Cumulative early childhood adversity and later antisocial behavior: The mediating role of passive avoidance

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Idil Yazgan ◽  
Jamie L. Hanson ◽  
John E. Bates ◽  
Jennifer E. Lansford ◽  
Gregory S. Pettit ◽  
...  

Abstract Twenty-six percent of children experience a traumatic event by the age of 4. Negative events during childhood have deleterious correlates later in life, including antisocial behavior. However, the mechanisms that play into this relation are unclear. We explored deficits in neurocognitive functioning, specifically problems in passive avoidance, a construct with elements of inhibitory control and learning as a potential acquired mediator for the pathway between cumulative early childhood adversity from birth to age 7 and later antisocial behavior through age 18, using prospective longitudinal data from 585 participants. Path analyses showed that cumulative early childhood adversity predicted impaired passive avoidance during adolescence and increased antisocial behavior during late adolescence. Furthermore, poor neurocognition, namely, passive avoidance, predicted later antisocial behavior and significantly mediated the relation between cumulative early childhood adversity and later antisocial behavior. This research has implications for understanding the development of later antisocial behavior and points to a potential target for neurocognitive intervention within the pathway from cumulative early childhood adversity to later antisocial behavior.

2021 ◽  
pp. 008124632199445
Author(s):  
Tammy-lee Pretorius

COVID-19 spread rapidly across the world, and by March 2020, the first case of COVID-19 was identified in South Africa. Lockdown-related measures such as restricted movement and isolation were implemented to contain the virus. Combined with these measures, factors such as economic decline, job losses, and food shortages can cause numerous mental health sequelae such as depression. Feelings of hopelessness and helplessness as well as cases of suicide have been reported around the world due to the pandemic and the associated feelings of anxiety and depression. The aims of this study were to investigate levels of hopelessness and depression in a sample of health care students. A random sample of students ( N = 174) enrolled in a health sciences programme at the University of the Western Cape completed the Beck Hopelessness Scale, the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and a three-item Resilience Scale. The results revealed high levels of hopelessness and depression compared to previously reported normative data for these scales. In addition, the indirect effects of hopelessness on depression were significant, demonstrating the mediating role of resilience in the hopelessness–depression relationship. These results highlight a call for universities to take proactive measures in providing students with free and easily accessible resources to help them cope and manage stress during a traumatic event. More importantly, at a national level, preventive measures should be implemented to strengthen resilience in young adults.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-30
Author(s):  
T.O. Yudina

Following the modern theoretical and empirical data on the problem of relation between the role-taking and empathy abilities we supposed that empathic behavior in early childhood could be realized through acquiring the role “mom” within the role playing. In order to test our suppose we have conducted the ingroup experiment with 36 toddlers (M=35 months) and compared the frequency of the empathic behavior under two conditions: 1) taking the role of mom and 2) taking the role of friend by the toddler withing the experimental story-play with toys. According to our hypothesis we expected that children would display the empathic behavior more frequent in the condition of taking the mom’s role. Our hypothesis was not confirmed since the difference between conditions has been not significant. Such results reveal that the parental models do not serve significant mediating role in the child’s learning of prosocial behavior.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arianna M Gard ◽  
Tyler C. Hein ◽  
Colter Mitchell ◽  
Sara McLanahan ◽  
Luke Williamson Hyde

Manuscript in press at Development & Psychopathology (Submitted 8/17/2020, Accepted 11/08/2020). Childhood adversity is thought to undermine youth socioemotional development via altered neural function within regions that support emotion processing. These effects are hypothesized to be developmentally specific, with adversity in early childhood sculpting subcortical structures (e.g., amygdala) and adversity during adolescence impacting later-developing structures (e.g., prefrontal cortex; PFC). However, little work has tested these theories directly in humans. Using prospectively-collected longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,144) and neuroimaging data from a subsample of families recruited in adolescence (N = 162), the current study investigated the trajectory of harsh parenting across childhood (i.e., ages 3 to 9) and how initial levels versus changes in harsh parenting across childhood were associated with corticolimbic activation and connectivity during socioemotional processing. Harsh parenting in early childhood (indexed by the intercept term from a linear growth curve model) was associated with less amygdala, but not PFC, reactivity to angry facial expressions. In contrast, change in harsh parenting across childhood (indexed by the slope term) was associated with less PFC, but not amygdala, activation to angry faces. Increases in, but not initial levels of, harsh parenting were also associated with stronger positive amygdala-PFC connectivity during angry face processing


2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 306-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Limpo ◽  
Rui A. Alves

It is established that transcription skills (handwriting and spelling) constrain children’s writing. Yet, little is known about the mechanism underlying this relationship. This study examined the mediating role of bursts and pauses on the link between transcription skills and writing fluency or text quality. For that, 174 second graders did the alphabet task and wrote a story using HandSpy. Path analyses indicated that writing fluency and text quality models were excellent descriptions of the data, with 80% and 46% of explained variance, respectively. Results showed that handwriting and spelling influenced writing fluency only indirectly via burst length and short pauses duration (full mediation); and that whereas only handwriting contributed to text quality directly, both handwriting and spelling contributed to text quality indirectly, via burst length (partial mediation). These findings suggest that better transcription skills allow students to write more words without pausing, which in turn results in more fluent and better writing.


2019 ◽  
pp. 003022281988284
Author(s):  
Chih-Che Lin

This study examined both the mediation effects of self-esteem and meaning in life for the relationship between gratitude and suicidal ideation in late adolescence. A total of 276 Taiwanese university students completed measures of gratitude, self-esteem, meaning in life, and suicidal ideation. Path analyses indicated that self-esteem and meaning in life acted as full mediators of the association between gratitude and suicidal ideation. The identified model also revealed a significant path from gratitude through self-esteem and meaning in life to suicidal ideation. A multigroup analysis found that the paths did not differ by genders. Implications for future research and limitations of the present findings are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 4081 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edgar Demeter ◽  
Dana Rad

Healthy development can be viewed as an important dimension of the general wellbeing index and can be based upon lifelong sustainable satisfaction. Young individuals can represent an important component for society and its development. The literature shows that increased levels of global life satisfaction (LS) can be associated with minimal levels of problematic behaviors and elevated levels of pro-social behaviors. However, low levels of LS can be associated with high levels of perceived loneliness (PL), which, in turn, can be associated with antisocial behavior (AS). In light of this, the current investigation aims to study the mediating effect of PL and the link between LS and AS. This study is a preliminary investigation referring to aggressive behaviors and cognition in relation to subjective wellbeing. The sample consisted of 81 young individuals (M = 27.57, Standard Deviation = 9.25) from Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad, Romania. AS was evaluated with the How I Think Questionnaire (HIT), PL was measured with a single item inquiry and LS was evaluated with the satisfaction with life scale (SWLS). The results display that there is a powerful association between LS and AS, between LS and PL and between PL and AS. After the inclusion of the mediator (PL) to the model, the influence of the independent variable (LS) increased and the effect of LS on AS significantly decreased. In light of this, the relationship between LS and AS can be explained by the mediating role of the PL variable. The results indicate the importance of perceived loneliness in regard to one’s life satisfaction and antisocial behaviors. In light of this, interventions that focus on the social aspect could prove useful for the improvement of sustainable life satisfaction, therefore decreasing the chance of the emergence of AS.


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