Contextual Risks, Child Problem-solving Profiles, and Problematic Functioning: Testing the Specialization-sensitization hypotheses

• In Event: Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: PS 14 Topic - Family Context & Processes

Abstract

Predominant theories and research suggest that risks within and outside the family undermine children’s cognitive development (e.g., Evans, Li, & Whipple, 2013), including problem-solving skills(e.g., Caughy & O’Campo, 2006; Tamis-LeMonda, Shannon, Cabrera, & Lamb, 2004). Grounded in the evolutionary framework, the specialization-sensitization hypotheses (Ellis, Bianchi, Griskevicius, & Frankenhuis, 2017) stipulates that adverse context may specialize individuals to solve ecologically-relevant problems such that these individuals may exhibit certain enhanced functioning (e.g., Mittal, Griskevicius, Simpson, Sung, & Young, 2015). Towards this, Suor and associates (2017) demonstrated that young children from harsh families exhibited lower problem-solving in an abstract, decontextualized visual-spatial task, but enhanced performance in a task involving an attractive reward. Given this, we sought to adopt a person-centered approach to examine the heterogeneity of problem-solving skills in a visual and a reward-oriented task. We also examined how neighborhood and family risks may be associated with problem-solving patterns, and how the latter may be linked to differences in child problematic functioning.
Participants were 235 children (Mage= 2.97 years) and their parents followed over two annual waves. At Wave one, child problem-solving skills were measured through (a) a visual-spatial task (i.e., block design subset, Wechsler, 2002) and (b) a reward-oriented(RO) task during which children solve a puzzle box to retrieve an attractive toy(Ashley & Tomasello, 2001). Problem-solving was based on (a) the observed levels of persistence and focused attention (Ruff & Capozzoli, 2003); and (b) the performance score in the visual task, and the observed innovative strategy use (Dennis et al., 2009) in the RO task. At Wave 1, Contextual predictors involved the (a) observed maternal sensitivity during a parent-child discussion (Wieland, Green, Ellingsen, & Baker, 2013), (b) mother-reported neighborhood crime (Knight, Smith, Martin, Lewis, & the LOGSCAN Investigators, 2008), and (c) neighborhood poverty based on census data (i.e., percentage of resident poverty). Child externalizing and internalizing problems were rated by the experimenter at wave two (Albow et al., 1999).
Latent profile analyses suggested a four-class solution to capture problem-solving variations in the visual and RO-tasks (Figure 1), including: (Class 1) high visual-low RO, (2) low visual-low RO, (3) high visual-high RO, and (4) low visual-high RO profiles. Next, Vermunt three-step approach (Vermunt, 2010) indicated that greater neighborhood crime was (at least marginally) significantly associated with greater likelihood to be from the low visual-High RO profile compared to the other profiles (Table 1). Greater maternal sensitivity was significantly linked with higher likelihood to be from the high visual-high RO profile compared to the high visual-low RO and the low visual-High RO profiles. Furthermore, the Bolck-Croom Hagenaars (2004) method indicated significant between-profile differences in externalizing problems (Χ2 = 10.55, p = .01). Pairwise comparison indicated that the two profiles with low visual problem-solving (i.e., Class 2 and 4) manifested more externalizing problems than other two profiles (Class 1 and 3). In contrast, only the low visual-low RO profile exhibited more internalizing problems compared to the two high visual problem-solving profiles (i.e., Class 1 and 3).

Authors

• Zhi Li, Peking University
  Presenting Author

• Melissa L Sturge-Apple, University of Rochester
  Non-Presenting Author

• Patrick Davies, University of Rochester
  Non-Presenting Author