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Background: A recent genome‐wide association study identified molecular‐genetic associations with age‐at‐first‐birth. However, the meaning of these genetic discoveries is unclear. Drawing on evidence linking early pregnancy with disinhibitory behavior, we tested the hypothesis that genetic discoveries for age‐at‐first‐birth predict disinhibition. Methods: We included participants with genotype data from the two‐decade‐long Environmental Risk (E‐Risk) Study (N = 1,999) and the four‐decade‐long Dunedin Study (N = 918). We calculated a genome‐wide polygenic score for age‐at‐first‐birth and tested whether it was associated with a range of disinhibitory outcomes across the life course, including low childhood self‐control; risk for externalizing psychopathology; officially recorded criminal offending; substance dependence; informant reports of disinhibitory problems; and number of lifetime sexual partners. We further tested whether associations were attributable to accelerated pubertal maturation. Results: In both cohorts, the age‐at‐first‐birth polygenic score predicted low childhood self‐control, externalizing psychopathology, officially recorded criminal offending, substance dependence, and number of sexual partners. Associations were modest, but robust across replication. Childhood disinhibition partly mediated associations between the polygenic score and reproductive behaviors. In contrast, associations were not attributable to accelerated pubertal timing. Conclusions: Genomic discoveries for age‐at‐first‐birth are about more than reproductive biology: They provide insight into the disinhibitory traits and behaviors that accompany early parenthood. Age‐at‐first‐birth is a useful proxy phenotype for researchers interested in disinhibition. Further, interventions that improve self‐regulation abilities may benefit young parents and their children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Childhood risk factors are associated with elevated inflammatory biomarkers in adulthood, but it is unknown whether these risk factors are associated with increased adult levels of the chronic inflammation marker soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR). We aimed to test the hypothesis that childhood exposure to risk factors for adult disease is associated with elevated suPAR in adulthood and to compare suPAR with the oft‐reported inflammatory biomarker C‐reactive protein (CRP). Methods: Prospective study of a population‐representative 1972–1973 birth cohort; the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study observed participants to age 38 years. Main childhood predictors were poor health, socioeconomic disadvantage, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), low IQ, and poor self‐control. Main adult outcomes were adulthood inflammation measured as suPAR and high‐sensitivity CRP (hsCRP). Results: Participants with available plasma samples at age 38 were included (N = 837, 50.5% male). suPAR (mean 2.40 ng/ml; SD 0.91) was positively correlated with hsCRP (r 0.15, p < .001). After controlling for sex, body mass index (BMI), and smoking, children who experienced more ACEs, lower IQ, or had poorer self‐control showed elevated adult suPAR. When the five childhood risks were aggregated into a Cumulative Childhood Risk index, and controlling for sex, BMI, and smoking, Cumulative Childhood Risk was associated with higher suPAR (b 0.10; SE 0.03; p = .002). Cumulative Childhood Risk predicted elevated suPAR, after controlling for hsCRP (b 0.18; SE 0.03; p < .001). Conclusions: Exposure to more childhood risk factors was associated with higher suPAR levels, independent of CRP. suPAR is a useful addition to studies connecting childhood risk to adult inflammatory burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Children with conduct problems that persist into adulthood are at increased risk for future behavioral, health, and social problems. However, the longer term public service usage among these children has not been fully documented. To aid public health and intervention planning, adult service usage across criminal justice, health care, and social welfare domains is compared among all individuals from a representative cohort who followed different conduct problem trajectories from childhood into adulthood. Methods: Participants are from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, a prospective, representative cohort of consecutive births (N = 1,037) from April 1972 to March 1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand. Regression analyses were used to compare levels of public service usage up to age 38, gathered via administrative and electronic medical records, between participants who displayed distinct subtypes of childhood conduct problems (low, childhood‐limited, adolescent‐onset, and life‐course persistent). Results: Children exhibiting life‐course persistent conduct problems used significantly more services as adults than those with low levels of childhood conduct problems. Although this group comprised only 9.0% of the population, they accounted for 53.3% of all convictions, 15.7% of emergency department visits, 20.5% of prescription fills, 13.1% of injury claims, and 24.7% of welfare benefit months. Half of this group (50.0%) also accrued high service use across all three domains of criminal justice, health, and social welfare services, as compared to only 11.3% of those with low conduct problems (OR = 7.27, 95% CI = 4.42–12.0). Conclusions: Conduct problems in childhood signal high future costs in terms of service utilization across multiple sectors. Future evaluations of interventions aimed at conduct problems should also track potential reductions in health burden and service usage that stretch into midlife. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We know that exposure to marital conflict places infants at risk, but we know less about processes. One process may be role reversal, when a distressed parent looks to the child to meet unmet needs for comfort, intimacy, or companionship. A parent in marital conflict may be particularly prone to role reversal, which in turn adversely affects child development. The current study examined pathways from infants' exposure to marital conflict at 12 months to role reversal at 24 months. We sampled low–middle socioeconomic status (SES) families with their first child (N = 128). Independent observers assessed marital conflict (in a problem-solving task) and role reversal (in a story-telling task). We found that each parent's conflict behavior predicted the other parent's role reversal. In a direct pathway, mother's conflict behavior towards father led directly to father's role reversal with the child. In an indirect pathway, father's conflict behavior towards mother led to his withdrawal from her, which in turn led to mother's role reversal with the child. Clinical implications are discussed within a developmental psychopathology framework in terms of preventive interventions to offset the deleterious effect of marital conflict and role reversal on child development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using latent transition analysis, this study identified Constructive and Destructive marital problem-solving patterns in couples prenatally and at 3, 12, and 24 months postbirth. Most couples remained in the same group across the 2 years (27.5% and 52.2% who started as Destructive and Constructive, respectively). Always Destructive spouses reported more depressive symptomatology and more negative and less positive views of marriage than Always Constructive couples. Mixed wives mirrored Always Constructive wives in their depressive symptomatology and concurrent views of marriage; mixed husbands mirrored Always Constructive husbands in their depressive symptomatology and Always Destructive husbands in their concurrent views of marriage. Mixed couples divorced or separated at the highest rates (35.7%), while Always Constructive couples tended to remain married (93.1%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two general evolutionary hypotheses were tested on 756 White children (397 girls) studied longitudinally: (1) rearing experiences would predict pubertal timing; and (2) children would prove differentially susceptible to rearing. Analysis of pubertal measurements, including some based on repeated physical assessments, showed that mothering and fathering, earlier and later in childhood, predicted pubertal development, but only for girls, with negative parenting appearing most influential; maternal harsh control predicted earlier menarche. Rearing effects varied by infant negative emotionality, proving stronger (and opposite) for girls who in infancy were lower rather than higher in negativity. Maternal menarche, controlled in all analyses, was a stronger predictor than rearing. Findings are discussed in terms of theory development, genetic and nutritional influences, and sample restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Role reversal is a relationship disturbance in which a parent looks to a child to meet a parent's need for comfort, parenting, intimacy or play, and the child attempts to meet these needs. The current study examined, within a developmental psychopathology framework, the effect of father and mother role reversal with toddlers on the development of attention problems, externalizing symptoms, internalizing symptoms, and social problems in kindergarten. In a normative sample, N =57, role reversal was assessed in an observational paradigm, and teachers rated behavior problems. Father role reversal predicted attention problems and externalizing symptoms, whereas mother role reversal predicted social problems. Gender was an important moderator such that father role reversal predicted social problems for boys and mother role reversal predicted social problems for girls. The importance of a developmental psychopathology perspective, the role of fathers, and implications for the development of diagnosable disorders and for preventive interventions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key Words: compatibility, interdependence theory, marital leisure, marital satisfaction. This study challenges the prevailing view that marital companionship promotes marital satisfaction. By following a cohort of married couples for over a decade and by incorporating several methodological improvements--such as refining the measurement of marital satisfaction, determining how much spouses enjoy doing the leisure activities they pursue together and apart, and using diary data to portray marital leisure patterns--we found that the association between companionship and satisfaction is less robust than previously believed, and that it depends on how often spouses pursue activities that reflect their own and their partner's leisure preferences. Over time, involvement in leisure liked by husbands but disliked by wives, whether as a couple or by husbands alone, is both a cause and a consequence of wives' dissatisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the literature on compatibility in courtship by seeking to identify empirical links between social homogamy, similarity in leisure interests and role performance preferences, and the dynamics of premarital relationships. Data were collected from 168 working-class and middle-class couples married for the first time in central Pennsylvania during the early 1980s. The more similar individuals' role performance preferences and leisure interests were to those of the other sex in the sample, the more compatible they were with the person they married. Nonetheless, even after controlling for how likely individuals were to find a compatible mate in the population of other-sex persons, people tended to be better matched than they would have been had they been randomly paired. Assortative mating also was found with regard to social characteristics, but such social similarity was related neither to similarity in couples' leisure interests nor to their role preferences, and, with one exception, social similarity was not significantly related to their courtship experiences and evaluations. In the conclusion, the article places these findings within the context of previous writings on compatibility and mate selection and argue for the importance of establishing empirical linkages between various combinations of the partners' social and psychological attributes and their courtship experiences.