Background: The concept of differential susceptibility has challenged the potential meaning of personal traits such as poor ability to regulate emotions. Under the traditional model of diathesis/stress, personal characteristics such as liability to angry outbursts are seen as essentially disadvantageous, emerging under duress in a way that is…

Background: This study examines how and why children change in aggression and delinquency from age 6 to 15 years. Besides assessing the shape of the developmental trajectories of aggression and delinquency, we investigated whether child personality characteristics, parenting, and interactions between these two predict the development of…

Background: Adolescence is a time when intense emotions are elicited within the parent-adolescent relationship, often when autonomy subjectively is endangered. As emotion dysregulation is one of the risk processes for the development of psychopathology, adolescence may be perceived as a highly sensitive period for maladjustment. Inter-individual…

This review discusses conceptual issues in relating temperament to psychopathology, including the disputed relation of temperament to personality in children. A potential integrative framework is discussed that links trait and biological markers of temperament (reactive, incentive-response tendencies) with regulatory processes. This framework is…

Background: Models of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) suggest developmental influences may feed into components of the disorder separately from associated disruptive behavior problems. We investigated this in terms of key personality/temperament traits of Reactive and Effortful Control, Resiliency, and Emotionality. Methods: A…

Background: Many studies have documented that adopted children are at higher risk for behavior problems, but less is known about the correlates of their problem behavior. Method: The correlates of parent-reported and teacher-reported problem behavior in 7-year-old internationally adopted children (N = 176) were investigated by examining these…