Suchergebnisse

This paper uses data from the NICHD study of Early Child Care to investigate how exposure to different home and childcare/school environmental settings are associated with children's trajectories of externalizing problem from age 2 to age 12. The sample included 1232 children (52% male). Different classes of children exhibiting low, moderate desisting, moderate, high desisting and chronic externalizing problems across the 10 year period were identified. Boys were more likely to be identified in the chronic group and girls in the low group. Furthermore, the findings suggested that the chronic externalizing problems group was also at high risk for experiencing a negative home environment across time, being born into a low familial socio-economic environment, and for experiencing a low quality classroom environment during middle childhood. Therefore, the quality of both the home and school environment are important for identifying these children at high and continuous risk for externalizing psychopathology. Finally, the findings suggested that the quality of the child's home environment had the more pervasive consequences for the establishment and continuation of externalizing problems in comparison to the quality of the child's childcare environment.

The current investigation examines longitudinal differences between bullies, victims, and bully victims in terms of the quality of their relationship with their parents and school performance. We also investigate the transactional association between the quality of the parent-child relationship and bullying behavior, after taking into account the longitudinal association among bullying, victimization, and school performance. The sample consisted of 895 mothers and their children who participated in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. According to the findings, children in the cooccurring bully victim group were at higher risk to experience continuous conflict with their mothers and to perform worse academically. The findings also offer support for the hypothesized transactional association between bullying and parent-child conflict and closeness. Further, a positive longitudinal transactional association between victimization and parent-child closeness was identified. Finally, school performance was positively related to victimization but was unrelated to bullying behavior.

Bullying and victimization occurring in adolescence can have a long‐lasting negative impact into adulthood. This study investigates whether conduct problems (CP) and dimensions of psychopathy predict the developmental course of bullying and victimization from ages 12 to 14 among 1,416 Greek‐Cypriot adolescents. Results indicate that initial levels of bullying were highest among adolescents scoring high on narcissism, impulsivity, or CP—particularly for those also showing high callous‐unemotional (CU) traits. Bullying behaviors were also more stable among youth scoring high on narcissism. Further, youth high on impulsivity showed more stable victimization by peers across development. Importantly, adolescents high on CP+CU were at greater risk for engaging in bullying across development compared with those scoring lower on CU traits or CP.

The current study investigates the bidirectional longitudinal association between conduct problems (CPs) and media violence exposure (MVE), with callous-unemotional (CU) traits as a potential mediator of this association. The sample consisted of 1,451 (49.9% boys) Greek Cypriot adolescents. CPs and MVE were measured at Year 1 and Year 3 and CU traits were measured at Year 2, enabling the examination of longitudinal associations and indirect effects between these variables. A bidirectional association between CPs and MVE was identified. Further, both CPs and MVE at Year 1 were positively associated with Year 2 CU traits, and youth high on CU traits at Year 2 were more likely to exhibit CP behaviors and to be exposed to media violence at Year 3. Finally, two indirect pathways were identified, suggesting that the longitudinal bidirectional association between CPs and MVE was partially mediated by CU traits. These findings suggest that CU traits constitute an underlying mechanism explaining the longitudinal association between CPs and MVE.

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits in youth are believed to be a developmental precursor to adult psychopathy, tapping its affective dimension. There is growing support for the existence of variants of psychopathy that can be distinguished based on the presence of anxiety, maltreatment histories, and comorbid psychopathology. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether primary and secondary variants of CU traits could be differentiated according to their experiences of distinct types of childhood maltreatment among a sample of 227 incarcerated adolescent boys. Results indicated that variants of youth scoring high on CU traits could be identified which were consistent with theory and prior research. Greater sexual abuse histories, violent and property delinquency, and a sexually motivated index offense distinguished secondary variants, whereas greater neglect distinguished primary variants of youth with CU traits. Psychopathy variants were behaviorally indistinguishable with respect to their levels of aggression and drug delinquency, although they differed in several important ways from youth scoring low on CU traits. Variants also showed distinct patterns of scores on the measure of CU traits. These findings are important to informing developmental theories of psychopathy and have practical and policy implications for intervening with maltreated and antisocial youth.

AbstractPrior research supports an association between callous‐unemotional (CU) traits with relational bullying, but evidence associating CU traits with relational victimization is limited. Further, the relationship between CU traits with relational "bully," "bully‐victim," and "victim" classifications has been largely neglected. The current study addresses these critical gaps in the literature using a cross‐national study design. The sample comprised of 1887 (51.5% of girls) Greek and Cypriot children (MAge = 11.17) who completed a battery of self‐report measures. Group differences suggested that children in the relational bully and bully‐victim groups scored higher on CU traits compared to children in the victim and low‐risk groups. Although these associations were similar across countries, boys in Greece were more likely to be identified in the bullying only group. In contrast, boys in Cyprus represented the higher percentage identified as bully‐victims and girls in Cyprus represented the higher percentage identified as victim‐only. Regression analysis results indicated that CU traits predicted relational bullying but not victimization. Notwithstanding, other important unexamined factors known to contribute to relational bullying and victimization, our findings suggest that prevention efforts should consider CU traits in order to protect youth from relational bullying. However, differences between countries and gender should also be taken into account.

AbstractThe dual systems model of adolescent risk‐taking portrays the period as one characterized by a combination of heightened sensation seeking and still‐maturing self‐regulation, but most tests of this model have been conducted in the United States or Western Europe. In the present study, these propositions are tested in an international sample of more than 5000 individuals between ages 10 and 30 years from 11 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, using a multi‐method test battery that includes both self‐report and performance‐based measures of both constructs. Consistent with the dual systems model, sensation seeking increased between preadolescence and late adolescence, peaked at age 19, and declined thereafter, whereas self‐regulation increased steadily from preadolescence into young adulthood, reaching a plateau between ages 23 and 26. Although there were some variations in the magnitude of the observed age trends, the developmental patterns were largely similar across countries.