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Background: Few studies are grounded in a developmental framework to study proactive and reactive aggression. Furthermore, although distinctive correlates, predictors and outcomes have been highlighted, proactive and reactive aggression are substantially correlated. To our knowledge, no empirical study has examined the communality of genetic and environmental underpinning of the development of both subtypes of aggression. The current study investigated the communality and specificity of genetic-environmental factors related to heterogeneity in proactive and reactive aggression’s development throughout childhood. Methods: Participants were 223 monozygotic and 332 dizygotic pairs. Teacher reports of aggression were obtained at 6, 7, 9, 10 and 12 years of age. Joint development of both phenotypes were analyzed through a multivariate latent growth curve model. Set point, differentiation, and genetic maturation/environmental modulation hypotheses were tested using a biometric decomposition of intercepts and slopes. Results: Common genetic factors accounted for 64% of the total variation of proactive and reactive aggression’s intercepts. Two other sets of uncorrelated genetic factors accounted for reactive aggression’s intercept (17%) on the one hand, and for proactive (43%) and reactive (13%) aggression’s slopes on the other. Common shared environmental factors were associated with proactive aggression’s intercept (21%) and slope (26%) and uncorrelated shared environmental factors were also associated with reactive aggression’s slope (14%). Common nonshared environmental factors explained most of the remaining variability of proactive and reactive aggression slopes. Conclusions: A genetic differentiation hypothesis common to both phenotypes was supported by common genetic factors associated with the developmental heterogeneity of proactive and reactive aggression in childhood. A genetic maturation hypothesis common to both phenotypes, albeit stronger for proactive aggression, was supported by common genetic factors associated with proactive and reactive aggression slopes. A shared environment set point hypothesis for proactive aggression was supported by shared environmental factors associated with proactive aggression baseline and slope. Although there are many common features to proactive and reactive aggression, the current research underscores the advantages of differentiating them when studying aggression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Difficult temperament in infancy is a risk factor for forms of later internalizing and externalizing psychopathology, including depression and anxiety. A better understanding of the roots of difficult temperament requires assessment of its early development with a genetically informative design. The goal of this study was to estimate genetic and environmental contributions to individual differences in infant negative emotionality, their persistence over time and their influences on stability between 5 and 18 months of age. Method: Participants were 244 monozygotic and 394 dizygotic twin pairs (49.7% male) recruited from birth. Mothers rated their twins for negative emotionality at 5 and 18 months. Longitudinal analysis of stability and innovation between the two time points was performed in Mplus. Results: There were substantial and similar heritability (approximately 31%) and shared environmental (57.3%) contributions to negative emotionality at both 5 and 18 months. The trait’s interindividual stability across time was both genetically- and environmentally- mediated. Evidence of innovative effects (i.e., variance at 18 months independent from variance at 5 months) indicated that negative emotionality is developmentally dynamic and affected by persistent and new genetic and environmental factors at 18 months. Conclusions: In the first two years of life, ongoing genetic and environmental influences support temperamental negative emotionality but new genetic and environmental factors also indicate dynamic change of those factors across time. A better understanding of the source and timing of factors on temperament in early development, and role of sex, could improve efforts to prevent related psychopathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Does poor language ability in early childhood increase the likelihood of physical aggression or is language ability delayed by frequent physical aggression? This study examined the longitudinal associations between physical aggression and language ability from toddlerhood to early childhood in a population sample while controlling for parenting behaviours, non-verbal intellectual functioning, and children’s sex. Methods: Children enrolled in the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD) (N = 2, 057) were assessed longitudinally from 17 to 72 months via parent reports and standardized assessments. Results: The cross-lagged models revealed modest reciprocal associations between physical aggression and language performance from 17 to 41 months but not thereafter. Conclusions: Significant associations between physical aggression and poor language ability are minimal and limited to the period when physical aggression and language performance are both substantially increasing. During that period parenting behaviours may play an important role in supporting language ability while reducing the frequency of physical aggression. Further studies are needed that utilize multiple assessments of physical aggression, assess multiple domains of language abilities, and that examine the potential mediating role of parenting behaviours between 12 and 48 months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]