Poster #31 - The Transactional Process Involved in the Development of Child Externalizing Symptoms

• In Event: Poster Session 01

Abstract

Childhood externalizing symptoms are associated with poor educational achievement, delinquency, and adolescent substance use. It is well-established that the development of child externalizing symptoms is due in part to transactional processes between parents and children. Additionally, prior literature supports parental warmth as a buffer to the development of child externalizing symptoms (Akcinar & Shaw, 2017; Reuben et al., 2016). The focus of this study was to evaluate the transactional processes in the postnatal environment in relation to child externalizing symptoms. We did so using an adopted-at-birth design, which allowed us to control for genetic influences: relations between birth parent and adopted child characteristics indicate genetic influences.

Data were from the Early Growth and Development Study (N = 561), a US-based sample of children adopted into non-genetically related families at birth. We examined 1) the transactional process between infant negative affect and over-reactive parenting at infant ages 9, 18, and 27-months, 2) whether infant negative affect and over-reactive parenting influenced the development of child externalizing symptoms at age 7, and 3) whether parental warmth moderated the effects of infant negative affect on child externalizing symptoms and over-reactive parenting on child externalizing symptoms after controlling covariates including genetic risk. Infant negative affect and over-reactive parenting was measured at 9, 18, and 27-months, by averaging parent’s scores on the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire and Parenting Scale, respectively. Child externalizing behavior was measured via the parent’s report on the Child Behavior Checklist at age 7. Parental warmth was measured by averaging observed scores of mothers’ and fathers’ warmth during a parent child teaching task at infant age 9 and 18-months. Covariates included pregnancy complications, child sex, child age, and adoption openness.

In Mplus, a random-intercept cross-lagged-panel-model was fit to the repeated measures of infant negative affect and over-reactive parenting. Then, the age 27-month levels of negative affect and over-reactive parenting predicted age 7 externalizing problems (see Figure 1). Parental warmth was tested as a moderator of these paths (see Figure 1). For infant negative affect, there was autoregressive stability from 9 to 18 months and from 18 to 27-months. Autoregressive paths from 9 to 18 and 18 to 27-months were also present for over-reactive parenting. There were time-specific correlations between infant negative affect and over-reactive parenting at 18 and 27-months. Negative affect at 18-months predicted increased over-reactive parenting at 27-months; there was one cross lagged effect from infant negative affect at 18-months to over-reactive parenting at 27-months. And the random intercepts were not correlated. Infant negative affect and over-reactive parenting at 27-months predicted child externalizing symptoms at age 7. However, there were no moderating effects of parental warmth. Results suggest that infant negative affect and over-reactive parenting is stable during infancy, that associations of negative affect and over-reactive parenting are time-specific and emerge during toddlerhood, that infant negative affect and over-reactive parenting at 27-months predicts child externalizing symptoms at age 7, that there is a transactional process from infant negative affect to over-reactive parenting later in infancy with no moderating effects of parental warmth.

Authors

• Sohee Lee, Purdue University, West Lafayette
  Presenting Author

• Olivia Robertson, Purdue University, West Lafayette

• Kristine Marceau, Purdue University, West Lafayette

• Valerie Knopik, Purdue University, West Lafayette

• Misaki N. Natsuaki, University of California - Riverside

• Daniel S. Shaw, University of Pittsburgh

• David Reiss, Yale University

• Leslie D. Leve, University of Oregon

• Jody M. Ganiban, George Washington University

• Jenae M Neiderhiser, Pennsylvania State University, University Park