This article examines early childhood antecedents of adults' political orientation. Using longitudinal data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we investigate associations between parenting beliefs and behaviors, child temperament, and attachment security during early…

Based on former research, it can be assumed that attachment relationships provide a context in which children develop both the effortful control (EC) capacity and the repertoire of responses to regulate distress. Both are important to understand children's (mal)adjustment. While the latter assumption has been supported in several studies, less is…

We examined the prediction that the interaction between Glucocorticoid Receptor Gene ("NR3C1") methylation, stress, and experienced maternal support predicts anxious and avoidant attachment development. This was tested in a general population sample of 487 children and adolescents (44% boys, M[subscript age] = 11.84, SD[subscript age] =…

Early attachment has both protective and risk factors as regards later mental health. In Finland, insecure-avoidant-type attachment is overrepresented. Does this indicate a risk for emotional and behavioural problems at preschool age? In this study, we examined and compared the association between attachment and mental health in Finnish singletons…

Early interventions aim at promoting a good mother-child relationship as basis for a good socio-emotional development, especially in high-risk populations, and at correcting already unfavorable patterns of interaction and are common today. Insecure attachment, both of the child and of the mother, has been identified as a risk factor for early…

This study explores the associations between mothers' religiosity, and families' and children's functioning in a stratified random sample of 695 Catholic and Protestant mother-child dyads in socially deprived areas in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a region which has experienced centuries of sectarian conflict between Protestant Unionists and…

We examined behavior problems in 80 adolescents (39 male; mean age = 15.74 years) adopted in early childhood by Canadians from globally depriving Romanian institutions. Overall, rates of clinically significant behavior problems were comparable to rates found in younger postinstitutionalized adopted children. The association between duration of…

Attachment theory suggests that children's attachment insecurity plays a key role in the development of anxiety. In the present study we evaluated the empirical evidence for the link between insecure attachment and anxiety from early childhood to adolescence. A meta-analysis of 46 studies, from 1984 to 2010, including 8,907 children, was…

Objective: To examine the associations among mental health problems, maternal monitoring and permissiveness, mother-daughter communication and attachment, and sexual behaviors among African American girls receiving outpatient psychiatric care. Youths with mental health problems report higher rates of HIV-risk behavior than do their peers, and…

The present study examined how vulnerability and protective factors at the individual level (child's disabilities; patterns of attachment), and at the family level (fathers'/mothers' affect), help explain differences in socioemotional and behavioural adjustment among children aged 8-12 years with comorbid learning disability (LD) and attention…