From Negative Emotionality to Aggressive Behavior: Maternal and Paternal Parenting Stress as Intervening Factors

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Child temperament plays a key role in the development of psychopathology, notably through transactions with the family environment. In particular,...     

Selective attention in major depression: clinical retardation and cognitive inhibition]

Relationships between clinical retardation (measured by the Hamilton Depression Inventory) and selective attention (measured with a computerized version of the Stroop word colour test) were studied in a population of 21 depressed patients. Stroop interference was higher in depressed patients than in normals. Desynchronized presentations of the distractor and the target and intervals between responses and succeeding stimuli permitted depressed subjects to respectively apply and lift inhibition of the distractor so that their interference was reduced to control levels. Finally, successive inhibition scores were correlated with the retardation score in depressed subjects. The results are consistent with the hypothesis of a retardation in the application and the lifting of cognitive inhibition in depression.     

Conduct Problems and Adherence to COVID-19 Guidelines: A Developmental Psychopathology-Informed Approach

COVID-19 underscores the importance of understanding variation in adherence to rules concerning health behaviors. Children with conduct problems have difficulty with rule adherence, and linking early conduct problems with later adherence to COVID-19 guidelines can provide new insight into public health. The current study employed a sample (N = 744) designed to examine the longitudinal consequences of childhood conduct problems (Mean age at study entry = 8.39). The first objective was to link early conduct problems with later adherence to both general and specific COVID-19 guidelines during emerging adulthood (M age = 19.07). The second objective was to prospectively examine how interactional (i.e., callous unemotional traits, impulsivity) and cumulative (i.e., educational attainment, work status, substance use) continuity factors mediated this association. The third objective was to examine differences in sex assigned at birth in these models. Direct associations were observed between childhood conduct problems and lower general, but not specific COVID-19 guideline adherence. Conduct problems were indirectly associated with both general and specific adherence via higher levels of callous unemotional traits, and with specific adherence via higher problematic substance use. No differences in the models were observed across sex assigned at birth. Findings provide insight into both how developmental psychopathology constructs are useful for understanding COVID-19 guideline adherence, and the ways in which conduct problems may shape health outcomes.

     

Similarities and differences in mothers' and observers' ratings of infant security on the Attachment Q-Sort

This study examined the similarities and differences in maternal and observer Attachment Behavior Q-Sort ratings (AQS; Waters, 1995) and their relations to dimensions of the developmental ecology - maternal sensitivity, infant irritability, parental stress and psychosocial risk. Data was gathered from low risk (adult mothers; N=44) and high risk mother-infant dyads (adolescent mothers; N=83) when infants were aged 6, 10 and 15 months old, attachment being assessed at 15 months by both mothers and independent observers. A common factor was extracted from both sorts and served to operationalize the similarities between mother and observer ratings. Regressions were conducted to extract maternal and observer AQS scores that were unrelated to each other to represent the difference between the two sorts. Correlation analyses indicated that the common AQS factor was moderately linked to maternal sensitivity and parental stress, and showed a weak association to psychosocial risk and infant irritability. Residual maternal scores showed greater correlations with infant irritability and parental stress than did observer residual scores. Observer scores showed a greater correlation with psychosocial risk than maternal scores. Results suggest that common AQS variance presents a pattern of associations with ecological variables that is coherent with attachment research. Variance related to irritability, stress and risk appear to drive the differences between maternal and observer observations.