Poster #54 - Parental Monitoring Mediates the Puberty-Externalizing Problems Link: Findings from an Adoption Study

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Puberty, especially early puberty, has been associated with externalizing behaviors during adolescence (Dimler & Natsuaki, 2015), especially for girls (i.e., Negriff & Susman, 2011). In an attempt to understand mechanisms underlying this association, research has focused on others’ reactions to early maturation. The puberty-initiated mediation hypothesis states that in cultures where puberty and sexual maturation is perceived as a negative or ambivalent event, early maturation elicits awkward and negative reactions from caregivers, which in turn compromise healthy development (Ge et al., 2011; Natsuaki et al., 2014). The support of this hypothesis comes from evidence showing that early maturation is concurrently associated with negative parent-child interactions (Steinberg, 1988). While the puberty-initiated mediation hypothesis focuses on others’ negative reactions to early maturation, we propose that early maturation could also elicit health-promotive behaviors from parents. For instance, early maturation may potentially increase monitoring behaviors in parents, which in turn could deter adolescents from externalizing behaviors (Dishion & McMahon,1998). In fact, prior work has documented that parental monitoring increases in early-to mid-adolescence (Pettit et al., 2001).
Prior work assessing the puberty-externalizing link has considered biologically related families, which makes it impossible to determine whether the source of association represents environmental or shared genetic influences (Horwitz & Neiderhiser, 2011). Therefore, this study’s aim was to assess the potential mediating role of parental monitoring in the link between early puberty and externalizing behaviors, using an adoption-at-birth design. We hypothesized that girls’ early maturation elicits higher levels of monitoring, which in turn reduces their externalizing problems.

METHOD. Participants were 165 boys and 121 girls who participated in the Early Growth and Development Study, a longitudinal study of adopted children, their biological and adoptive parents (Leve et al., 2013). This study focuses on the age 11 assessment in which puberty was assessed. The Pubertal Development Scale (Peterson et al., 1988) assessed child pubertal development. We adopted a coding system that aligns PDS scores to the Tanner stages of pubertal development (1 = no development; 5 = adult development; Shirtcliff et al., 2009). A total score of pubertal development was calculated by averaging the adrenal and gonadal scores. The Poor Monitoring subscale from the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (Shelton et al., 1996) assessed parental monitoring. Lastly, children’s externalizing behaviors were assessed using parent report on the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1979). Parental age, income, and marital status were included as covariates. Analyses were conducted separately for adoptive mother and father monitoring.

RESULTS and DISCUSSION. Results from mediation analyses for maternal monitoring (Figure 1) indicated that mothers’ monitoring mediated the association between pubertal timing and externalizing behaviors for girls (b = -0.84, p = 0.04) but not boys (b=0.13, ns). However, fathers’ monitoring did not mediate this association for either boys or girls (Figure 2). These findings indicate that maternal monitoring is higher in girls with early pubertal maturation, which in turn reduces rates of girls’ externalizing behaviors. The implications of this puberty-initiated mediation hypothesis will be discussed.

Authors

• Sofia Stepanyan, University of California, Riverside
  Presenting Author

• Misaki N Natsuaki, University of California, Riverside
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laura M Dimler, Regent University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jenae Neiderhiser, The Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daniel S. Shaw, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• David Reiss, Yale Child Study Center
  Non-Presenting Author

• Leslie D. Leve, University of Oregon
  Non-Presenting Author