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Using prospective longitudinal data, we tested 5 hypotheses: (a) that the relation between earlier developmental experiences (peer social rejection and victimization in a romantic relationship) and adult violent behavior toward peers and romantic partners is specific to relationship domain; (b) that the relation between social-information processing (SIP) biases and subsequent violence is also specific to relational domain (romantic partner vs. peer); (c) that the relation between developmental experiences and SIP biases is domain specific; (d) that domain-specific SIP mediates the impact of earlier developmental experiences on later violent behavior; and (e) that harsh parenting early in life is a domain-general predictor of SIP and later violent behavior. Harsh parenting was assessed through interviews with parents when their children were age 5 years. Classroom sociometric assessments indexing peer rejection were completed in elementary school, and self-report of victimization by romantic partners was provided at age 18 years. SIP was assessed via interview at age 22 years, and violent behavior was measured via self-and partner report at ages 23 years and 24 years. Structural equation analyses revealed specificity in the relation between developmental experiences and violence and in the prediction to and from SIP in the peer domain, but not in the romantic-relationship domain. The impact of early harsh treatment on violence toward peers was mediated by SIP biases in the peer domain. These findings provide support for domain specificity in the peer domain but for cross-domain generality in the romantic relationship domain in the development of violent behavior in early adulthood. Keywords: harsh parenting, peer rejection, romantic partner victimization, social-information processing, violence DOI: 10.1037/a0017991

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01340.x Byline: Jennifer E. Lansford (1), Michael M. Criss (2), Kenneth A. Dodge (3), Daniel S. Shaw (4), Gregory S. Pettit, John E. Bates Abstract: This study examined childhood antecedents and developmental outcomes associated with trajectories of mild and harsh parental physical discipline. Interview, questionnaire, and observational data were available from 499 children followed from ages 5 to 16 and from 258 children in an independent sample followed from ages 5 to 15. Analyses indicated distinct physical discipline trajectory groups that varied in frequency of physical discipline and rate of change. In both samples, family ecological disadvantage differentiated the trajectory groups; in the first sample, early child externalizing also differentiated the groups. Controlling for early childhood externalizing, the minimal/ceasing trajectory groups were associated with the lowest levels of subsequent adolescent antisocial behavior in both samples and with parent-adolescent positive relationship quality in the second sample. Author Affiliation: (1)Duke University (2)Oklahoma State University (3)Duke University (4)University of Pittsburgh Article note: Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jennifer E. Lansford, Duke University, Center for Child and Family Policy, Box 90545, Durham, NC 27708. Electronic mail may be sent to lansford@duke.edu.

In this prospective longitudinal study (N= 585) we examined intergenerational links in level of educational attainment. Of particular interest was whether family background characteristics, parenting in early childhood and early adolescence, and school adjustment and performance in middle childhood accounted for (i.e., mediated) continuity and amplified or attenuated (i.e., moderated) continuity. Family background data, including mother education level, were collected when the children were age 5 years; parenting was assessed at ages 5 and 12; and school adjustment data (behavior problems, peer acceptance, academic performance) were collected in the first four years of elementary school. Cross-generational continuity in educational attainment was moderate (r = .38) and largely indirect via children's academic performance in elementary school and mothers' academic involvement in early adolescence. Moderator analyses indicated greater cross-generational continuity in single-parent families; in families low in proactive teaching, monitoring, and academic involvement; and in families with lower-IQ children who performed poorly in school and were disliked by peers. These findings suggest that distal and proximal family and child characteristics may serve as crucial processes in the intergenerational transmission of low educational attainment., This study is concerned with cross-generational links in level of educational attainment. Educational milestones such as completing high school, attending college, and graduating from college bear a strong relation to [...]

Using longitudinal data on 585 youths (48% female; 17% African American, 2% other ethnic minority), the authors examined the development of social response evaluation and decision (RED) across childhood (Study 1; kindergarten through Grade 3) and adolescence (Study 2; Grades 8 and 11). Participants completed hypothetical-vignette-based RED assessments, and their antisocial behaviors were measured by multiple raters. Structural equation modeling and linear growth analyses indicated that children differentiate alternative responses by Grade 3, but these RED responses were not consistently related to antisocial behavior. Adolescent analyses provided support for a model of multiple evaluative domains of RED and showed strong relations between aggressive response evaluations, nonaggressive response evaluations, and antisocial behavior. Findings indicate that RED becomes more differential (or specific to response style) and is increasingly related to youths' antisocial conduct across development. Keywords: social information processing, decision making, antisocial behavior, child development, adolescence

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01187.x Byline: Pamela E. Davis-Kean (1), L. Rowell Huesmann (1), Justin Jager (1), W. Andrew Collins (2), John E. Bates (3), Jennifer E. Lansford (4) Abstract: Many social science theories that examine the connection between beliefs and behaviors assume that belief constructs will predict behaviors similarly across development. Converging research implies that this assumption may not be tenable across all ages or all belief constructs. Thus, to test this implication, the relation between behavior and beliefs about the self was examined in 2 independent data sets with 2 different constructs: aggression and achievement. The respondents were 6-18 years of age and predominately Caucasian. Results using quasi-simplex structural equation models suggest that self-beliefs become more strongly related to behavior as children grow older independent of the reliability of the measures used. Possible limitations in the use of self-report methodology with young children are discussed. Author Affiliation: (1)University of Michigan (2)University of Minnesota (3)Indiana University (4)Duke University Article note: Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Pamela E. Davis-Kean, 426 Thompson Street, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248. Electronic mail may be sent to pdakean@umich.edu.

The relations among social information processing (SIP), cardiac activity, and antisocial behavior were investigated in adolescents over a 3-year period (from ages 16 to 18) in a community sample of 585 (48% female, 17% African American) participants. Antisocial behavior was assessed in all 3 years. Cardiac and SIP measures were collected between the first and second behavioral assessments. Cardiac measures assessed resting heart rate (RHR) and heart rate reactivity (HRR) as participants imagined themselves being victimized in hypothetical provocation situations portrayed via video vignettes. The findings were moderated by gender and supported a multiprocess model in which antisocial behavior is a function of trait-like low RHR (for male individuals only) and deviant SIP. In addition, deviant SIP mediated the effects of elevated HRR reactivity and elevated RHR on antisocial behavior (for male and female participants). Keywords: antisocial behavior, heart rate, social information processing, adolescents

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01136.x Byline: Reid Griffith Fontaine (1), Chongming Yang (1), Kenneth A. Dodge (1), John E. Bates (2), Gregory S. Pettit (3) Abstract: This study examined the bidirectional development of aggressive response evaluation and decision (RED) and antisocial behavior across five time points in adolescence. Participants (n = 522) were asked to imagine themselves behaving aggressively while viewing videotaped ambiguous provocations and answered a set of RED questions following each aggressive retaliation (administered at Grades 8 and 11 [13 and 16 years, respectively]). Self- and mother reports of antisocial behavior were collected at Grades 7, 9/10, and 12 (12, 14/15, and 17 years, respectively). Using structural equation modeling, the study found a partial mediating effect at each hypothesized mediational path despite high stability of antisocial behavior across adolescence. Findings are consistent with an individual systems perspective by which adolescents' antisocial conduct influences how they evaluate aggressive interpersonal behaviors, which affects their future antisocial conduct. Author Affiliation: (1)Duke University (2)Indiana University (3)Auburn University Article note: Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Reid Griffith Fontaine, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, 1503 East University Boulevard, Tucson, AZ 85721. Electronic mail may be sent to rgf2@u.arizona.edu.

A study is conducted to examine whether the occurrence and timing of parental separation or divorce was related to trajectories of academic grades and mother- and teacher-reported internalizing and externalizing problems. Results suggest that early parental divorce/separation is more negatively related to trajectories of internalizing and externalizing problems than is later divorce/separation, whereas later divorce/separation is more negatively related to grades.

Socialization is the important process by which individuals learn and then effectively apply the rules of appropriate societal behavior. Response modulation is a psychobiological process theorized to aid in socialization by allowing individuals to utilize contextual information to modify ongoing behavior appropriately. Using Hare's (1991) Psychopathy Checklist and the Welsh (1956) anxiety scale, researchers have identified a relatively specific form of a response modulation deficit in low-anxious, Caucasian psychopaths. Preliminary evidence suggests that the Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD; Frick & Hare, 2001) may be used to identify children with a similar vulnerability. Using a representative community sample of 308 16-year-olds from the Child Development Project (Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1990), we tested and corroborated the hypotheses that participants with relatively low anxiety and high APSD scores would display poorer passive avoidance learning and less interference on a spatially separated, picture-word Stroop task than controls. Consistent with hypotheses, the expected group differences in picture-word Stroop interference were found with male and female participants, whereas predicted differences in passive avoidance were specific to male participants. To the extent that response modulation deficits contributing to poor socialization among psychopathic adult offenders also characterize a subgroup of adolescents with mild conduct problems, clarification of the developmental processes that moderate the expression of this vulnerability could inform early interventions. KEY WORDS: response modulation; psychopathy; adolescents; socialization.

In a sample of 585 children assessed in kindergarten through 8th grade, we fit a confirmatory factor model to both mother- and teacher-reported symptoms on the Achenbach checklists (CBCL, TRE) and determined that a covariation factor of externalizing and internalizing behaviors existed, in addition to the pure-form factors of externalizing and internalizing for each reporter. In 3 structural equation models, between 8 and 67% of the variance in these 6 latent factors was accounted for by a set of antecedent child, sociocultural, parenting, and peer risk variables. Each of the 6 latent factors, taken 2 at a time, was predicted by a unique set of risk variables; however, there were some patterns that held for both mother- and teacher-report symptom factors: Child temperamental unadaptability and female gender were predictors of higher internalizing symptoms; child temperamental resistance to control, parental harsh punishment, male gender, low SES, and peer rejection were related to higher externalizing symptom s whereas child temperamental unadaptability was related to lower externalizing symptoms; and peer rejection and family stress were also related to the covarying, externalizing-plus-internalizing component of both mother and teacher reports. KEY WORDS: comorbidity; covariation; externalizing-internalizing behaviors; risk factors.

Family characteristics influence children's behavioral development, but so do variations in schools, neighborhoods, and communities. We documented extrafamilial environmental effects by fitting maximum likelihood models to questionnaire data collected from double dyads consisting of twins and their classmate controls. The classmate controls in each double dyad were genetic strangers living in separate households, but they shared school, neighborhood, and community environments with their yoked twin pair and with one another. At ages 11 to 12, the control classmates showed significant similarities in religious practices and smoking and drinking patterns, demonstrating that environmental influences outside the family affect children's behavioral development. Familial self-selection of residential neighborhoods may have contributed to these results, but direct effects of variation across communities, neighborhoods, and schools cannot be dismissed, and such effects warrant further study.

This study used data from 6 sites and 3 countries to examine the developmental course of physical aggression in childhood and to analyze its linkage to violent and nonviolent offending outcomes in adolescence. The results indicate that among boys there is continuity in problem behavior from childhood to adolescence and that such continuity is especially acute when early problem behavior takes the form of physical aggression. Chronic physical aggression during the elementary school years specifically increases the risk for continued physical violence as well as other nonviolent forms of delinquency during adolescence. However, this conclusion is reserved primarily for boys, because the results indicate no clear linkage between childhood physical aggression and adolescent offending among female samples despite notable similarities across male and female samples in the developmental course of physical aggression in childhood.

This article discusses the relationship between temperament, cognition, and behavior disorders in children. Topics include child development, social interaction, parenting, and self-control.

The aim of this study was to test whether the relation between physical discipline and child aggression was moderated by ethnic-group status. A sample of 466 European American and 100 African American children from a broad range of socioeconomic levels were followed from kindergarten through 3rd grade. Mothers reported their use of physical discipline in interviews and questionnaires, and mothers, teachers, and peers rated children's externalizing problems annually. The interaction between ethnic status and discipline was significant for teacher- and peer-rated externalizing scores; physical discipline was associated with higher externalizing scores, but only among European American children. These findings provide evidence that the link between physical punishment and child aggression may be culturally specific.

A study of European American and African American children for lifetime episodes of physical abuse reveals that abuse during the first five years after birth leads to a fourfold greater risk for externalizing conduct problems in grades 3 and 4. This pattern is not explained by child effects or ecological factors. The hypothesis that the relationship between early physical abuse and later externalizing problems is partially mediated by social information-processing patterns was supported. The processing patterns investigated include encoding errors, hostile attributions, access to aggressive responses and positive evaluation of aggression.

Analysis of data collected as part of the University of Tennessee's child Development Project shows that the style of interactions between kindergarten children and their mothers at home significantly influences their social behavior at school. The study classified interactions as positively synchronic, negatively synchronic or non-synchronic depending on their length, the emotional tone used and the degree of connectedness between mother and child during the interaction. Positive synchrony is associated positively with teacher-rated competence and negatively with disengaged play, teacher-rated aggression and peer-rated aggression. Nonsynchrony is associated negatively with teacher-rated competence and positively with disengaged play and teacher-rated aggression. Negative synchrony is positively associated with teacher-rated withdrawal, disengaged play, and teacher- and peer-rated aggression.

Parents gave histories of 589 children just before kindergarten. Children were later assessed with teacher, peer, and observer measures of social adjustment i school. Children with higher day-care amounts in each of 3 eras (0-1, 1-4, and 4-5 years) scored higher on the composite negative adjustment and lower on positive adjustment (however, they also scored lower on teacher-rated internalizing problems). Day care predicted even after statistical control for measures representing alternative explanations, such as family stress and socioeconomic status, accounting for 2.7% of variance in negative adjustment an 2.9% of positive adjustment. Interactions between day care and other variables did not add to predictions of the molar adjustment composites. Extensive infanc care did not in itself predict adjustment, according to planned contrasts that controlled for total amount of day care received across the 3 eras of the child's life.

Two questions concerning the effect of physical abuse in early childhood on the child's development of aggressive behavior are the focus of this article. The first is whether abuse per [...]

The ability of children to regulate their own behaviors is an important landmark in psychological development. Lack of self-control is relevant to two psychological problems, attention deficit and undersocialized aggressive conduct disorder. Little is known about the developmental origins of self-regulation. The relative contributions of different parent-child interactions to later self-regulation were studied in 79 mother-child pairs when the children were aged six months and one, two, and six years of age. The results indicate that child-caregiver interactions only partially predict a child's self-regulation. Interactions with the mother at two years were somewhat influential, while those at six months were not. Children of mothers who were responsive, not restrictive, and who gave clear, consistent discipline tended to have more self-control, as expected. However, contrary to the expectations, children whose mothers exerted ineffective or excessive control did not have particularly bad self-control. Punitive control and inconsistent discipline were, however, related to later tendencies toward impulsive behavior in boys. A child's cognitive, or intellectual, status at age two consistently correlated with later self-regulatory skills. Contrary to expectation, indications of difficult temperament did not predict later self-control. Further research on the role of individual differences in the development of self-regulation is needed. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

A study was conducted to examine the association between interparental relationship conflict and offspring romantic relationship conflict in young adulthood using K.A. Dodge model. Findings indicate that the ability of offspring to generate varied social responses and effectively evaluate the potential outcome of their responses.

The moderating effects of temperamental resistance to control on the link between development of sleep problems and development of externalizing behaviors over a 5-year period are studied. Results reveal that a cross-domain latent growth curve model showed that sleep problem trajectories were positively associated with externalizing behavior trajectories only for children high in resistance to control.

This study investigated how discrete social information processing (SIP) steps may combine with one another to create distinct groups of youth who are characterized by particular patterns of SIP. SIP assessments were conducted on a community sample of 576 children in kindergarten, with follow-up assessments in grades 3, 8, and 11. At each age, four profiles were created, representing youth with no SIP problems, with early step SIP problems (encoding or making hostile attributions), with later step SIP problems (selecting instrumental goals, generating aggressive responses, or evaluating aggression positively), and with pervasive SIP problems. Although patterns of SIP problems were related to concurrent externalizing during elementary school, the consistency between cognition and future externalizing behavior was not as strong in elementary school as it was between grades 8 and 11. In some cases, youth characterized by the co-occurrence of problems in early and later SIP steps had higher externalizing scores than did youth characterized by problems in just one or the other. Keywords Social information processing * Externalizing behaviors * Aggression

A formal cognitive model is proposed and tested for the go/no-go discrimination task in which the performer chooses whether to respond to stimuli, receives rewards for responding to certain stimuli and punishments for responding to others. An evaluation of three cognitive models shows that a cue-dependent model presupposing that participants can differentiate between cues was the most accurate and parsimonious.

Aggression and delinquency in children are caused due to parent's use of physical discipline for their children. But race differences and behavior problems affect the manner in which parents use this physical discipline.

Results of a study on attitudes regarding corporal punishment are presented, comparing answers provided by kindergarten-age children to answers supplied by those same children now entering 6th and 8th grades. Findings showed that adolescents who had been spanked as children viewed corporal punishment more favorably as a method of discipline, but no correlation was found for those suspected of being abused as children.

Variations in amounts of nonparental care across infancy, preschool, early elementary school, and early adolescence were examined in a longitudinal sample (N = 438). Of interest was (a) continuity in [...]

The Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group Two prospective investigations of the moderating role of dyadic friendship in the developmental pathway to peer victimization are reported. In Study 1, the preschool home environments (i.e., harsh discipline, marital conflict, stress, abuse, and maternal hostility) of 389 children were assessed by trained interviewers. These children were then followed into the middle years of elementary school, with peer victimization, group social acceptance, and friendship assessed annually with a peer nomination inventory. In Study 2, the home environments of 243 children were assessed in the summer before 1st grade, and victimization, group acceptance, and friendship were assessed annually over the next 3 years. In both studies, early harsh, punitive, and hostile family environments predicted later victimization by peers for children who had a low number of friendships. However, the predictive associations did not hold for. children who had numerous friendships. These findings provide support for conceptualizations of friendship as a moderating factor in the pathways to peer group victimization.