Mother-child mutually responsive orientation and conscience development: from toddler to early school age

The Moderating Effects of Parenting Styles in the Association Between Behavioral Inhibition and Parent-Reported Guilt and Empathy in Preschool Children

This study investigated interactions between children's temperament and parenting styles in their association with measures of guilt and empathy. Participants were 87 predominantly Caucasian, middle-class mothers and their children between the ages of 3 and 5 (M = 4.39, SD = .51). Children nominated by their preschool teachers as being behaviorally inhibited showed higher levels of parent-rated guilt and empathy than uninhibited children, irrespective of the type and quality of parenting they experienced. However, for uninhibited children, greater inconsistent discipline was associated with lower levels of guilt and lower levels of empathy, whereas higher levels of authoritarian parenting were associated with higher levels of guilt. These results support the presence of important interactions between temperament and parenting in explaining two critical dimensions of callous-unemotional traits.

Children's conscience and self-regulation

We focus on children's conscience, an inner guiding system responsible for the gradual emergence and maintenance of self-regulation. Drawing from our research program that has encompassed three large longitudinal studies cumulatively covering the first 6 years of life, we discuss two major components of conscience: moral emotions (guilt, discomfort following transgressions) and moral conduct compatible with rules and standards. We discuss the organization of young children's conscience, focusing on relations between moral emotions and moral conduct, and the development of conscience, focusing on its early form: the child's eager, willing stance toward parental socialization. We also review research on two major sets of influences that predict individual differences in moral emotions and moral conduct: biologically based temperament and socialization in the family. We discuss two inhibitory systems of temperament-fearfulness and effortful control-and several features of socialization, including the style of parental discipline and the quality of the parent-child relationship. Early conscience is an important early personality system, coherently organized, relatively stable over time, and subject to individual differences that emerge as a result of a complex interplay between children's temperamental individuality and socialization in the family.

Mutually responsive orientation between parents and their young children: toward methodological advances in the science of relationships

The authors captured mother-child and father-child relationships when children were 7 and 15 months old by coding 4 explicitly dyadic components of mutually responsive orientation (MRO): coordinated routines, harmonious communication, mutual cooperation, and emotional ambiance. These components were coded in 102 families in naturalistic contexts at home and in the laboratory. Using confirmatory factor analytic methods, the authors demonstrated that MRO (a) is a unidimensional latent construct, (b) can be distinguished from and is not reducible to the 2 interacting individuals' qualities (responsiveness and positive affect), and (c) has remarkable measurement equivalence from ages 7 to 15 months for both mother-child and father-child relationships and has remarkable measurement equivalence across both parent-child relationships at both child ages. This study represents an effort to advance the science of relationships by moving away from individual-based measures to dyadic measures and by using contemporary data analytic strategies.

Children's internalization of rules of conduct: role of parenting in alcoholic families

This study examined the association between fathers' alcoholism and children's internalization of rules of conduct at 2 to 3 years of age. The sample consisted of 220 families (102 without alcoholism, 118 with alcoholism). Results indicated that there was no direct association between fathers' alcoholism and children's internalization measured with a behavioral paradigm at age 3 years. However, the indirect association between fathers' alcoholism and children's behavioral internalization was significant through fathers' sensitivity during play interactions at age 2 years. Children of fathers with alcoholism were rated by their mothers as having lower internalized conduct over the 2- to 3-year period. This direct association was not mediated by parental sensitivity.

Developmental pathways to conduct disorder

This article highlights how a developmental approach to understanding the causes of conduct disorder (CD) could be critical for understanding and preventing delinquent and violent behavior in youth. The approach recognizes that there may be multiple causal pathways leading to CD. It also integrates developmental research and theory with research on antisocial and aggressive behavior to explain how normal developmental mechanisms may be disrupted to place a child at risk for showing problem behavior. The article reviews research outlining several such pathways that differ in the age at which serious conduct problems develop and that differ on the presence or absence of callous-unemotional traits. The presence of these different developmental pathways has important implications for how research is conducted to study CD and interventions are implemented to prevent or treat children who have CD.

Mindfulness-based parent training: strategies to lessen the grip of automaticity in families with disruptive children

Disagreements and conflicts in families with disruptive children often reflect rigid patterns of behavior that have become overlearned and automatized with repeated practice. These patterns are mindless: They are performed with little or no awareness and are highly resistant to change. This article introduces a new, mindfulness-based model of parent training and contrasts the model's assumptions with those of behavioral (operant) parent training. The new model informs 3 strategies to lessen the grip of automaticity in families with disruptive children: facilitative listening, distancing, and motivated action plans. The article does not oppose mindfulness to mindlessness or suggest that the former is always better than the latter but instead proposes that each is most useful at different times in the parenting process. I conclude by calling for empirical investigations of mindfulness-based parent training and, if those are successful, for the development of an integrated model that blends behavioral and mindfulness-based principles to inform all facets of intervention.

Behaviour problems in 18- to 36-month old children of alcoholic fathers: secure mother-infant attachment as a protective factor

This study examined the relationship between paternal alcoholism and toddler behavior problems from 18 to 36 months of age, as well as the potential moderating effects of 12-month infant-mother attachment security on this relationship. Children with alcoholic fathers had higher levels of internalizing and externalizing behavior than children of nonalcoholic fathers. Simple effects testing of an interaction effect of child age, group, and attachment security with mothers on externalizing behaviour suggested that at 24 and 36 months of age mother-infant attachment security moderated the relationship between alcohol group status and externalizing behaviour. Namely, within the alcohol group, those children with secure relationships with their mothers had significantly lower externalizing than insecure children of alcoholics. A similar pattern was noted for internalizing behavior at 36 months of age. Implications for intervention are discussed.

Pathways to conscience: early mother-child mutually responsive orientation and children's moral emotion, conduct, and cognition

BACKGROUND

Associations between early mother-child mutually responsive orientation (MRO) and children's conscience have been previously established, but the mechanisms accounting for those links are not understood. We examined three such mediational mechanisms: (a) the child's enhanced enjoyment of interactions with the mother, (b) increased committed, self-regulated compliance with the mother, and/or (c) a decreased need for maternal use of power assertion. Children's conscience was seen as a complex system encompassing moral emotion (guilt), conduct, and cognition.

METHODS

In a longitudinal design, MRO was observed in mothers' and children's multiple naturalistic interactions at 9, 14, and 22 months. The mediators were observed at 33 months. Children's conscience was observed at 45 months (moral emotion) and at 56 months (moral conduct and cognition).

RESULTS

The mediating paths were different for the three components of conscience. MRO had a direct, unmediated effect on moral emotion. MRO influenced moral conduct through two mediational paths: by promoting the child's enjoyment of interactions with the mother and by enhancing committed compliance. MRO influenced moral cognition by promoting the child's enjoyment of mother-child interactions. Maternal power assertion did not mediate the relation between MRO and conscience once the influence of the other mediators was considered.

CONCLUSIONS

The impact of the early mother-child relationship on future conscience appears to be a complex process that progresses along distinct paths.

Parental discipline and externalizing behavior problems in early childhood: the roles of moral regulation and child gender

We tested whether individual differences in a component of early conscience mediated relations between parental discipline and externalizing behavior problems in 238 3.5-year-olds. Parents contributed assessments of discipline practices and child moral regulation. Observations of children's behavioral restraint supplemented parental reports. Parents and teachers reported on child externalizing symptoms. Parental induction, warm responsiveness, and less frequent use of physical punishment generally were associated with higher levels of moral regulation and fewer externalizing problems. Moreover, moral regulation partially mediated relationships between discipline and externalizing symptoms, with the clearest case of mediation involving induction. However, relationships were found for boys only. Results support a mediation model wherein inductive and physical discipline may influence the expression of boys' externalizing behavior through effects on conscience. Finally, results suggest that different developmental processes may be associated with early externalizing problems in boys and girls, and confirm that fathers' reports contribute to our understanding of the origins of child externalizing problems.

Parent-child dyadic mutuality and child behavior problems: an investigation of gene-environment processes

BACKGROUND

Parent-child mutuality is comprised of emotional reciprocity, co-responsiveness, and cooperation, which together represent aspects of co-regulation of emotion and behavior that may be important in the etiology of children's behavior problems. Furthermore, individual differences in children's mutuality and behavior problems involve transactions between genetic and environmental influences. Behavioral genetic designs are useful for elucidating these processes.

METHODS

The sample included 396 children in adoptive families (53% female, age M = 8.16 years), of whom 244 were siblings (122 pairs). All of the siblings were genetically unrelated. In some families, one child was adopted but the other child was a biological child of the adoptive parents. We observed mother-child dyadic mutuality (a composite score including responsiveness, interaction reciprocity, and cooperation) during videotaped in-home observations. In addition, child behavior problems were assessed and represented as a composite score including observers' ratings of noncompliance, and parents' ratings of aggression and conduct problems.

RESULTS

Greater mutuality was associated with lower levels of child behavior problems, both between families and within families (i.e., sibling differences). The sibling intra-class correlation for mutuality with the same parent was near zero in this sample of genetically unrelated siblings. The correlation between child behavior problems and dyadic mutuality did not vary as a function of mother-child genetic similarity.

CONCLUSIONS

Mother-child mutuality is child specific within families, a finding that is consistent with theories regarding bi-directional parent and child effects in socialization. In addition, there was no evidence of passive gene-environment correlation, suggesting that the link between lower levels of maternal mutuality and higher levels of child behavior problems is not only reflecting overlapping genetic influences on parent and child behavior.

Maternal power assertion in discipline and moral discourse contexts: commonalities, differences, and implications for children's moral conduct and cognition

Parental power assertion is traditionally studied in the behavioral domain--discipline triggered by the child's immediate misbehavior--but rarely in the cognitive domain--parent-child discussions of the child's past misbehavior. Maternal power assertion was observed in "do" and 'don't" discipline contexts from 14 to 45 months and in the context of mother-child discourse about a recent misbehavior at 56 months. Mothers' use of power cohered across the "do," 'don't," and discourse contexts, but its implications were domain specific. Power assertion in the 'don't" discipline context predicted behavioral outcomes (more moral conduct at 56 and 73 months, less antisocial conduct at 73 months) but not cognitive outcomes (moral cognition at 56 and 73 months). Power assertion in the discourse context predicted less mature moral cognition but not moral or antisocial conduct. Mothers' high Neuroticism predicted more power assertion in all three contexts. Child effects were examined.

Toddlers' self-regulated compliance to mothers, caregivers, and fathers: implications for theories of socialization

To compare children's socialized behavior to parents and nonparental agents, this study examined self-regulated compliance to mothers and caregivers--an early form of internalization--in 90 toddlers, half of whom were also observed with fathers. Adults were observed in play, teaching, and discipline sessions with the child and were interviewed on child-rearing philosophies. Child cognition and emotion regulation were assessed, and naturalistic observations were conducted at child-care locations. Mean-level and rank-order stability were found in child compliance to the 3 adults. Child emotion regulation and adult warm control in a discipline situation were related to self-regulated compliance to the mother, caregiver, and father. Compliance to parents correlated with parental sensitivity and philosophies, and compliance to the caregiver correlated with child cognition and social involvement when child-care quality was controlled. Maternal sensitivity and warm control discipline predicted compliance to the caregiver but not vice versa. Results are consistent with theoretical positions on the generalization of socialization from the mother to nonmaternal agents.

Maternal sensitivity, infant attachment, and temperament in early childhood predict adjustment in middle childhood: the case of adopted children and their biologically unrelated parents

In a longitudinal study, internationally adopted children (N = 146) placed before 6 months of age were followed from infancy to age 7. Results showed that girls were better adjusted than boys, except in cognitive development, and that easy temperament was associated with higher levels of social, cognitive, and personality development and fewer behavior problems. Higher quality of child-mother relationships, in terms of attachment security and maternal sensitivity, uniquely predicted better social and cognitive development. The combination of attachment disorganization and difficult temperament predicted less optimal ego-control and lower levels of cognitive development. It is concluded that even in adopted children, who are not biologically related to their adoptive parents, early mother-infant interactions and attachment relationships predict later socioemotional and cognitive development, beyond infant temperament and gender.

Translating emotion theory and research into preventive interventions

Scientific advances in the field of emotions suggest a framework for conceptualizing the emotion-related aspects of prevention programs that aim to enhance children's socioemotional competence and prevent the emergence of behavior problems and psychopathology. A conception of emotions as inherently adaptive and motivational and the related empirical evidence from several disciplines and specialities suggest 7 principles for developing preventive interventions: the utilization of positive and negative emotions, emotion modulation as a mediator of emotion utilization, emotion patterns in states and traits, different processes of emotion activation, emotion communication in early life, and the development of connections for the modular and relatively independent emotions and cognitive systems. Each principle's practical implications and application in current prevention programs are discussed.