The Moderating Role of Surgency, Behavioral Inhibition, Negative Emotionality and Effortful Control in the Relationship between Parenting Style and Children’s Reactive and Proactive Aggression

The principal aim of this study is to explore the moderating role of temperament in the relationship between parenting style and the reactive and proactive aggressive behavior of 8-year-old children. The participants are 279 children (154 boys and 125 girls). To measure reactive and proactive aggression, children completed the reactive and proactive questionnaire (RPQ). Child temperament and parenting styles were evaluated by both parents using the temperament in middle childhood questionnaire (TMCQ) and the parenting styles and dimensions questionnaire (PSDQ). The results revealed that boys with high surgency levels and authoritarian fathers displayed more reactive aggression, whereas behaviorally inhibited boys with mothers who scored low for authoritarian parenting displayed less reactive aggression. Finally, girls with high levels of effortful control and mothers who scored low for authoritative parenting displayed more proactive aggression. The results highlight the value of studying the moderating role of temperament in the relationship between children’s aggressive behavior and both mothers’ and fathers’ parenting styles, and underscores the importance of doing so separately for boys and girls.

Information on Covid-19 and Effortful Control Level: Increasing or Decreasing Anxiety?

Anxiety has increased with more information about the COVID-19 outbreak. The COVID-19 information can make people more aware and care about this pandemic. However, it also can make people feel panic and anxious. Emotional induction in the information is referring to how the emotion carried by the information can affect early adult’s anxiety, but the differences in effortful control level that each person has also define the level of anxiety someone experiences. The anxiety level related to effortful control is one dimension of temperament. This study is conducted in concern of the effect of emotional induction in COVID-19 information towards anxiety in high and low effortful control groups. This study used a quantitative method with quasi-experimental research. This study involves 218 early adults in an age range of 20-40 years old. This study used pictures from content information about COVID-19, Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and Effortful Control Questionnaire (ECQ) as the measuring tools. The results of the significance test show p <0.005. This means that there is an effect of emotional induction on anxiety at both high and low effortful control levels. This study shows that emotional induction in the form of COVID-19 information reduces anxiety in the respondent group with a high level of effortful control, but increases anxiety in the respondent group with a low level of effortful control. The effect of COVID-19 information on anxiety based on effortful control in the late adult (over 65 years old) group, in this study cannot be explained.

TEMPERAMENTAL DIMENSIONS AMONG YOUNG STUTTERERS AND TYPICALLY DEVELOPING CHILDREN

Objective: To compare the temperamental characteristics of children who stutter with those who do not stutter. Study Design: Comparative cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Ayub Medical Complex, Abbottabad, from Jun to Nov 2018. Methodology: We recruited 120 children of both genders aged 3-8 years. Sample recruited included two groups including 60 children with stuttering (CWS) and 60 children with no stuttering (CWNS), using consecutive sampling. After taking consent, data was gathered using demographic sheet and Children Behavioral Questionnaire (CBQ) from the sample population. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS-21. Results: The sample included 82 (68.3% males and 38 (31.7%) female children. t-test results of children with stuttering and children with no stuttering showed statistically significant difference for effortful control (p<0.05) including dimension of inhibitory control, low intensity pleasure and perceptual sensitivity. However, the values for Surgency Extraversion and Negative affectivity were not statistically significant though results showed higher and lower mean scores respectively for stutterers compared to non-stutterers. However, the dimensions of anger, frustration, discomfort and falling reactivity showed statistically significant difference (p<0.05). Conclusion: Children with stuttering and children with no stuttering differ in their temperamental characteristics with statistically significant difference for effortful control with lower control in stutterers.

Parent ADHD Is Associated With Greater Parenting Distress in the First Year Postpartum

Objective: Little is known about the experience of parenting infants when a mother or father has ADHD. This study examined cross-sectional predictors of parenting distress experienced by parents with and without ADHD who also have infants. Methods: Participants were 73 mother-father pairs ( N = 146) of infants 6 to 10 months old. Half of the families included a parent with ADHD. Psychosocial predictors were tested using multilevel modeling. Results: Parent or partner ADHD, lower parent sleep quality, fewer social supports, and less infant surgency and effortful control were associated with greater parental distress. Infant negative affect and sleep were not associated. Conclusions: Parents with ADHD and their partners experience greater parenting distress in the first year of their child’s life than parents without ADHD. Addressing parent ADHD symptoms and co-occurring difficulties, including sleep disturbances, are potential targets for early interventions to maximize both parent and infant mental health outcomes.

Risk factors for early use of e-cigarettes and alcohol: Dimensions and profiles of temperament

Adolescent e-cigarette use has been labeled an epidemic and alcohol use during this developmental period is associated with deleterious outcomes. Though specific temperamental dimensions have been shown to predict substance use, profiles of temperament have rarely been examined as predictors. This study examines dimensions and profiles of adolescent temperament as predictors of early use of e-cigarettes and alcohol. The sample was comprised of adolescent (62.07% female, 87.59% White, 82.76% Hispanic/Latinx)/caregiver dyads (N = 146) who completed the first two timepoints (M age at second timepoint = 16.16, SD = 0.68) of a longitudinal adolescent substance use study. Models showed parent-reported effortful control predicted protection against adolescent use of e-cigarettes, whereas adolescent report of effortful control predicted protection against alcohol use. Though dissimilar in temperamental pattern, three profiles emerged from both parent- and adolescent-report-based latent profile analysis models. Adolescents characterized by parents as displaying a Resilient profile had greater odds of e-cigarette use than those characterized by a Reserved profile, whereas adolescents who self-characterized as Mixed-type had markedly greater odds of alcohol use than those who self-characterized as Resilient. Utilization of temperamental profiles may aid in identification of particularly vulnerable subgroups of adolescents who may benefit from relevant preventative programing.

Further Evidence for the Binding and Retrieval of Control-States From the Flanker Task

In response-interference tasks, congruency effects are reduced in trials that follow an incongruent trial. This congruence sequence effect (CSE) has been taken to reflect top-down cognitive control processes that monitor for and intervene in case of conflict. In contrast, episodic-memory accounts explain CSEs with bottom-up retrieval of stimulus-response links. Reconciling these opposing views, an emerging perspective holds that memory stores instances of control – abstract control-states – creating a shortcut for effortful control processes. Support comes from a study that assessed CSEs in a prime-target task. Here, repeating an irrelevant context feature boosted CSEs, possibly by retrieving previously stored control-states. We present a conceptual replication using the Eriksen flanker task because previous research found that CSEs in the flanker task reflect different control mechanisms than CSEs in the prime-target task. We measured CSEs while controlling for stimulus–response memory effects and manipulated contextual information (vertical spatial location) independently from the stimulus information, which introduced the conflict (horizontal spatial location). Results replicate previous findings – CSEs increased for context-repetition compared to context-changes. This study shows that retrieval of control-states is not limited to a specific task or context feature and therefore generalizes the notion that abstract control parameters are stored into trial-specific event files.

Cross-Cultural Differences in Temperament Between the United States and the People’s Republic of China: A Longitudinal Comparison

Aims: The present study assessed cross-cultural differences in temperament and temperament stability between children from the United States (US) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Goals of the study include examining differences in three temperament factors (surgency, negative affectivity, and regulation/effortful control), conducting comparisons on fine-grained dimensions of factors demonstrating significant cross-cultural differences, and comparing temperament stability from infancy to toddlerhood. Methodology: The US sample (N = 147) and PRC sample (N = 128) consisted of children whose temperament was longitudinally assessed in infancy and toddlerhood using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised Short Form (IBQ-R SF) and the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire Short Form (ECBQ SF). Primary analyses involved evaluating mean differences in the three temperament factors: surgency, negative affectivity, and regulation/effortful control, with additional statistical tests conducted to investigate fine-grained distinctions. Results: Findings revealed main effects of culture for each factor with culture x time interactions indicating negative affectivity significantly differed in toddlerhood, t(273) = -8.27, P < .001, d = 1.00, 98.75% CI [-0.70, -0.37], and regulation in infancy, t(273) = -5.17, P < .001, d = 0.62, 98.75% CI [-0.62, -0.22]. Specifically, the US sample exhibited higher surgency at both time points, lower negative affectivity in toddlerhood, and lower regulation in infancy. In addition, little difference was noted in temperament stability between the US and Chinese samples. Conclusion: Our findings support previous reports identifying cultural differences in temperament and highlight that differences are not constant across early childhood, but rather that as development unfolds, their nature is subject to change.