respectively) and psychiatric resilience (40%, 28%, 32%, respectively), but academic resilience was influenced only by genetic and nonshared environmental influences (65% and 35%, respectively). These three domains loaded significantly onto a latent resilience factor, with factor loadings ranging from .60 to .34. A common pathway model revealed that the variance common to all three forms of resilience was predominantly explained by genetic and non-shared environmental influences (50% and 35%, respectively). Conclusions: These results support recent conceptualizations of resilience as a multifaceted construct influenced by both genetic and environmental influences, only some of which overlap across the various domains of resilience.
... • Findings support the independent contributions of genetic and socialization factors to children's self-regulation. studies of regulation-related outcomes, such as externalizing difficulties and social competence, have highlighted the importance of parenting behavior as an environmental influence, providing some support for the presence of socialization influences on children's top-down self-regulation (e.g., Roisman & Fraley, 2012). Based on the implications for understanding mechanisms involved in the development of top-down self-regulation, it is critical to investigate whether the influence of parenting on children's top-down selfregulation can be demonstrated using a design that removes the possible confound of parents and children sharing genes, such as an adoption design. ...
Article
The origins of top-down self-regulation are attributed to genetic and socialization factors as evidenced by high heritability estimates from twin studies and the influential role of parenting. However, recent evidence suggests that parenting behavior itself is affected by parents’ own top-down self-regulation. Because children’s top-down self-regulation is influenced by genetic factors and parenting is influenced by top-down self-regulation, the effects of parenting on children’s top-down self-regulation identified in prior studies may partially reflect passive gene–environment correlation. The goal of this study was to examine parenting influences on children’s top-down self-regulation using a longitudinal, adoption-at- birth design, a method of identifying parenting influences that are independent of the role of shared genetic influences on children’s characteristics because adoptive parents are genetically unrelated to their adopted child. Participants (N = 361) included adoptive families and biological mothers of adopted children. Adoptive mothers’ and fathers’ harsh/negative parenting were assessed when children were 27 months of age and biological mothers’ top-down self-regulation was assessed when children were 54 months of age. Adopted children’s top-down self-regulation was assessed when they were 54 and 72 months of age. Results, accounting for child gender, biological mother top-down self-regulation, and the potential evocative effects of adopted child anger, provide evidence that inherited influences and socialization processes uniquely contribute to children’s top-down self-regulation. Furthermore, findings demonstrate the importance of both mother’s and father’s parenting behavior as an influence on young children’s top-down self-regulation. The implications of these findings for understanding the complex mechanisms that influence children’s top-down self-regulation are discussed.
... This research will be crucial for furthering our understanding of infants with less supportive parenting. In particular, if it is the case that (a) from a very early age, infants expect individuals to care about their ingroup members and to support their welfare via comforting, helping, and other prosocial actions, and (b) this abstract expectation persists even in the face of unsupportive parenting, then this could help explain why lower quality parental care, which repeatedly violates this expectation, has enduring negative consequences for social competence and mental health (e.g., Fearon, Bakermans-Kranenburg, Van IJzendoorn, Lapsley, & Roisman, 2010;Fraley, Roisman, & Haltigan, 2013;Groh, Roisman, Van IJzendoorn, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & Fearon, 2012;Groh et al., 2014;Jaffari-Bimmel, Juffer, Van IJzendoorn, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & Mooijaart, 2006;Raby, Roisman, Fraley, & Simpson, 2015;Roisman & Fraley, 2012). ...
... Finally, it should be noted that magnitude of effects of parenting and child care type on children's school readiness were consistent with previous research using similar ECLS-B measures in other subsamples (e.g. Rispoli et al., 2013;Roisman & Fraley, 2012;Yucel & Downey, 2010). ...
Article
This study evaluated whether parenting and childcare experience across infancy and toddlerhood were associated with children’s reading, math, and social–behavioural skills prior to kindergarten entry. Analyses also examined whether race or ethnicity moderated associations. A representative sample of Hispanic, Black, and White children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Birth Cohort (N = 4550) was used. Parents’ responsiveness in infancy and supportiveness in toddlerhood, as well as the home learning environment in toddlerhood, related to academic and social–emotional and behavioural readiness. Associations between certain parenting behaviours and child outcomes varied as a function of race. Additionally, compared to parent-only childcare, attendance in centre-based care at two years of age related to higher early math skills. Findings highlight the need for culturally specific early intervention to support parents in shaping early social–emotional skills in children, and suggest that exposure to centre-based childcare in the toddler years may benefit math readiness.
... There are several reasons, however, to doubt that shared genetic variance played a major role in the results reported here. Most importantly, several genetically-informed twin studies suggest that the variance in maternal behavior (Roisman & Fraley, 2008), as well as the covariance between parenting and different aspects of child functioning (Fearon et al., 2006;Roisman & Fraley, 2012;Tither & Ellis, 2008), are largely due to environmental influences, with small genetic contributions. In addition, we controlled for prior EEG power in predicting subsequent power. ...
Article
Full-text available
The aim of this study was to investigate if normative variations in parenting relate to brain development among typically developing children. A sample of 352 mother-infant dyads came to the laboratory when infants were 5, 10, and 24 months of age (final N = 215). At each visit, child resting electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Mother-infant interactions were videotaped at the 5-month visit. The results indicated that higher quality maternal behavior during mother-infant interactions predicted higher frontal resting EEG power at 10 and 24 months, as well as increases in power between 5 and 10 months, and between 10 and 24 months. These findings provide rare support for the hypothesis that normative variation in parenting quality may contribute to brain development among typically developing infants.
... At the same time, it is clear that parental sensitivity/cooperation is a central aspect of "parenting" more generally; insofar as our sensitivity index was linked to every other parenting, cognitive, and demographic predictor variable (for mothers, and nearly so for fathers). This finding is, in itself, novel and provocative and should prompt further analysis and theory building in this dataset and in others, as well as new, focused research on the long-term impact of sensitive/cooperative parenting over the course of childhood and adolescence (e.g., Fraley, Roisman, & Haltigan, 2013;Roisman & Fraley, 2012). It is interesting also that the effects of maternal sensitivity appear to be fully mediated by subsequent parenting qualities, but that fathers' sensitivity remained significant at every step of the hierarchical regression analysis. ...
Article
Although attachment theory claims that early attachment representations reflecting the quality of the child's "lived experiences" are maintained across developmental transitions, evidence that has emerged over the last decade suggests that the association between early relationship quality and adolescents' attachment representations is fairly modest in magnitude. We used aspects of parenting beyond sensitivity over childhood and adolescence and early security to predict adolescents' scripted attachment representations. At age 18 years, 673 participants from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development completed the Attachment Script Assessment from which we derived an assessment of secure base script knowledge. Measures of secure base support from childhood through age 15 years (e.g., parental monitoring of child activity, father presence in the home) were selected as predictors and accounted for an additional 8% of the variance in secure base script knowledge scores above and beyond direct observations of sensitivity and early attachment status alone, suggesting that adolescents' scripted attachment representations reflect multiple domains of parenting. Cognitive and demographic variables also significantly increased predicted variance in secure base script knowledge by 2% each.
... We examined three measures of maternal behavior (i.e., sensitivity to non-distress, positive regard, and stimulation of cognitive development) and six measures of maternal mental-state talk (i.e., talk about the child's cognitions, desires, and emotions, as well as talk about the mother's own or other's cognitions, desires, and emotions; McElwain et al., 2011). The three measures of maternal behavior examined here have cohered in an independent study of mother-child interaction at 24 months (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) and are pertinent to the dual purpose of enjoyment and learning in low-stress play contexts. Moreover, prior studies have typically considered mothers' mental-state talk in relation to sensitivity specifically (e.g., Meins et al., 2001), yet stimulation of cognitive development may be equally important to examine given its explicit focus on the child's mental processes (i.e., learning) and, therefore, its potential overlap with cognitive talk, in particular. ...
Article
Objective: Mental-state talk is an important aspect of parenting, but it is not clear whether this type of talk is structurally distinct from behavioral support or sensitivity. Although assessment of sensitive, supportive behavior captures a mother's responses to her child's needs, mental-state talk assesses a mother's consideration of (and comments on) her child's inner world. This study examined the structure and antecedents of mental-state talk, behavioral support, and sensitivity. Design: Data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development were used, and mothering was assessed during a laboratory session when children were 24 months old (N = 1114). Results: Confirmatory factor analyses provided support for the hypothesized three-factor model, in which maternal supportive behavior, cognitive talk, and desire/emotion talk formed distinct factors. Furthermore, maternal depressive symptoms assessed at 1 and 6 months predicted less supportive behavior, whereas traditional parenting beliefs assessed at 1 month predicted lower levels of all three mothering outcomes. Conclusion: Maternal talk about mental states is a unique component of parenting, and cognitive talk is distinct from desire and emotion talk.
... The findings were found to be statistically significant at 0.05 levels. Glenn and Fraley (2012) examined whether early experiences with primary caregivers are reflected in adaptation of preschool children and the current study provides evidence that early parental support (derived from observations at 24 months and around age 4, in prekindergarten) is associated with academic skill, social competence, and externalizing behavior in kindergarten. Crucially, the shared environment accounted for virtually all of the correlation between parenting and academic skills, roughly half of the association between parenting and social competence, and approximately one fourth of the correlation between parenting and externalizing behavior. ...
Article
Full-text available
ABSTRACT The present study aimed to assess the time differentials among the newly admitted children in the Laboratory Day Care Centre. The study was based upon a sample of 32 (15 male and 17 female) children admitted in April, 2009 & 2010 sessions, as well as their ‘Care Providers (n=3)’ and ‘Parents of the sample children (n=32)’. Observation-cum-Interview method was used for data collection for the study. Based on their non-adjustment reactions, the children were divided into two categories (‘Early Adjusting Children’ and ‘Late Adjusting Children’). This categorization was based on an opinion survey conducted in the five ‘Early Childhood Care Centres’ in Ludhiana City. As per the opinion of the supervisors the 3 weeks time period was kept as the demarcating line for ‘Early and Late Adjusting’ categories of children. Therefore all the children taking more than 3 weeks time for their comfortable adjustment to the Laboratory Day Care Centre were designated as the ‘Late Adjusting Children’. The results of the study highlighted that the girls were taking more time in adjustment as compared to the boys, but the gender differentials within these two categories were found to be statistically non-significant.Childhood Care Centres' in Ludhiana City. As per the opinion of the supervisors the 3 weeks time period was kept as the demarcating line for 'Early and Late Adjusting' categories of children. Therefore all the children taking more than 3 weeks time for their comfortable adjustment to the Laboratory Day Care Centre were designated as the 'Late Adjusting Children'. The results of the study highlighted that the girls were taking more time in adjustment as compared to the boys, but the gender differentials within these two categories were found to be statistically non-significant. KEYWORDS Laboratory Day Care Centre. Care Providers. Early Adjusting Children and Late Adjusting Children
... Given these issues, it is possible that, despite our many controls, the associations between autonomy-supportive parenting and children's executive functions and achievement simply reflect shared genes as suggested by Scarr (1992; see also Scarr & McCartney, 1983). That said, Roisman and Fraley (2012) demonstrated that only a small portion of the link between early parenting and children's achievement is attributable to shared genes. A final limitation is that although the NICHD SECCYD sample includes families who vary widely in terms of their socioeconomic status, it consists primarily of middle-to upper-middle class families in which children are not at risk academically. ...
Article
Full-text available
This study evaluated whether the positive association between early autonomy-supportive parenting and children's subsequent achievement is mediated by children's executive functions. Using observations of mothers' parenting from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1,306), analyses revealed that mothers' autonomy support over the first 3 years of life predicted enhanced executive functions (i.e., inhibition, delay of gratification, and sustained attention) during the year prior to kindergarten and academic achievement in elementary and high school even when mothers' warmth and cognitive stimulation, as well as other factors (e.g., children's early general cognitive skills and mothers' educational attainment) were covaried. Mediation analyses demonstrated that over and above other attributes (e.g., temperament), children's executive functions partially accounted for the association between early autonomy-supportive parenting and children's subsequent achievement.
... One of the major limitations of studies of biologically-related parents and children is that associations between parent and child variables may be due to their genetic similarity instead of environmental influence. However, previous research equipped to account for genetic influences has still found significant environmental influences (Forget-Dubois et al., 2009;Roisman & Fraley, 2012;Stams, Juffer, & van IJzendoorn, 2002). In addition, missing data due to the lack of parent participation or attrition over the course of the study could limit generalizability of the findings. ...
Article
This study examined the concurrent and longitudinal associations of parental responsiveness and inferential language input with cognitive skills and emotion knowledge among socioeconomically disadvantaged preschoolers. Parents and 2- to 4-year-old children (mean age=3.21 years, N=284) participated in a parent-child free play session, and children completed cognitive (language, early literacy, early mathematics) and emotion knowledge assessments. Approximately 1year later, children completed the same assessment battery. Parental responsiveness was coded from the videotaped parent-child free play sessions, and parental inferential language input was coded from transcripts of a subset of 127 of these sessions. All analyses controlled for child age, gender, and parental education, and longitudinal analyses controlled for initial skill level. Parental responsiveness significantly predicted all concurrent cognitive skills as well as literacy, math, and emotion knowledge 1year later. Parental inferential language input was significantly positively associated with children's concurrent emotion knowledge. In longitudinal analyses, an interaction was found such that for children with stronger initial language skills, higher levels of parental inferential language input facilitated greater vocabulary development, whereas for children with weaker initial language skills, there was no association between parental inferential language input and change in children's vocabulary skills. These findings further our understanding of the roles of parental responsiveness and inferential language input in promoting children's school readiness skills. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Article
Why is parenting in adolescence predictive of maladaptive personality in adulthood? This study sets out to investigate environmental and genetic factors underlying the association between parenting and maladaptive personality longitudinally in a large sample of twins. The present study addressed this question via a longitudinal study focused on two cohorts of twins assessed on aspects of perceived parenting (parent- and adolescent-reported) at age 14 years ( n =1,094 pairs). Participants were followed to adulthood, and maladaptive personality traits were self-reported using the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5) at age 24 or 34 years. We then modeled these data using a bivariate biometric model, decomposing parenting-maladaptive personality associations into additive genetic, shared environmental, and nonshared environmental factors. Numerous domains of adolescent-reported parenting predicted adult maladaptive personality. Further, we found evidence for substantial additive genetic ( r a ranging from 0.22 to 0.55) and (to a lesser extent) nonshared environmental factors ( r e ranging from 0.10 to 0.15) that accounted for the association between perceived parenting reported in adolescence and adult personality. Perceived parenting in adolescence and maladaptive personality in adulthood may be related due to some of the same genetic factors contributing to both phenotypes at different developmental periods.
Article
Three studies examined the link between physical and relational self-construal and their child-rearing choices. We predicted that the type of self-construal would positively correlate with the corresponding parenting intentions (Study 1) and practices (Study 2 and 3). Participants in Study 1 were undergraduate students (n = 150), and participants in Studies 2 and 3 were parents recruited from Mechanical Turk (n = 173 and 214). In all three studies, participants completed an online survey that assessed their self-construal and their parenting choices. All three studies showed that physical self-construal was positively correlated with physical parenting decisions. Studies 2 and 3 indicated that relational self-construal and relational parenting decisions were positively correlated.
Article
Full-text available
Objective Children with familial high-risk of schizophrenia (FHR-SZ) or bipolar disorder (FHR-BP) are frequently affected in a range of domains known to be precursors of severe mental illness. No previous studies have gathered known precursors to examine whether they distribute evenly across familial high risk (FHR) children or if they cluster among a smaller group. Since such examination holds the potential to identify high and low risk of severe mental illness groups, we aimed to cluster FHR and control children affected to various degrees. Method In The Danish High Risk and Resilience Study VIA 7, a clinical cohort study, 514 7-year-old children with FHR-SZ or FHR-BP and matched controls were assessed in domains of motor function, neurocognition, emotional control, behavior, social cognition, self-perception, language, psychotic experiences and psychopathology, and grouped using cluster analysis. Associations between clusters and parents’ level of education, functioning, caregiver status, child’s level of stimulation and support in the home, and polygenic risk scores were examined. Results A total of four groups including one of broadly affected children were identified. The broadly affected group was represented 4-5-fold (18.1%) amongst FHR-SZ children and 2-3-fold (10.2%) amongst FHR-BP children, compared to controls (4.1%) (p<0.001), and the broadly affected group had lower levels of caregiver functioning (p<0.001) and stimulation and support at home (p<0.001). Conclusion Precursors of severe mental illness distribute unevenly among FHR children; while approximately half are not affected in any domains, the other half are affected to various degrees. Targeted support towards the affected groups is indicated.
Article
The social environment of animals influences individual social decisions, which in turn feeds back on the social environment. The two halves of this feedback loop are rarely studied in conjunction. Here, I propose and review evidence for a positive feedback loop between sociality and social competence. Because social competence increases the performance during social encounters of all kinds, positive feedback between selection on social competence and sociality seems plausible. In the first part, I present evidence that social competence is an evolving trait: it exhibits consistent variation between individuals, has fitness consequences and is genetically or non-genetically transmitted across generations. In the second part, I propose that the feedback loop between sociality and social competence may be mediated by a link to dispersal propensity. I review the available evidence for this possible mechanism: higher social competence and philopatry may be part of the same social phenotype, and in some social species dispersal propensity is heritable. Finally, I discuss the evolutionary consequences of the proposed mechanism for the scenarios that social phenotype is transmitted genetically or plastically across generations.
Article
Full-text available
Using a nationally representative dataset (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort) and bioecological-cumulative disadvantage framework, the present study investigated the relations between salient child and family risk experiences and American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) children's kindergarten academic and behavioral outcomes. Using hierarchical linear regression, individual risk models, cumulative risk models, and interaction models examining combinations of two types of individual risks were examined. Individual risk models including seven risks (i.e., poverty, preterm/low birth weight, low maternal education, single motherhood, inadequate prenatal care, teen motherhood, and severe maternal depression) revealed that poverty exposure at any point prior to kindergarten was associated with AIAN children's kindergarten academic skills (i.e., reading and math). Cumulative risk models suggest that children exposed to two or more risks displayed lower reading and math skills than those exposed to no or one risk. The interaction models revealed significant risk by risk interaction effects for kindergarten math and all behavior outcomes examined in this study. Specifically, children who experienced poverty and had mothers with risk characteristics (i.e., without a high school diploma or who gave birth as teenagers) demonstrated poorer behavioral outcomes (i.e., lower social competence and approaches to learning as well as higher externalizing behaviors) than children experienced poverty but with mothers having no such risk characteristics. Interestingly, findings also revealed that children living in poverty presented better kindergarten outcomes (i.e., scored higher on math and approaches to learning and lower on externalizing behaviors) when they were living with single mothers than with married/cohabitating parents. Given the salience of specific combinations of poverty and maternal characteristics for AIAN children, implications for two-generation programming is discussed along with the potential value of extended family networks. Further study implication was discussed.
Article
Emerging research suggests that normative variation in parenting quality relates to children's brain development. However, although the young brain is presumed to be especially sensitive to environmental influence, to our knowledge only two studies have examined parenting quality with infants as it relates to indicators of brain development, and both were cross‐sectional. This longitudinal study investigated whether different components of maternal sensitivity in infancy predicted the volume of two brain structures presumed to be particularly sensitive to early experience, namely the amygdala and the hippocampus. Three dimensions of sensitivity (Cooperation/Attunement, Positivity, Accessibility/Availability) were observed in 33 mother–infant dyads at 1 year of age and children underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging at age 10. Higher maternal Accessibility/Availability during mother–infant interactions was found to be predictive of smaller right amygdala volume, while greater maternal positivity was predictive of smaller bilateral hippocampal volumes. These longitudinal findings extend those of previous cross‐sectional studies and suggest that a multidimensional approach to maternal behavior could be a fruitful way to further advance research in this area, given that different facets of parenting might be differentially predictive of distinct aspects of neurodevelopment.
Article
Adults in Nepal (N = 14) and Malawi (N = 12) were interviewed about their views regarding social competence of 5- to 17-year-old children in their societies. Both Nepali and Malawian adults discussed themes consistent with those expected in collectivistic societies with economic challenges (e.g., respect and obedience, family responsibilities, and social relationships). There were also unique themes emphasised in each country, which may correspond with country-specific religious beliefs or social problems (e.g., rules and self-control, and sexual restraint). Results provide novel information regarding adults’ perceptions of children’s social competence in Nepal and Malawi, and may help guide the development of measures of social competence.
Article
Full-text available
An attachment-based, psychotherapeutic parent education course was created for incarcerated mothers and fathers to improve their ability to provide positive parenting and a more stable home environment for their children. The current study assessed the effects of this parenting curriculum on parents’ tendencies to be abusive, their sense of efficacy and satisfaction as a parent, their psychological distress, and their knowledge of child development and positive child guidance strategies. Results of pre-post assessments showed a significant improvement in parents’ sense of efficacy and satisfaction in the parenting role; their knowledge, skills, and behavior as a parent; their understanding of child development; their knowledge of alternatives to using corporal punishment; establishing appropriate parent-child boundaries; and they were less likely to view their child’s independence as a threat. Females showed a significant decrease in distress symptoms. Results are discussed in terms of the critical need for effective, high-quality parent education to break the intergenerational cycle of poor parenting for this at-risk population.
Article
Full-text available
Chapter
The surge in research studies examining gene–environment interplay during the past decade has recently been matched by a strong interest in the development of interventions that are tailored according to a person’s genetic makeup. This intervention approach, often referred to as “precision medicine,” has garnered the attention of politicians, researchers, and the media alike. While recent efforts to pursue a precision medicine initiative have been directed at physical health problems and the medical profession, the high rates of depression and mental illness worldwide suggest a parallel need for improved approaches to prevent developmental psychopathology. This chapter examines the role that findings from behavioral genetics research can play in facilitating a personalized medicine approach to the prevention of behavioral health problems. Ten core standards in prevention science are used as the framework for evaluating the readiness of the field to proceed with a personalized medicine approach to the prevention of psychopathology. It is concluded that the field of behavioral genetics can provide practical, translation-ready findings relevant to the prevention of psychopathology, but that care and attention are needed in regard to matching the body of evidence from behavioral genetics with the standards and goals of prevention science. Next steps in facilitating a behavioral genetics informed approach to the prevention of psychopathology are provided.
Chapter
Genetically sensitive studies of parenting now have a 30-year history, offering sufficient data to draw conclusions about how genes and the environment influence parenting. The majority of this chapter focuses on summarizing this literature. The key aim was to look at potential differences in genetic and environmental influences as a function of informant, study design, age of children, and parenting dimension. Across studies we demonstrate higher heritability for negative versus positive aspects of parenting, and contextualize these findings by outlining traditional socialization theories of parenting, enabling us to draw out the implications of the behavioral genetic findings for the field of parenting more generally. Future directions for research are also suggested.
Article
Over the last four decades the transactional model has emerged as a central fixture of modern developmental science. Despite this, we are aware of no principled approach for determining (a) whether it is actually necessary to invoke transactional mechanisms to explain observed patterns of stability in a given domain of adaptive functioning and (b) the extent to which transactional processes, once identified in aggregate, are accounted for by measured domains with which an aspect of adaptive functioning is theoretically in transaction. Leveraging the fact that transactional mechanisms produce excess stability in an outcome domain above and beyond autoregressive processes, along with the basic logic of mediational analysis, we introduce two novel indexes for studying transactional processes strategically. We apply these metrics to data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development cohort on mother- and teacher-reported externalizing problems and social competence along with teacher-reported and objective assessments of academic skills acquired in Grades 1, 3, and 5. During this developmental period we find that (a) transactional contributions to stability are strongest for teacher-reported outcomes, next strongest for mother-reported outcomes, and relatively weak for objective assessments of academic skills and (b) observed maternal sensitivity (but not child-reported friendship quality) accounts for a modest proportion of the total transactional effects operative in most of the domains of adaptive functioning we studied. Discussion focuses on extending the logic of our approach to additional waves of measurement.
Chapter
This chapter focuses on specific empirically based home and child-care characteristics that put a child at risk for the development of poor social-emotional outcomes. Specifically, we focus on the high-risk home characteristics of maternal depression, child maltreatment, and insecure parent–child attachment. We also discuss high-risk child-care characteristics such as low caregiving quality, placement instability, and teacher–child relationship difficulties. In line with a bioecological systems perspective, we also briefly review the literature documenting that high-risk home and child-care environments are disproportionally experienced by children living in poverty, and that the constellation of risk that often co-occurs with living in poverty has well-known impacts on children's socioemotional outcomes.
Article
This study examined the links between different family structures—capturing type and stability thereof—and preschool-aged children’s likelihood of being obese. We build on the limited number of studies that have pursued this topic by using a large, nationally representative sample of preschool-aged children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey–Birth Cohort (n = 8,350) and exploring a wide range of mechanisms to explain these links. Results revealed that, compared with young children with stably married parents, children in cohabiting- and single-parent families that experienced a prior family structure change were more likely to be obese, except for children in single-parent families born to married parents. Children in step, stably single, and stably cohabiting families were at no greater risk of obesity. These patterns were largely driven by female children, for whom the effects of family structure were most robust. None of the 11 tested mechanisms explained such patterns.
Article
Full-text available
Psychologists have long debated the role of early experience in social and cognitive development. However, traditional approaches to studying this issue are not well positioned to address this debate. The authors present simulations that indicate that the associations between early experiences and later outcomes should approach different asymptotic values across time, given alternative assumptions about the developmental significance of early experience. To test the predictions of alternative developmental models, the authors examine data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) on maternal sensitivity in the first 3 years of life and its association with social competence and academic skills through age 15. Across multimethod, multi-informant outcome data, results suggest that there may be enduring effects of early caregiving experiences in both of these domains.
Article
A copublication with the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), Addressing Challenging Behaviors and Mental Health Issues in Early Childhood focuses on research-based strategies for educators to address challenging behaviors of children during early childhood and elementary school years. Utilizing research from the fields of neuroscience, child development, child psychiatry, counselling and applied behavior analysis, the author suggests simple strategies for teachers to manage behaviors and promote mental health and resilience in children with challenging behaviors. Addressing Challenging Behaviors and Mental Health Issues in Early Childhood provides a framework for best practices which are empirically based and have been successfully utilized in the classroom. An appreciation of the deep understanding of culture as it affects curricular approaches, family engagement, and child growth and development is utilized throughout this comprehensive, multidisciplinary resource. Bayat references the most recent research in the field of child mental health and provides educational and intervention approaches that are appropriate for all children with and without disabilities.
Article
Full-text available
Data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1,312) were analyzed to examine whether the adverse effects of early insensitive parenting on children's academic functioning can be offset by parents' later involvement in children's education. Observations of mothers' early insensitivity (i.e., 6-54 months) interacted with teachers' reports of parents' later involvement (i.e., 1st-5th grade) in predicting children's academic functioning as reflected in observed classroom engagement and performance on standardized achievement tests at the end of elementary school (i.e., 5th grade): Although mothers' insensitivity foreshadowed dampened academic functioning among children when parents' involvement was relatively low, it did not do so when parents' involvement was average or higher.
Article
Full-text available
This study evaluated the sensitivity of maximum likelihood (ML)- generalized least squares (GLS) - and asymptotic distribution-free (ADF)-based fit indices to model misspecification under conditions that varied sample size and distribution. The effect of violating assumptions of asymptotic robustness theory also was examined. Standardized root-mean-square residual (SRMR) was the most sensitive index to models with misspecified factor covariance(s) and Tucker–Lewis Index (1973; TLI)Bollen's fit index (1989; BL89) relative noncentrality index (RNI) comparative fit index (CFI) and the ML- and GLS-based gamma hat McDonald's centrality index (1989; Mc) and root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) were the most sensitive indices to models with misspecified factor loadings. With ML and GLS methods we recommend the use of SRMR supplemented by TLI BL89 RNI CFI gamma hat Mc or RMSEA (TLI Mc and RMSEA are less preferable at small sample sizes). With the ADF method we recommend the use of SRMR supplemented by TLI BL89 RNI or CFI. Finally most of the ML-based fit indices outperformed those obtained from GLS and ADF and are preferable for evaluating model fit.
Article
Full-text available
There have been strong critiques of the notion that environmental influences can have an important effect on psychological functioning. The substance of these criticisms is considered in order to infer the methodological challenges that have to be met. Concepts of cause and of the testing of causal effects are discussed with a particular focus on the need to consider sample selection and the value (and limitations) of longitudinal data. The designs that may be used to test hypotheses on specific environmental risk mechanisms for psychopathology are discussed in relation to a range of adoption strategies, twin designs, various types of "natural experiments," migration designs, the study of secular change, and intervention designs. In each case, consideration is given to the need for samples that "pull-apart" variables that ordinarily go together, specific hypotheses on possible causal processes, and the specification and testing of key assumptions. It is concluded that environmental risk hypotheses can be (and have been) put to the test but that it is usually necessary to use a combination of research strategies.
Article
Full-text available
Psychologists have long debated the role of early experience in social and cognitive development. However, traditional approaches to studying this issue are not well positioned to address this debate. The authors present simulations that indicate that the associations between early experiences and later outcomes should approach different asymptotic values across time, given alternative assumptions about the developmental significance of early experience. To test the predictions of alternative developmental models, the authors examine data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) on maternal sensitivity in the first 3 years of life and its association with social competence and academic skills through age 15. Across multimethod, multi-informant outcome data, results suggest that there may be enduring effects of early caregiving experiences in both of these domains.
Article
Full-text available
There is now a large body of evidence that supports the conclusion that individual differences in most, if not all, reliably measured psychological traits, normal and abnormal, are substantively influenced by genetic factors. This fact has important implications for research and theory building in psychology, as evidence of genetic influence unleashes a cascade of questions regarding the sources of variance in such traits. A brief list of those questions is provided, and representative findings regarding genetic and environmental influences are presented for the domains of personality, intelligence, psychological interests, psychiatric illnesses, and social attitudes. These findings are consistent with those reported for the traits of other species and for many human physical traits, suggesting that they may represent a general biological phenomenon.
Article
Full-text available
Chance and Necessity .Three Fixed Ideas.Traditional Models of Change. Development in Context. Progress and the Metaphor of Development. Behavior Serves Many Masters. Newton, Einstein, Piaget, and the Self. Consciousness and Being. Adaptation and the Nature of Social Life. Time, Sudden Change, and Catastrophe. Cure or Care.
Article
Full-text available
Three assumptions that remain popular among many contemporary psychologists are the lasting influence of early experience, the broad generalizability of psychological processes across different agents and contexts, and sensory pleasure as a primary goal of much human behavior. This article critically evaluates these ideas. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Full-text available
Do parents have any important long-term effects on the development of their child's personality? This article examines the evidence and concludes that the answer is no. A new theory of development is proposed: that socialization is context-specific and that outside-the-home socialization takes place in the peer groups of childhood and adolescence. Intra- and intergroup processes, not dyadic relationships, are responsible for the transmission of culture and for environmental modification of children's personality characteristics. The universality of children's groups explains why development is not derailed by the wide variations in parental behavior found within and between societies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Full-text available
A fundamental question in the discipline of developmental psychopathology is whether early interpersonal experiences influence maladaptation in enduring or transient ways. We address this issue by applying a structural modeling approach developed by us to examine data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development on maternal sensitivity in the first 3 years of life and its association with symptoms of psychopathology through age 15. Results suggest that there may be enduring effects of early caregiving experiences on symptomatology as rated by teachers, although such effects were not found for maternal report. Additional analyses indicated that enduring associations found via teacher report could not be fully accounted for by continuity in caregiving experiences or by early contextual adversity.
Article
Full-text available
2 strategies were used to investigate the continued impact of early experience and adaptation given subsequent experience and/or developmental change in a poverty sample (N = 190). Groups were defined whose adaptation was similar during the preschool years but consistently different earlier; then these 2 groups were compared in elementary school. In addition, a series of regression analyses was performed in which variance accounted for by near-in or contemporary predictors of adaptation in middle childhood was removed before adding earlier adaptation in subsequent steps. Children showing positive adaptation in the infant/toddler period showed greater rebound in the elementary school years, despite poor functioning in the preschool period. Regression analyses revealed some incremental power of early predictors with intermediate predictors removed. The results were interpreted as supporting Bowlby's thesis that adaptation is always a product of both developmental history and current circumstances. While this research cannot resolve such a complicated issue, it does point to the need for complex formulations to guide research on individual development.
Article
Full-text available
One of the most important findings that has emerged from human behavioral genetics involves the environment rather than heredity, providing the best available evidence for the importance of environmental influences on personality, psychopathology, and cognition. The research also converges on the remarkable conclusion that these environmental influences make two children in the same family as different from one another as are pairs of children selected randomly from the population. The theme of the target article is that environmental differences between children in the same family (called “nonshared environment”) represent the major source of environmental variance for personality, psychopathology, and cognitive abilities. One example of the evidence that supports this conclusion involves correlations for pairs of adopted children reared in the same family from early in life. Because these children share family environment but not heredity, their correlation directly estimates the importance of shared family environment. For most psychological characteristics, correlations for adoptive “siblings” hover near zero, which implies that the relevant environmental influences are not shared by children in the same family. Although it has been thought that cognitive abilities represent an exception to this rule, recent data suggest that environmental variance that affects IQ is also of the nonshared variety after adolescence. The article has three goals: (1) To describe quantitative genetic methods and research that lead to the conclusion that nonshared environment is responsible for most environmental variation relevant to psychological development, (2) to discuss specific nonshared environmental influences that have been studied to date, and (3) to consider relationships between nonshared environmental influences and behavioral differences between children in the same family. The reason for presenting this article in BBS is to draw attention to the far-reaching implications of finding that psychologically relevant environmental influences make children in a family different from, not similar to, one another.
Article
Full-text available
The Strange Situation procedure was developed by Ainsworth two decades agoas a means of assessing the security of infant-parent attachment. Users of the procedureclaim that it provides a way of determining whether the infant has developed species-appropriate adaptive behavior as a result of rearing in an evolutionary appropriate context, characterized by a sensitively responsive parent. Only when the parent behaves in the sensitive, species-appropriate fashion is the baby said to behave in the adaptive or secure fashion. Furthermore, when infants are observed repeatedly in the Strange Situation,the pattern of behavior is said to be highly similar, and this pattern is said to predict the infants' future behavior in a diverse array of contexts. After an exhaustive review of the literature, it is shown that these popular claims are empirically unsupported in their strong form, and that the interpretations in terms of biological adaptationare misguided. There is little reliable evidence about the specific dimensions of parental behavior that affect Strange Situation behavior, although there does appear to be some relationship between these constructs. Temporal stability in security of attachment ishigh only when there is stability in family and caretaking circumstances. Likewise, patterns of Strange Situation behavior only have substantial predictive validity in similarly stable families. Implications for future research and theorizing — particularly as they relate to the use of evolutionary biology in psychological theory — are discussed.
Article
Full-text available
Behavioral genetic research has concluded that the more important environmental influences result in differences between siblings (referred to as nonshared; e2), whereas environmental influences that create similarities between siblings (referred to as shared; c2) are indistinguishable from zero. However, there is mounting evidence that during childhood and adolescence, c2 may make important contributions to most forms of psychopathology. The aim of the meta-analysis was to empirically confirm this hypothesis. The author examined twin and adoption studies (n=490) of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology prior to adulthood. Analyses revealed that c2 accounted for 10%-19% of the variance within conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, anxiety, depression, and broad internalizing and externalizing disorders, regardless of their operationalization. When age, informant, and sex effects were considered, c2 generally ranged from 10%-30% of the variance. Importantly, c2 estimates did not vary across twin and adoption studies, suggesting that these estimates reflect actual environmental influences common to siblings. The only exception was attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, which appeared to be largely genetic (and particularly nonadditive genetic) in origin. Conceptual, methodological, and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
Article
Full-text available
Both oxytocin and serotonin modulate affiliative responses to partners and offspring. Animal studies suggest a crucial role of oxytocin in mammalian parturition and lactation but also in parenting and social interactions with offspring. The serotonergic system may also be important through its influence on mood and the release of oxytocin. We examined the role of serotonin transporter (5-HTT) and oxytocin receptor (OXTR) genes in explaining differences in sensitive parenting in a community sample of 159 Caucasian, middle-class mothers with their 2-year-old toddlers at risk for externalizing behavior problems, taking into account maternal educational level, maternal depression and the quality of the marital relationship. Independent genetic effects of 5-HTTLPR SCL6A4 and OXTR rs53576 on observed maternal sensitivity were found. Controlling for differences in maternal education, depression and marital discord, parents with the possibly less efficient variants of the serotonergic (5-HTT ss) and oxytonergic (AA/AG) system genes showed lower levels of sensitive responsiveness to their toddlers. Two-way and three-way interactions with marital discord or depression were not significant. This first study on the role of both OXTR and 5-HTT genes in human parenting points to molecular genetic differences that may be implicated in the production of oxytocin explaining differences in sensitive parenting.
Article
Full-text available
This meta-analysis included 66 studies (N = 4,176) on parental antecedents of attachment security. The question addressed was whether maternal sensitivity is associated with infant attachment security, and what the strength of this relation is. It was hypothesized that studies more similar to Ainsworth's Baltimore study (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) would show stronger associations than studies diverging from this pioneering study. To create conceptually homogeneous sets of studies, experts divided the studies into 9 groups with similar constructs and measures of parenting. For each domain, a meta-analysis was performed to describe the central tendency, variability, and relevant moderators. After correction for attenuation, the 21 studies (N = 1,099) in which the Strange Situation procedure in nonclinical samples was used, as well as preceding or concurrent observational sensitivity measures, showed a combined effect size of r(1,097) = .24. According to Cohen's (1988) conventional criteria, the association is moderately strong. It is concluded that in normal settings sensitivity is an important but not exclusive condition of attachment security. Several other dimensions of parenting are identified as playing an equally important role. In attachment theory, a move to the contextual level is required to interpret the complex transactions between context and sensitivity in less stable and more stressful settings, and to pay more attention to nonshared environmental influences.
Article
Full-text available
When genetic similarity is controlled, siblings often appear no more alike than individuals selected at random from the population. Since R. Plomin and D. Daniels' seminal 1987 review, it has become widely accepted that the source of this dissimilarity is a variance component called nonshared environment. The authors review the conceptual foundations of nonshared environment, with emphasis on distinctions between components of environmental variance and causal properties of environmental events and between the effective and objective aspects of the environment. A statistical model of shared and nonshared environmental variables is developed. A quantitative review shows that measured nonshared environmental variables do not account for a substantial portion of the nonshared variability posited by biometric studies of behavior. Other explanations of the preponderance of nonshared environmental variability are suggested.
Article
Full-text available
In a longitudinal study, internationally adopted children (N = 146) placed before 6 months of age were followed from infancy to age 7. Results showed that girls were better adjusted than boys, except in cognitive development, and that easy temperament was associated with higher levels of social, cognitive, and personality development and fewer behavior problems. Higher quality of child-mother relationships, in terms of attachment security and maternal sensitivity, uniquely predicted better social and cognitive development. The combination of attachment disorganization and difficult temperament predicted less optimal ego-control and lower levels of cognitive development. It is concluded that even in adopted children, who are not biologically related to their adoptive parents, early mother-infant interactions and attachment relationships predict later socioemotional and cognitive development, beyond infant temperament and gender.
Article
Full-text available
This study examined 2 samples of adolescents and mothers using a child-based design (Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development [NEAD] project, N = 395 families) and a parent-based design (Twin Moms [TM] project, N = 236 twin family pairs) to compare genetic and environmental influences on mothering. For both samples, the same measures of positivity, negativity, control, and monitoring were used. The use of matched child-based and parent-based samples enabled passive and nonpassive genotype-environment (GE) correlations to be approximated, providing information about process. Passive GE correlations were suggested for mother's positivity and monitoring. For mother's negativity and control, primarily nonpassive GE correlations were suggested. In several cases, both types of GE correlation were indicated. Finally, observer ratings of negativity and monitoring were influenced only by environmental factors.
Article
Full-text available
In this first behavior genetic study on infant-father attachment, we estimated genetic and environmental influences on infant-father attachment behaviors and on temperamental dependency, both assessed with the Attachment Q-Sort (AQS; B. E. Vaughn & E. Waters, 1990; E. Waters, 1995). Mothers of mono- and dizygotic twins (N = 56 pairs) sorted the AQS with a focus on the infant's behaviors in the presence of the father. Genetic modeling showed that attachment was largely explained by shared environmental (59%) and unique environmental (41%) factors. For dependency, genetic factors explained 66% of the variance, and unique environmental factors including measurement error explained 34%. Attachment to father appears to be, to a significant degree, a function of the environment that twins share.
Article
Full-text available
Although attachment theory suggests that childhood experiences with caregivers serve as a prototype for adult love relationships, few explicit tests of this hypothesis exist in the literature. Drawing on data from a longitudinal cohort followed from birth to young adulthood, this paper examined correlates and antecedents of young adults' representations of and behavior in their current romantic relationship. Young adults who experienced a secure relationship with their primary caregiver in infancy as assessed in the Strange Situation were more likely to (a) produce coherent discourse regarding their current romantic partnership in the context of the Current Relationship Interview (CRI) and (b) have a higher quality romantic relationship as observed in standard conflict and collaboration tasks. Infant security accounted for variation in CRI security above and beyond the observed quality of participants' current romantic relationship. In contrast, the association between infant and romantic security was partially mediated by individuals' self-reports about their romantic experiences, suggesting that one plausible mechanism by which early experiences with caregivers shape young adults' representations of their attachments with romantic partners is through adults' expectations for and perceptions of love relationships.
Article
Full-text available
Parental divorce is associated with a number of emotional and behavioral problems in young-adult offspring, but theoretical and empirical considerations suggest that the relation may be partially or fully accounted for by passive gene-environment correlation or environmental selection characteristics. The current study used the Children of Twins Design to explore whether shared environmental or genetic factors confound the relationship between parental marital instability and measures of psychopathology. Comparisons of the offspring of adult twins in Australia on 3 factors of abnormal behavior, including drug and alcohol, behavioral, and internalizing problems, suggest that environmental influences associated with divorce account for the higher rates of psychopathology. The results are consistent with a causal connection between marital instability and psychopathology in young-adult offspring.
Article
Full-text available
This article takes issue with the behavior-genetic analysis of parenting style presented by M. McGue, I. Elkins, B. Walden, and W. G. Iacono. The author argues that the attribution of their findings to inherited genetic effects was without basis because McGue et al. never indicated how those genetic effects manifested themselves. Instead, McGue et al. neglected important, and inevitable, developmental effects that most developmental psychologists understand to influence parent and adolescent behavior. The author also suggests that there is great merit in adopting the approach of developmental systems theory in understanding McGue et al.'s findings in particular and all developmental phenomena in general.
Article
Full-text available
M. McGue, I. Elkins, B. Walden, and W. G. Iacono presented the findings from a twin study examining the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to the developmental trajectories of parent-adolescent relationships. From a behavioral genetics perspective, this study is well conceptualized, is well implemented, and raises some interesting developmental questions. Yet, the classic twin methodology and heritability estimates obfuscate the dynamic gene-ecology transactions that underlie these social developmental trajectories. There is a growing divide between the findings of quantitative behavioral genetics, with its foundational estimate of a statistical genetic influence, and developmental molecular genetics. This comment provides a brief overview of this divide and its implications for the findings of McGue et al. as well as quantitative behavioral genetics more broadly.
Article
Full-text available
Studies of families with adopted children are of special interest to attachment theorists because they afford opportunities to probe assumptions of attachment theory with regard to the developmental timing of interactions necessary to form primary attachments and also with regard to effects of shared genes on child attachment quality. In Bowlby's model, attachment-relevant behaviors and interactions are observable from the moment of birth, but for adoptive families, these interactions cannot begin until the child enters the family, sometimes several months or even years post-partum. Furthermore, because adoptive parents and adopted children do not usually share genes by common descent, any correspondence between attachment representations of the parent and secure base behavior of the child must arise as a consequence of dyadic interaction histories. The objectives of this study were to evaluate whether the child's age at the time of adoption or at the time of attachment assessment predicted child attachment security in adoptive families and also whether the adoptive mother's internal attachment representation predicted the child's attachment security. The participants were 106 mother – child dyads selected from the 406 adoptions carried out through the Lisbon Department of Adoption Services over a period of 3 years. The Attachment Behavior Q-Set (AQS; Waters, 199544. Waters , E. 1995. “The attachment Q-set (Version 3)”. In Caregiving, cultural, and cognitive perspectives on secure-base behavior and working models: New growing points of attachment theory and research. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Edited by: Waters , E. , Vaughn , B. , Posada , G. and Kondo-Ikemura , K. 234–246. 60(2 – 3, Serial No. 244) (Original work published 1987) View all references) was used to assess secure base behavior and an attachment script representation task was used to assess the maternal attachment representations. Neither child's age at the time of adoption, nor age of the child at assessment significantly predicted the AQS security score; however, scores reflecting the presence and quality of maternal secure base scripts did predict AQS security. These findings support the notion that the transmission of attachment security across generations involves mutual exchanges and learning by the child and that the exchanges leading to secure attachment need not begin at birth. These results complement the findings and conceptual arguments offered by Bowlby and Ainsworth concerning the critical influence of maternal representations of attachment to the quality of attachment security in children.
Article
Full-text available
In the present longitudinal study, early adopted children (N = 160) were followed from infancy to adolescence to assess the influence of previous and concurrent factors on the children's social development. This study allowed for more conclusive evidence of the influence of early and concurrent rearing experiences and temperament on adolescents' social development, independent of shared genetic factors between children and parents. Results showed that social development and temperament were stable over time and that both previous and current parental sensitivity were important in predicting social development in adolescence. Quality of the early parent-child relationship was indirectly associated with social development in adolescence through the influence on social development in middle childhood. Maternal sensitivity in middle childhood and in adolescence partly buffered the negative effects of difficult temperament on social development in adolescence. Adaptation emerged as the product of both developmental history and current circumstances.
Article
Full-text available
The current article presents results from a twin study of genetic and environmental components of maternal sensitivity and infant attachment and their association. The sample consisted of 136 twin pairs from 2 sites: Leiden, the Netherlands, and London, UK. Maternal sensitivity was assessed in the home at 9-10 months, and infant attachment security was observed in the laboratory at 12 months. The study yielded little evidence that genetic factors are involved in variations between twins in maternal sensitivity ratings but did find that shared variance in maternal sensitivity was able to account for some of the similarity between twins in attachment security. Weak nonshared associations between sensitivity and attachment appeared to suppress the magnitude of the correlation between attachment and sensitivity in twin children. The results could indicate that the attachment security of one twin may depend on the relationship the parent has with the other twin. The results are brought to bear on the validity of attachment theory as a theory of primarily shared environmental effects in children's development and the continuing challenge posed to attachment theory by within-family differences in socioemotional processes.
Article
In a longitudinal study, internationally adopted children (N = 146) placed before 6 months of age were followed from infancy to age 7. Results showed that girls were better adjusted than boys, except in cognitive development, and that easy temperament was associated with higher levels of social, cognitive, and personality development and fewer behavior problems. Higher quality of child-mother relationships, in terms of attachment security and maternal sensitivity, uniquely predicted better social and cognitive development. The combination of attachment disorganization and difficult temperament predicted less optimal ego-control and lower levels of cognitive development. It is concluded that even in adopted children, who are not biologically related to their adoptive parents, early mother-infant interactions and attachment relationships predict later socioemotional and cognitive development, beyond infant temperament and gender.
Book
Preface. List of Figures. List of Tables. 1. The Scope of Genetic Analyses. 2. Data Summary. 3. Biometrical Genetics. 4. Matrix Algebra. 5. Path Analysis and Structural Equations. 6. LISREL Models and Methods. 7. Model Fitting Functions and Optimization. 8. Univariate Analysis. 9. Power and Sample Size. 10. Social Interaction. 11. Sex Limitation and GE Interaction. 12. Multivariate Analysis. 13. Direction of Causation. 14. Repeated Measures. 15. Longitudinal Mean Trends. 16. Observer Ratings. 17. Assortment and Cultural Transmission. 18. Future Directions. Appendices: A. List of Participants. B. The Greek Alphabet. C. LISREL Scripts for Univariate Models. D. LISREL Script for Power Calculation. E. LISREL Scripts for Multivariate Models. F. LISREL Script for Sibling Interaction Model. G. LISREL Scripts for Sex and GE Interaction. H. LISREL Script for Rater Bias Model. I. LISREL Scripts for Direction of Causation. J. LISREL Script and Data for Simplex Model. K. LISREL Scripts for Assortment Models. Bibliography. Index.
Article
The Limits of Family Influence: Genes, Experience, and Behavior. David C. Rowe. New York: Guilford Press. 1994. 232 pp. ISBN 0-89862-132-1. $30 cloth. In The Limits of Family Influence, David Rowe carefully delineates the basic view of genetic and environmental effects on children's characteristics espoused by behavior geneticists such as Scarr, Plomin, Loehlin, and Willerman. The thesis of this quite readable book is that variations in shared family environment have little influence on individual trait development. The book challenges many long-held assumptions about socialization, arguing that variables such as social class, single parenthood, parental warmth, and divorce have little effect on personality. Perhaps more than any other treatment of the "nature-nurture" war, The Limits of Family Influence attempts to drive home the distinction between experiences that family members share (operating to make them alike) and experiences that are unique to each family member. In doing so, the book also tries to establish the point that it is not the much-maligned heritability estimate that social policy makers should concern themselves with in making decisions about programs for children and families; rather, it is the proportion of variance attributable to shared family environments--not h sup 2 but c sup 2 . Rowe begins his assault on the bulk of social science research by identifying weaknesses in the psychological theories that undergirded many research efforts--namely, Freudianism, early behaviorism, and social learning theory. He then carefully sets out the behavior genetics research paradigm. The chapter, "Separating Nature and Nurture," is probably as lucid a treatment of this paradigm as can be found anywhere. What follows are extensive treatments of the behavior genetics research on personality factors and intelligence. An entire chapter is devoted to showing how differences in children, previously identified as having been caused by environmental variables such as social class, ethnicity, and parental warmth, may reflect underlying genetic differences in those individuals. Although Rowe does an excellent job of explicating the behavior geneticist's position on environmental influences, The Limits of Family Influence has limitations. First, it offers little that is new. Thus, it is not likely to persuade those whose views of environmental action correspond more closely to the views of Gottlieb or Lerner or Sameroff or Wachs, and so forth. Second, the view of environmental action attacked by Rowe is no longer the dominant view of "environmentalists." Most environmentalists now describe environmental action as complex and dynamic, one in which the child is constantly active. …
Article
The logical difference between the test of significance and the model selection is illustrated by applying an information criterion AIC to some examples of factor analysis. The Bayesian interpretation of information measures for model selection is developed and a Bayesian model is introduced to realize a data dependent adjustment of AIC. The use of the concept of information is further extended to the selection of a prior distribution over a finite set of data distributions.
Article
Behavior genetics has demonstrated that genetic variance is an important component of variation for all behavioral outcomes, but variation among families is not. These results have led some critics of behavior genetics to conclude that heritability is so ubiquitous as to have few consequences for scientific understanding of development, while some behavior genetic partisans have concluded that family environment is not an important cause of developmental outcomes. Both views are incorrect. Genotype is in fact a more systematic source of variability than environment, but for reasons that are methodological rather than substantive. Development is fundamentally nonlinear, interactive, and difficult to control experimentally. Twin studies offer a useful methodological shortcut, but do not show that genes are more fundamental than environments.
Article
This report is Volume 2 of the methodology report that provides information about the development, design, and conduct of the 9-month data collection of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B). This volume begins with a brief overview of the ECLS-B, but focuses on the sample design, calculation of response rates, development of various sets of weights, and nonresponse bias analyses.
Article
Impugns the population approach to developmental behavior-genetic analysis and offers a different developmental perspective for the practice of developmental behavior genetics (DBG). Issues addressed include original objectives of behavior genetics, mainstream developmental behavior genetics (DBG), and behavioral reaction norms. The author states that some psychologists have misapplied the statistical procedures of population genetics in an attempt to explain development. He posits that developmental understanding or explanation is a multilevel affair involving culture, society, immediate social and physical environments, anatomy, physiology, hormones, cytoplasm, and genes. Hierarchical, multi- level or developmental systems' analysis is considered to be methodologically reductionistic as psychological understanding or explanation of analysis is necessary to explain developmental outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
This study evaluated the sensitivity of maximum likelihood (ML)-, generalized least squares (GLS)-, and asymptotic distribution-free (ADF)-based fit indices to model misspecification, under conditions that varied sample size and distribution. The effect of violating assumptions of asymptotic robustness theory also was examined. Standardized root-mean-square residual (SRMR) was the most sensitive index to models with misspecified factor covariance(s), and Tucker-Lewis Index (1973; TLI), Bollen's fit index (1989; BL89), relative noncentrality index (RNI), comparative fit index (CFI), and the ML- and GLS-based gamma hat, McDonald's centrality index (1989; Mc), and root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) were the most sensitive indices to models with misspecified factor loadings. With ML and GLS methods, we recommend the use of SRMR, supplemented by TLI, BL89, RNI, CFI, gamma hat, Mc, or RMSEA (TLI, Mc, and RMSEA are less preferable at small sample sizes). With the ADF method, we recommend the use of SRMR, supplemented by TLI, BL89, RNI, or CH. Finally, most of the ML-based fit indices outperformed those obtained from GLS and ADF and are preferable for evaluating model fit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Understanding both typical human development and individual differences within the same theoretical framework has been difficult because the 2 orientations arise from different philosophical traditions. It is argued that an evolutionary perspective can unite the study of both species-typical development and individual variation. Research on determinants of development from many perspectives can be understood within an evolutionary framework in which organism and environment combine to produce development. Species-normal genes and environments and individual variations in genes and environments both affect personality, social, and intellectual development. These domains are used as examples to integrate theories of normal development and individual differences. Within the usual samples of European, North American, and developed Asian countries, the results of family and twin studies show that environments within the normal species range are crucial to normal development. Given a wide range of environmental opportunities and emotional supports, however, most children in these societies grow up to be individually different based on their individual genotypes. Understanding the ways in which genes and environments work together helps developmentalists to identify children in need of intervention and to tailor interventions to their particular needs.
Article
Relations between nonrelative child care (birth to 4(1/2) years) and functioning at age 15 were examined (N = 1,364). Both quality and quantity of child care were linked to adolescent functioning. Effects were similar in size as those observed at younger ages. Higher quality care predicted higher cognitive-academic achievement at age 15, with escalating positive effects at higher levels of quality. The association between quality and achievement was mediated, in part, by earlier child-care effects on achievement. High-quality early child care also predicted youth reports of less externalizing behavior. More hours of nonrelative care predicted greater risk taking and impulsivity at age 15, relations that were partially mediated by earlier child-care effects on externalizing behaviors.
Article
We draw upon data from a prospective, longitudinal study to evaluate the role of typically occurring variations in early experience on development from birth to adulthood. Such an evaluation is complex for both methodological and conceptual reasons. Methodological issues include the need to control for both later experience and potentially confounding third variables, such as IQ or temperament. Conceptual complexity derives from the fact that the effects of early experience can be both direct and indirect, can interact with other factors, and because whether an effect is found depends on what early experience and what outcomes are assessed. Even direct effects are probabilistic and are more in evidence with cumulative than with single measures. Often early experience has its effect indirectly by initiating a chain of events, by altering the organism in some way, and/or by promoting the impact of later experience. We provide examples where early experience is moderated and mediated by other factors and where it shows latent effects following developmental change. We illustrate developmental processes through which early experience has its effect and conclude that despite the complexity of development variations in early experience retain a vital place in the study of development.
Article
Understanding both typical human development and indivdual differences within the same theoretical framework has been difficult because the 2 orientations arise from different philosophical traditions. It is argued that an evolutionary perspective can unite the study of both species-typical development and individual variation. Research on determininants of development from many perspectives can be understood within an evolutionary framework in which organism and environment combine to produce development. Species-normal genes and environments and indidividual variations in genes and environments both affect personality, social, and intellectual development. These domains are used as examples to integrate theories of normal development and individual differences. Within the usual samples of European, North American, and developed Asian countries, the results of family and twin studies show that environments within the normal species range are crucial to normal development. Given a wide range of environmental opportunities and emotional supports, however, most children in these societies grow up to be individually different based on their individual genotypes. Understanding the ways in which genes and environments work together helps developmentalists to identify children in need of intervention and to tailor interventions to their particular needs.
Article
Developmental change in twin similarity was examined with age contrasts in a meta-analysis of twin studies from 1967 through 1985. Intraclass rs were coded from 103 papers that included data for monozygotic or dizygotic twins, or for both, on personality or intelligence variables. Analyses indicated that there was a general tendency for some intraclass rs to decrease with age. In other words, as twins grow up, they grow apart. There were also developmental differences associated with components of variance for heritability, the shared environment, and the nonshared environment. Mechanisms through which the nonshared environment may operate are discussed.
Article
2 strategies were used to investigate the continued impact of early experience and adaptation given subsequent experience and/or developmental change in a poverty sample (N = 190). Groups were defined whose adaptation was similar during the preschool years but consistently different earlier; then these 2 groups were compared in elementary school. In addition, a series of regression analyses was performed in which variance accounted for by near-in or contemporary predictors of adaptation in middle childhood was removed before adding earlier adaptation in subsequent steps. Children showing positive adaptation in the infant/toddler period showed greater rebound in the elementary school years, despite poor functioning in the preschool period. Regression analyses revealed some incremental power of early predictors with intermediate predictors removed. The results were interpreted as supporting Bowlby's thesis that adaptation is always a product of both developmental history and current circumstances. While this research cannot resolve such a complicated issue, it does point to the need for complex formulations to guide research on individual development.