In a sample of 998 ethnically diverse adolescents, a multiagent, multimethod approach to the measurement of adolescent effortful control, adolescent substance use, and friendship influence was used to predict escalations to early-adult tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use by ages 22-23. Structural equation modeling revealed that adolescent…

Exploratory structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to a multiple indicator (26 individual symptom ratings) by multitrait (ADHD-IN, ADHD-HI and ODD factors) by multiple source (mothers, fathers and teachers) model to test the invariance, convergent and discriminant validity of the Child and Adolescent Disruptive Behavior Inventory with 872…

Internalizing difficulties are prevalent in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), yet little is known about the underlying cause of this comorbidity. It is also unclear which types of autistic-like and internalizing difficulties are most strongly associated. The current study investigated the phenotypic and etiological associations…

The present study investigated the effects of the KiVa antibullying program on students' anxiety, depression, and perception of peers in Grades 4-6. Furthermore, it was investigated whether reductions in peer-reported victimization predicted changes in these outcome variables. The study participants included 7,741 students from 78 schools who were…

Exposure to stress is associated with a wide range of internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescents, including aggressive behavior. Extant research examining mechanisms underlying the associations between stress and youth aggression has consistently identified social information processing pathways that are disrupted by exposure to…

Effortful control (EC), the capacity to deliberately suppress a dominant response and perform a subdominant response, rapidly developing in toddler and preschool age, has been shown to be a robust predictor of children's adjustment. Not settled, however, is whether a view of EC as a heterogeneous rather than unidimensional construct may offer…

Examined a cognitive-behavioral pathway by which depressive symptoms in mothers and fathers increase risk for later child externalizing problem behavior via parents' appraisals of child behavior and physical discipline. Participants were 245 children (118 girls) at risk for school-age conduct problems, and their parents and teachers. Children were…

Evidence for shared heritable influences across domains of substance use suggests that some genetic variants influence broad risk for externalizing behaviors. Theories of externalizing psychopathology also suggest that genetic liability for substance use manifests as temperamental risk factors, particularly those related to behavioral…

This study aimed to establish potential mechanisms through which economic disadvantage contributes to the development of young children's internalizing and externalizing problems. Prospective data from fetal life to age 3 years were collected in a total of 2,169 families participating in the Generation R Study. The observed physical home…

The role of hostile attributional style (HAS) in antisocial development has been well-documented. We analyzed longitudinal data on 585 youths (48% female; 19% ethnic minority) to test the hypothesis that response evaluation and decision (RED) mediates the relation between HAS and antisocial behavior in adolescence. In Grades 10 and 12, adolescent…

The paper presents the first known longitudinal study of the relationship between loneliness, depressive symptoms, and suicide ideation in adolescence, in a stratified sample of high school students (Time 1 N = 1009; 57% female; Time 2 N = 541; 60% female). Cross-lagged structural equation modeling indicated that depressive symptoms led to more…

The current prospective study investigated transactional relations between maternal depressive symptoms and children's depressive and externalizing symptoms. Participants included 240 children (M age = 11.86 years, SD = 0.56; 53.9% female) and their mothers who were part of a 6-year longitudinal study. Measures of maternal depression (Beck…

Some infants experience atypical levels of over-responsivity to sensations, which limit their ability to interact and explore their environment. Yet, little is known about typical development of over-responsivity during infancy or whether the presence of extreme over-responsivity in infancy is a predictor of clinically significant sensory…

Building on interpersonal theories of depression, the current study sought to explore whether early childhood social withdrawal serves as a risk factor for depressive symptoms and diagnoses in young adulthood. The researchers hypothesized that social impairment at age 15 would mediate the association between social withdrawal at age 5 and…

Externalising behaviours such as substance misuse (SM) and conduct disorder (CD) symptoms highly co-ocurr in adolescence. While disinhibited personality traits have been consistently linked to externalising behaviours there is evidence that these traits may relate differentially to SM and CD. The current study aimed to assess whether this was the…