Parents' cultural beliefs are associated with their children's socialization and development. Researchers have examined these associations through the lens of parents' ethnotheories, which refer to parents' implicit beliefs about children's developmentally appropriate behavior. In contrast to prior work focused on parents' ethnotheories of…

Globally, one in three women experiences domestic violence over their lifetimes. Yet, the factors that shape adult behavior toward domestic violence remain poorly understood. We examine the effect of exposure to political violence in early stages of life on likelihood of domestic violence in marital life. Combining household level survey with…

Across all cultures, parents have intuitive ideas ("ethnotheories") of what undesirable child characteristics are as well as how to explain them. Yet there have been relatively few cross-cultural comparisons of parents' ethnotheories about the nature and causes of child misbehavior. 108 mothers of 5-year-old children from the United…

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits predict behavioral problems in adolescence. But little is known about early modulatory factors. Behavioral Inhibition (BI) in particular has been suggested to protect against the development of CU-traits. This temperamental predisposition is characterized by heightened environmental sensitivity. The current…

We conducted a meta-analytic review of 53 studies published between 2000 and 2020 to quantify associations of parents' emotion regulation with parenting behavior and children's emotion regulation and internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Twelve meta-analyses, which included between 4 to 22 effect sizes (N from 345 to 3609), were conducted to…

The present study examined the psychometric properties of a brief parent-report daily checklist of toddler behavior (Parent Daily Report--Toddler Version; PDR-T). Data were collected from three groups of 18-36 month-olds who were followed longitudinally for approximately one year: (a) internationally adopted children (N = 156); (b) children placed…

Early adversity is associated with both internalizing and externalizing problems among children, and effects of adversity on dimensions of child temperament may underlie these links. However, very little is known about the role of child sex in these processes. The current study examined whether there are indirect effects of early adversity on…

There are few studies of behavior problems in preterm children prior to 2 years old and the changes that occur over time. The aims of this study were to examine the patterns and prediction of behavior problems and the effects of gender and socioeconomic status (SES) on behavior problems in preterm children at the toddler and preschool periods.…

Externalizing behaviors observed in early childhood have been found to be stable, particularly for boys, but little research has investigated the antecedents of these behaviors, especially how the antecedents may differentially relate to externalizing behaviors in boys and girls. The goal of this study was to explore predictors of externalizing…

The present article aims to show how to model longitudinal change in cohort sequential data applying latent true change models using Mplus' multi-group approach. The underlying modeling ideas are described and explained in this article. As an example, change in internalizing problem behaviors between the age of 8 and 13 years is modeled and…

Children's early emotional environment strongly influences their later behavioural development. Yet, besides maternal depression, limited knowledge exists about the effect of other emotions and the role of fathers. Using 290 triads (mother/father/child), we investigated how positive (SEEKING, CARING, PLAYFULNESS) and negative (FEAR, ANGER,…

The current study examined the heterogeneity in the development of school-based prosocial behavior from Grades 1 to 12 and the role of multiple early childhood antecedents in predicting heterogeneous developmental trajectories of prosocial behavior in a sample of 784 children facing early risks and vulnerabilities (predominantly from low-income…

There is a need to identify children with potential mental health issues early in order to provide "an ounce of prevention." Unfortunately, there are few instruments available to identify emotional and behavioral issues in infants and many never receive intervention. We developed the Brief Child and Family Intake and Outcomes System for…

Premature infants have significant risk for later behavior problems. This study examined growth trajectories of three problem behaviors across five developmental age points from preschool to early adulthood in a well-characterized sample of premature infants. The effects of neonatal risk, gender, and socioeconomic context were modeled on these…

The purpose of this research was to determine the influence of two subcomponents of auditory short-term memory on the developmental trajectories of behavior problems. The sample included 7,058 children from the NLSY79--Children and Young Adult survey between the ages 5 and 14 years. Results suggested that anxious/depressed behavior increases…