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This study examined how a firstborn child's empathy interacts with maternal emotional availability (EA) to predict later positive sibling relationships. The study included 108 families expecting a second child who also had a 10- to 45-month-old firstborn child ( M = 24.6 months, SD = 7.42; 58 girls). Before the second-born child arrived, the firstborn child's empathic abilities were measured, and a mother-child play interaction was videotaped and coded for maternal EA. At 16-18 months postpartum, mothers completed questionnaires assessing the quality of the sibling relationship. Maternal EA moderated the link between the firstborn's cognitive and emotional empathy and the quality of the sibling relationship. Higher levels of emotional and cognitive empathy predicted better sibling relationships for children whose mothers were more emotionally available. Implications for early interventions are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Greater neural similarity between parents and adolescents may reduce adolescent substance use. Among 70 parent-adolescent dyads, we tested a longitudinal path model in which family economic environment is related to adolescent substance use, directly and indirectly through parent-adolescent neural similarity and parental monitoring. Neural similarity was measured as parent-adolescent pattern similarity in functional brain connectivity at Time 1. Parents reported socioeconomic status and parental monitoring at Time 1. Adolescents reported parental monitoring at Time 1 and substance use at Time 2. Higher family socioeconomic status was associated with greater neural similarity. Greater neural similarity was associated with lower adolescent substance use, mediated through greater adolescent-perceived parental monitoring. Parent-adolescent neural similarity may attenuate adolescent substance use by bolstering parental monitoring. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Parenting that is high in rejection and low in acceptance is associated with higher levels of internalizing (INT) and externalizing (EXT) problems in children and adolescents. These symptoms develop and can increase in severity to negatively impact adolescents' social, academic, and emotional functioning. However, there are two major gaps in the extant literature: (a) nearly all prior research has focused on between-person differences in acceptance/rejection at the expense of examining intraindividual variability (IIV) across time in acceptance/rejection; and (b) no prior studies examine IIV in acceptance/rejection in diverse international samples. The present study utilized six waves of data with 1,199 adolescents' families living in nine countries from the Parenting Across Cultures study to test the hypotheses that (1) higher amounts of youth IIV in mother acceptance/rejection predict higher internalizing and (2) externalizing symptoms, and (3) that higher youth IIV in father acceptance/rejection predict higher internalizing, and (4) externalizing symptoms. Meta-analytic techniques indicated a significant, positive effect of IIV in child-reported mother and father acceptance/rejection on adolescent externalizing symptoms, and a significant positive effect of IIV in father acceptance/rejection on internalizing symptoms. The weighted effect for mother acceptance/rejection on internalizing symptoms was not statistically significant. Additionally, there was significant heterogeneity in all meta-analytic estimates. More variability over time in experiences of parental acceptance/rejection predicts internalizing and externalizing symptoms as children transition into adolescence, and this effect is present across multiple diverse samples. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The authors examined task-based (i.e., executive function), surveyed (i.e., effortful control), and physiological (i.e., resting cardiac respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) measures of child and maternal regulation as distinct moderators of longitudinal bidirectional links between child externalizing (EXT) behaviors and harsh parenting (HP) from 6 to 9 years. The sample size was 299 (50.9% female; 1% Asian, 4% multiple races; 14% Black; 78% White), and participants were recruited in the United States (a rural college town in Virginia and a midsized city in North Carolina). Higher child EXT at 6 years predicted higher HP at 7-8 years, which predicted higher EXT at 9 years. Also, this path was moderated by 6-year child effortful control, 6-year resting RSA, and 9-year executive function. In contrast, there was no moderating effect of any measure of maternal regulation. Findings suggest it is important to consider child self-regulation when examining bidirectionality in parent and child effects for HP and child EXT. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

To disentangle the effects of key dimensions of dispositional mindfulness on parenting, the present study tests the hypotheses that parental Nonreactivity moderates the association between Observing and effective parenting behaviors, and that parental inhibitory control mediates the relationship between Observing and parenting depending on levels of Nonreactivity. The sample consists of 294 fathers (95.9% deployed) and 313 mothers (81.5% nondeployed) from 336 military families with a child aged between 4 and 13 years at baseline. Parents reported Observing and Nonreactivity at baseline using the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and completed a computerized Go/No-Go task for assessing inhibitory control at baseline and 1-year follow-up. Families completed a series of in-home interaction tasks at baseline and 2-year follow-up, and effective parenting behaviors were observed and coded using a theory-driven, empirically validated coding system. Results showed that when fathers reported low Nonreactivity, the association between Observing and effective parenting behaviors 2 years later was negative, but this association became positive when fathers reported high Nonreactivity. Fathers' Observing was associated with decreased inhibitory control 1 year later when they reported low (vs. high) Nonreactivity, whereas mothers' Observing was associated with increased inhibitory control 1 year later when they reported high (vs. low) Nonreactivity. The hypothesized effect of inhibitory control as a mediator was not found. Understanding specificity in the effects of dispositional mindfulness dimensions on parenting behaviors will drive effective and efficient designs of mindful parenting interventions. Future research should use dismantling experimental designs to test the synergistic effects of Observing and Nonreactivity in parents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Executive function (EF) plays a key role in healthy development and human functioning across multiple domains, including socially, behaviorally, and in the self-regulation of cognition and emotion. Prior research has associated lower levels of maternal EF with harsher and more reactive parenting, and mothers' social cognitive attributes like authoritarian child-rearing attitudes and hostile attribution biases also contribute to harsh parenting practices. There have been few studies that explore the intersection of maternal EF and social cognitions. The present study addresses this gap by testing whether the relationship between individual differences in maternal EF and harsh parenting behaviors is statistically moderated separately by maternal authoritarian attitudes and hostile attribution bias. Participants were 156 mothers in a socioeconomically diverse sample. Multi-informant and multimethod assessments of harsh parenting and EF were utilized, and mothers self-reported on their child-rearing attitudes and attribution bias. Harsh parenting was negatively associated with maternal EF and hostile attribution bias. Authoritarian attitudes significantly interacted with EF (and the attribution bias interaction was marginally significant) in prediction of variance in harsh parenting behaviors. Commensurate with social information processing theory, EF and social cognitive attributes play critical and distinct roles in the causes of harsh caregiving practices. Findings elucidate that reforming parental social cognitions, in addition to targeting EF, may be effective prevention and intervention methods for yielding more positive parenting behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The physical home environment is thought to play a crucial role in facilitating healthy sleep in young children. However, relatively little is known about how various features of the physical home environment are associated with sleep in early childhood, and some of the recommendations clinicians make for improving child sleep environments are based on limited research evidence. The present study examined how observer and parent descriptions of the child's physical home environment were associated with child sleep, measured using actigraphy and parent's reports, across a year in early childhood. The study used a machine learning approach (elastic net regression) to specify which aspects of the physical home environment were most important for predicting five aspects of child sleep, sleep duration, sleep variability, sleep timing, sleep activity, and latency to fall asleep. The study included 546 toddlers (265 females) recruited at 30 months of age and reassessed at 36 and 42 months of age. Poorer quality physical home environments were associated with later sleep schedules, more variable sleep schedules, shorter sleep durations, and more parent-reported sleep problems in young children. The most important environmental predictors of sleep were room sharing with an adult, bed sharing, and quality of both the child's sleep space and the wider home environment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented families around the world with extraordinary challenges related to physical and mental health, economic security, social support, and education. The current study capitalizes on a longitudinal, cross-national study of parenting, adolescent development, and young adult competence to document the association between personal disruption during the pandemic and reported changes in internalizing and externalizing behavior in young adults and their mothers since the pandemic began. It further investigates whether family functioning during adolescence 3 years earlier moderates this association. Data from 484 families in five countries (Italy, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States) reveal that higher levels of reported disruption during the pandemic are related to reported increases in internalizing and externalizing behaviors after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic for young adults (Mage = 20) and their mothers in all five countries, with the exception of one association in Thailand. Associations between disruption during the pandemic and young adults' and their mothers' reported increases in internalizing and externalizing behaviors were attenuated by higher levels of youth disclosure, more supportive parenting, and lower levels of destructive adolescent-parent conflict prior to the pandemic. This work has implications for fostering parent-child relationships characterized by warmth, acceptance, trust, open communication, and constructive conflict resolution at all times given their protective effects for family resilience during times of crisis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Various studies have reported that parental self-regulation is inversely related to negative parenting practices, especially in relatively calm households. These studies have focused on general tendencies of parents over longer periods of time. In the current time-series study, we extended previous work by focusing on the moment-to-moment processes in parent-child interactions that may explain associations between parental self-regulation, household chaos, and negative parenting practices. In a sample of 62 parent-toddler dyads (83.87% mothers), we tested whether observed contingent negative responses to child noncompliance (i.e., reactive negative parenting) could be predicted by the interaction between parental self-regulation and household chaos. Additionally, we examined whether two indicators of parental self-regulation, self-reported effortful control and task-based executive functioning, had similar associations with reactive negative parenting. Reactive negative parenting was assessed during clean up and was calculated as parents' propensity to show negative parenting practices immediately after their child showed noncompliance. We found that lower parental self-regulation predicted more reactive negative parenting practices in moderately chaotic households. Associations were similar regardless of whether self-regulation was operationalized as effortful control or executive functioning. The findings demonstrate that less regulated parents may benefit from a home situation that is tidy, calm, and characterized by routine in order to remain neutral in situations in which their toddler is noncompliant. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The present study examines parents' self-efficacy about anger regulation and irritability as predictors of harsh parenting and adolescent children's irritability (i.e., mediators), which in turn were examined as predictors of adolescents' externalizing and internalizing problems. Mothers, fathers, and adolescents (N = 1,298 families) from 12 cultural groups in 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and United States) were interviewed when children were about 13 years old and again 1 and 2 years later. Models were examined separately for mothers and fathers. Overall, cross-cultural similarities emerged in the associations of both mothers' and fathers' irritability, as well as of mothers' self-efficacy about anger regulation, with subsequent maternal harsh parenting and adolescent irritability, and in the associations of the latter variables with adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems. The findings suggest that processes linking mothers' and fathers' emotion socialization and emotionality in diverse cultures to adolescent problem behaviors are somewhat similar. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Safety is essential for life. To survive, humans and other animals have developed sets of psychological and physiological adaptations known as life history (LH) tradeoff strategies in response to various safety constraints. Evolutionarily selected LH strategies in turn regulate development and behavior to optimize survival under prevailing safety conditions. The present study tested LH hypotheses concerning safety based on a 6-year longitudinal sample of 1,245 adolescents and their parents from 9 countries. The results revealed that, invariant across countries, environmental harshness, and unpredictability (lack of safety) was negatively associated with slow LH behavioral profile, measured 2 years later, and slow LH behavioral profile was negatively and positively associated with externalizing behavior and academic performance, respectively, as measured an additional 2 years later. These results support the evolutionary conception that human development responds to environmental safety cues through LH regulation of social and learning behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Associations between stress, sleep, and functioning have been well-established in the general adult population, but not as well-established in the specific subpopulation of interest here-parents. To advance understanding of how maternal sleep is linked with both mothers' experiences of stress and their parenting, this study used actigraphic and mother-report measures of sleep, observed and mother reports of parenting, and measures of multiple stressors of relevance. In a community sample of mothers of toddlers (N = 314; child age M = 2.60, SD = 0.07 years), maternal stress was indexed with a cumulative risk score that combined sociodemographic risks and common parent stressors, including household chaos, role overload, parenting hassles, child misbehavior, negative life events, and lack of social support. We found that mothers who experienced shorter, later, and more variable sleep experienced higher levels of stress as indexed by the cumulative risk index. In addition, those with higher stress required longer to fall asleep and perceived more sleep problems. We also found that actigraphic measures of poor and insufficient maternal sleep were associated with less observed positive parenting, even when controlling for the cumulative risk index and maternal age, employment, and family size. Mothers who required longer to fall asleep also reported more dysfunctional parenting, with the same statistical controls. The findings, coupled with research showing that sleep is amenable to intervention, suggest that parental sleep may ultimately prove to be a useful intervention target for promoting positive parent involvement and responsiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Promoting children's prosocial behavior is a goal for parents, healthcare professionals, and nations. Does positive parenting promote later child prosocial behavior, or do children who are more prosocial elicit more positive parenting later, or both? Relations between parenting and prosocial behavior have to date been studied only in a narrow band of countries, mostly with mothers and not fathers, and child gender has infrequently been explored as a moderator of parenting-prosocial relations. This cross-national study uses 1,178 families (mothers, fathers, and children) from 9 countries to explore developmental transactions between parental acceptance-rejection and girls' and boys' prosocial behavior across 3 waves (child ages 9 to 12). Controlling for stability across waves, within-wave relations, and parental age and education, higher parental acceptance predicted increased child prosocial behavior from age 9 to 10 and from age 10 to 12. Higher age 9 child prosocial behavior also predicted increased parental acceptance from age 9 to 10. These transactional paths were invariant across 9 countries, mothers and fathers, and girls and boys. Parental acceptance increases child prosocial behaviors later, but child prosocial behaviors are not effective at increasing parental acceptance in the transition to adolescence. This study identifies widely applicable socialization processes across countries, mothers and fathers, and girls and boys. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

To examine whether the cultural normativeness of parents' beliefs and behaviors moderates the links between those beliefs and behaviors and youths' adjustment, mothers, fathers, and children (N = 1,298 families) from 12 cultural groups in 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States) were interviewed when children were, on average, 10 years old and again when children were 12 years old. Multilevel models examined 5 aspects of parenting (expectations regarding family obligations, monitoring, psychological control, behavioral control, warmth/affection) in relation to 5 aspects of youth adjustment (social competence, prosocial behavior, academic achievement, externalizing behavior, internalizing behavior). Interactions between family level and culture-level predictors were tested to examine whether cultural normativeness of parenting behaviors moderated the link between those behaviors and children's adjustment. More evidence was found for within- than between-culture differences in parenting predictors of youth adjustment. In 7 of the 8 instances in which cultural normativeness was found to moderate the link between parenting and youth adjustment, the link between a particular parenting behavior and youth adjustment was magnified in cultural contexts in which the parenting behavior was more normative. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

Do physiological and behavioral performance indicators of effortful cognitive self-regulation converge additively or interactively in their statistical prediction of individual differences in harsh parenting? To answer this question, we examined heart rate (HR) and electroencephalography alpha (α) reactivity during executive function (EF) tasks, along with observed and self-reported indicators of harsh parenting. A socioeconomically diverse sample of 115 mothers with 3- to 7-year-old children completed questionnaires and a laboratory visit. Three quarters of the mothers showed typical patterns of task reactivity that were interpretable (i.e., increases in HR and decreases in α). Among them, we found no evidence to suggest that variance in harsh parenting was associated with magnitude of HR or α reactivity independently. Instead, the physiological variables interacted to enhance the EF statistical effect. EF explained one third of the variance in harsh parenting among mothers showing the largest α decreases when accompanied by modest to moderate (rather than substantial) HR increases. Physiological indicators can clarify the role and estimation of the strength of the effect of direct behavioral measures of cognitive regulation in the etiology of harsh parenting behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).)

This is an introduction to the special section on neurobiological and neurocognitive factors in parenting. The collection of 11 papers are published in 2 serial subsections of consecutive issues of the journal. The science they present captures the leading edge of work examining the interface of cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and physiological self-regulation in parenting and how these operate to protect or increment risk for poorer parenting among families who face chronic stressors (e.g., poverty, single parenthood, homelessness, mood disorders). Samples span the poor to the affluent, many ethnicities, several nationalities, and a wide variety of geographic locations. The studies also are diverse in the methods employed, spanning behavioral and questionnaire indicators of executive function and effortful control, attentional and social-cognitive biases, and psychophysiology. Taken together, the papers present clear and compelling evidence for the crucial role of parental neurobiological and neurocognitive deficits and strengths in the etiology of distressed and resilient parenting. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).)

This review examines mechanisms contributing to the intergenerational transmission of self-regulation. To provide an integrated account of how self-regulation is transmitted across generations, we draw from over 75 years of accumulated evidence, spanning case studies to experimental approaches, in literatures covering developmental, social, and clinical psychology, and criminology, physiology, genetics, and human and animal neuroscience (among others). First, we present a taxonomy of what self-regulation is and then examine how it develops--overviews that guide the main foci of the review. Next, studies supporting an association between parent and child self-regulation are reviewed. Subsequently, literature that considers potential social mechanisms of transmission, specifically parenting behavior, interparental (i.e., marital) relationship behaviors, and broader rearing influences (e.g., household chaos) is considered. Finally, evidence that prenatal programming may be the starting point of the intergenerational transmission of self-regulation is covered, along with key findings from the behavioral and molecular genetics literatures. To integrate these literatures, we introduce the self-regulation intergenerational transmission model, a framework that brings together prenatal, social/contextual, and neurobiological mechanisms (spanning endocrine, neural, and genetic levels, including gene-environment interplay and epigenetic processes) to explain the intergenerational transmission of self-regulation. This model also incorporates potential transactional processes between generations (e.g., children's self-regulation and parent-child interaction dynamics that may affect parents' self-regulation) that further influence intergenerational processes. In pointing the way forward, we note key future directions and ways to address limitations in existing work throughout the review and in closing. We also conclude by noting several implications for intervention work., ((c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).)

We examined the link between household chaos (i.e., noise, clutter, disarray, lack of routines) and maternal executive function (i.e., effortful regulation of attention and memory), and whether it varied as a function of socioeconomic risk (i.e., single parenthood, lower mother and father educational attainment, housing situation, and father unemployment). We hypothesized that: 1) higher levels of household chaos would be linked with poorer maternal executive function, even when controlling for other measures of cognitive functioning (e.g., verbal ability), and 2) this link would be strongest in the most socioeconomically distressed or lowest-socioeconomic status households. The diverse sample included 153 mothers from urban and rural areas who completed a questionnaire and a battery of cognitive executive function tasks and a verbal ability task in the laboratory. Results were mixed for Hypothesis 1, and consistent with Hypothesis 2. Two-thirds of the variance overlapped between household chaos and maternal executive function, but only in families with high levels of socioeconomic risk. This pattern was not found for chaos and maternal verbal ability, suggesting that the potentially deleterious effects of household chaos may be specific to maternal executive function. The findings implicate household chaos as a powerful statistical predictor of maternal executive function in socioeconomically distressed contexts., (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.)

The goal of the current study was to investigate potential cross-cultural differences in the covariation between two of the major dimensions of parenting behavior: control and warmth. Participants included 1,421 (51% female) 7- to 10-year-old (M = 8.29, SD = .67 years) children and their mothers and fathers representing 13 cultural groups in nine countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. Children and parents completed questionnaires and interviews regarding mother and father control and warmth. Greater warmth was associated with more control, but this association varied widely between cultural groups.

The current study involved 281 early-school-age twin pairs (118 monozygotic, 163 same-sex dizygotic) participating in the ongoing Western Reserve Reading Project (S. A. Petrill, K. Deater-Deckard, L. A. Thompson, & C. Schatschneider, 2006). Twins were tested in their homes by separate examiners on a battery of reading-related skills including phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, word knowledge, and phonological decoding. Results suggested that a core genetic factor accounted for a significant portion of the covariance between phonological awareness, rapid naming, and reading outcomes. However, shared environmental influences related to phonological awareness were also associated with reading skills.

We examined young adolescents' endorsement of parental use of corporal punishment to elucidate processes underlying the intergenerational transmission of discipline strategies. The community sample was ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. Mothers completed interviews and questionnaires when the target children were entering kindergarten (n = 566) and in 6th and 8th grades. Adolescents completed questionnaires when they were in 8th grade (n = 425). Adolescents' attitudes about corporal punishment varied widely. Those adolescents who had been spanked by their own mothers were more approving of this discipline method, regardless of the overall frequency, timing, or chronicity of physical discipline they had received. However, there was no correlation among adolescents for whom physical maltreatment in early or middle childhood was suspected.

There has been relatively little research on the role of grandparents as a source of support for children during and following their parents' marital transitions. In this study, we examined children's contact with and closeness to grandparents in different family types (i.e., two biological parents, single mother, stepparent). Participants included 155 children from the Avon Brothers and Sisters Study. Parent and child interviews and questionnaires regarding the children's relationships with maternal and paternal biological and stepgrandparents were examined. There were family type differences in rates of contact with grandparents as well as children's closeness to grandparents. Furthermore, children's and parents' view about these relationships with grandparents were modestly correlated, suggesting that children often held different views about their closeness to their grandparents than did their parents. Greater closeness to grandparents was associated with fewer adjustment problems.

Parent-child dyadic mutuality (shared positive affect, responsiveness, and cooperation) is an important component of family socialization processes. This study sought to extend previous research on mutuality by using a quantitative genetic design to examine between- and within-family variations (e.g., sibling differences) and gene-environment processes. The first study included 125 pairs of identical and same-sex fraternal 3-year-old twins. Observations of mutuality and parents' and observers' ratings of family environment and child behavior were gathered. Greater mutuality was associated with higher socioeconomic status. Moderate sibling similarity in parent-child mutuality was accounted for by child genetic similarity, suggesting evocative gene-environment correlation and nonshared environmental processes. These findings were replicated in a 2nd study of 102 pairs of adoptive and biological siblings.

A key question for understanding the interplay between nature and nurture in development is the direction of effects in socialization. A longitudinal adoption design provides a unique opportunity to investigate this issue in terms of genotype-environment correlations for behavioral problems. As part of the Colorado Adoption Project, adopted children were classified as being at genetic risk (N = 38) or not at genetic risk (N = 50) for antisocial behavior based on their biological mothers' self-report history of antisocial behavior collected prior to the birth of the child. From age 7 through age 12, adoptive parents reported on the negative control, positive parenting, and inconsistent parenting they use in managing their child's behavior. Repeated measures analysis of variance indicated that children at genetic risk were consistently more likely to receive negative parenting from their adoptive parents than children not at genetic risk, indicating an evocative genotype-environment correlation. However, the findings also showed that most of the association between negative parenting and children's externalizing behavior was not explicable on the basis of an evocative gene-environment correlation and that an additional environmentally mediated parental effect on children's behavior was plausible.