Middle Childhood Externalizing Behaviors are Predicted by Early Childhood Maternal and Child Factors

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

Externalizing behaviors (EBs) during childhood are linked to negative outcomes such as aggression and peer rejection (Campbell et al., 2006). Child and mother factors predict EBs. For example, baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), is associated with childhood EBs (Calkins & Dedmon, 2002). Further, child temperamental characteristics, including negative affect, effortful control, and surgency predict EBs (Gartstein et al., 2012). Maternal factors also play a role in childhood EBs. For example, maternal positive affect (measured in terms of warmth) and directiveness predict less EBs (Burt et al., 2013), while behaviors like intrusiveness and predict more EBs (Kingston et al., 2018). However, the relationships between child and maternal factors and childhood EBs are more likely to be investigated during the preschool years. The goal of our study was to assess how these factors in early childhood predict EBs in middle childhood.

We hypothesized that child and maternal factors would both play a role in the development of EBs in middle childhood. We also predicted that temperamental surgency would moderate the link between maternal factors and EBs because of previously reports regarding early surgency and later EBs (Gartstein et al., 2012). Mother-child dyads (N =148) visited the lab at ages 3 and 6. At age 3, baseline RSA data was recorded from children and mothers used the CBQ (Rothbart et al., 2001) to report child temperament. Maternal behaviors (directiveness, positive affect, and intrusiveness) were coded during interaction tasks. At age 6, mothers reported on child EBs using the CBCL (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001). Hierarchical linear regression was used to predict child EBs at age 6 using child and maternal predictors from age 3. Step 1 included child factors, Step 2 included maternal behaviors, controlling for child factors, and Step 3 included interaction terms between surgency and each of the maternal behaviors, controlling for child factors and maternal behaviors.

Age 3 child factors alone did not predict age 6 EBs (Table 1). However, Step 2 of the model was significant [F(3, 140) = 4.457, p = 0.005], accounting for 5.1% of the variance in age 6 EBs. Maternal positive affect (p = 0.008) was the only significant predictor. Step 3 of the model was also significant [F(3, 137) = 3.357, p = 0.017], accounting for 10% of the variance in age 6 EBs. Maternal positive affect (p = 0.012) and the interaction of child surgency and maternal positive affect (p = 0.011) significantly predicted age 6 EBs. We used PROCESS (Hayes, 2018) to run a separate model using child surgency as the moderator of maternal positive affect predicting childhood EBs. Simple slopes analysis at one SD above and below the mean for child surgency showed that the negative association between maternal positive affect and child EBs was significant only for children with low surgency (B = -0.07, p < 0.001; Figure 1).

These results highlight the importance of assessing how both maternal and child factors play a role in the development of negative outcomes, particularly during a transitional time from early to middle childhood.

Authors

• Jennifer Julia Phillips, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
  Presenting Author

• Martha Ann Bell, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
  Non-Presenting Author