Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vfjqv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T11:30:15.149Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Emergent patterns of risk for psychopathology: The influence of infant avoidance and maternal caregiving on trajectories of social reticence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2015

Kathryn A. Degnan ,
Amie Ashley Hane ,
Heather A. Henderson ,
Olga L. Walker ,
Melissa M. Ghera  and
Nathan A. Fox
Kathryn A. Degnan*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
Amie Ashley Hane
Affiliation:
Williams College Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons New York State Psychiatric Institute
Heather A. Henderson
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo
Olga L. Walker
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
Melissa M. Ghera
Affiliation:
St. John Fisher College
Nathan A. Fox
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Kathryn Amey Degnan, Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, 3304 Benjamin, College Park, MD 20742; E-mail: kdegnan@umd.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The current study investigated the influential role of infant avoidance on links between maternal caregiving behavior and trajectories at risk for psychopathology. A sample of 153 children, selected for temperamental reactivity to novelty, was followed from infancy through early childhood. At 9 months, infant avoidance of fear-eliciting stimuli in the laboratory and maternal sensitivity at home were assessed. At 36 months, maternal gentle discipline was assessed at home. Children were repeatedly observed in the lab with an unfamiliar peer across early childhood. A latent class growth analysis yielded three longitudinal risk trajectories of social reticence behavior: a high-stable trajectory, a high-decreasing trajectory, and a low-increasing trajectory. For infants displaying greater avoidance, 9-month maternal sensitivity and 36-month maternal gentle discipline were both positively associated with membership in the high-stable social reticence trajectory, compared to the high-decreasing social reticence trajectory. For infants displaying lower avoidance, maternal sensitivity was positively associated with membership in the high-decreasing social reticence trajectory, compared to the low-increasing trajectory. Maternal sensitivity was positively associated with the high-stable social reticence trajectory when maternal gentle discipline was lower. These results illustrate the complex interplay of infant and maternal behavior in early childhood trajectories at risk for emerging psychopathology.

Type
Special Section Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 27 , Issue 4pt1 , November 2015 , pp. 1163 - 1178
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achenbach, T. M., & Rescorla, L. A. (2000). Manual for the ASEBA preschool forms & profiles. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont, Department of Psychiatry.Google Scholar
Aiken, L. S., & West, G. M. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1976). Technical manual for the Systems for Coding Infant Attachment and Reciprocal Maternal Behaviors. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.Google Scholar
Barker, T. V., Reeb-Sutherland, B. C., & Fox, N. A. (2014). Individual differences in fear potentiated startle in behaviorally inhibited children. Developmental Psychobiology, 56, 133–141.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bauer, D. J., & Curran, P. J. (2004). The integration of continuous and discrete latent variable models: Potential problems and promising opportunities. Psychological Methods, 9, 3–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Booth-LaForce, C., & Oxford, M. L. (2008). Trajectories of social withdrawal from Grades 1 to 6: Prediction from early parenting, attachment, and temperament. Developmental Psychology, 4, 1298–1313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buss, K. A., & Kiel, E. J. (2011). Do maternal protective behaviors alleviate toddlers’ fearful distress? International Journal of Behavioral Development, 35, 136–143.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Calkins, S. D. (1994). Origins and outcomes of individual differences in emotion regulation. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 59, 53–72.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Calkins, S. D., & Degnan, K. A. (2006). Temperament in early development. In Ammerman, R. (Ed.), Comprehensive handbook of personality and psychopathology: Vol. 3. Child psychopathology (pp. 64–84). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Calkins, S. D., Fox, N. A., & Marshall, P. M. (1996). Behavioral and physiological antecedents of inhibited and uninhibited behavior. Child Development, 67, 523–540.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chronis-Tuscano, A., Degnan, K. A., Pine, D. S., Pérez-Edgar, K., Henderson, H. A., Diaz, Y., et al. (2009). Stable early maternal report of behavioral inhibition predicts lifetime social anxiety disorder in adolescence. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 48, 928–935.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cicchetti, D. (1984). The emergence of developmental psychopathology. Child Development, 55, 1–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cicchetti, D., & Bukowski, W. M. (1995). Developmental processes in peer relations and psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 7, 587–589.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Toth, S. L. (1997). Transactional ecological systems in developmental psychopathology. In Luthar, S. S., Burack, J. A., Cicchetti, D., & Weisz, J. R. (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology: Perspectives on adjustment, risk, and disorder (pp. 317–349). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Coplan, R. J., Rubin, K. H., Fox, N. A., Calkins, S. D., & Stewart, S. L. (1994). Being alone, playing alone, and acting alone: Distinguishing among reticence and passive and active solitude in young children. Child Development, 65, 129–137.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crockenberg, S. C., & Leerkes, E. M. (2006). Infant and maternal behavior moderate reactivity to novelty to predict anxious behavior at 2.5 years. Development and Psychopathology, 18, 17–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Degnan, K. A., Almas, A. N., & Fox, N. A. (2010). Temperament and the environment in the etiology of anxiety. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 51, 497–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Degnan, K. A., Almas, A. N., Henderson, H. A., Hane, A. A., Walker, O. L., & Fox, N. A. (2014). Longitudinal trajectories of social reticence with unfamiliar peers across early childhood. Developmental Psychology, 50, 2311–2323.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Degnan, K. A., Calkins, S. D., Keane, S. P., & Hill-Soderlund, A. L. (2008). Profiles of disruptive behavior across early childhood: Contributions of frustration reactivity, physiological regulation, and maternal behavior. Child Development, 79, 1357–1376.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Degnan, K. A., & Fox, N. A. (2007). Behavioral inhibition and anxiety disorders: Multiple levels of a resilience process. Development and Psychopathology, 19, 729–746.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Degnan, K. A., Hane, A. A., Henderson, H. A., Walker, O. L., Reeb-Sutherland, B. C., & Fox, N. A. (2011). Longitudinal stability of temperamental exuberance and social-emotional outcomes in early childhood. Developmental Psychology, 47, 765–780.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Degnan, K. A., Henderson, H. A., Fox, N. A., & Rubin, K. H. (2008). Predicting social wariness in middle childhood: The moderating roles of child care history, maternal personality, and maternal behavior. Social Development, 17, 471–487.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dennis, T. (2006). Emotional self-regulation in preschoolers: The interplay of child approach reactivity, parenting, and control capacities. Developmental Psychology, 42, 84–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Edwards, S. L., Rapee, R. M., & Kennedy, S. (2010). Prediction of anxiety symptoms in preschool-aged children: Examination of maternal and paternal perspectives. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 51, 313–321.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eggum, N. D., Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., Reiser, M., Gaertner, B. M., Sallquist, J., et al. (2009). Development of shyness: Relations with children's fearfulness, sex, and maternal behavior. Infancy, 14, 325–345.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feldman, R., Magori-Cohen, R., Galili, G., Singer, M., & Louzoun, Y. (2011). Mother and infant coordinate heart rhythms through episodes of interaction synchrony. Infant Behavior and Development, 34, 569–577.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fox, N. A., Henderson, H. A., & Marshall, P. J. (2001). The biology of temperament: An integrative approach. In Nelson, C. A. & Luciana, M. (Eds.), The handbook of developmental cognitive neuroscience (pp. 631–645). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fox, N. A., Henderson, H. A., Marshall, P. J., Nichols, K. E., & Ghera, M. M. (2005). Behavioral inhibition: Linking biology and behavior within a developmental framework. Annual Review of Psychology, 56, 235–262.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fox, N. A., Henderson, H. A., Rubin, K. H., Calkins, S. D., & Schmidt, L. A. (2001). Continuity and discontinuity of behavioral inhibition and exuberance: Psychophysiological and behavioral influences across the first four years of life. Child Development, 72, 1–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fox, N. A., Snidman, N., Haas, S. A., Degnan, K. A., & Kagan, J. (2014). The relations between reactivity at 4 months and behavioral inhibition in the second year: Replication across three independent samples. Infancy. Advance online publication.Google Scholar
Frenkel, T. I., Fox, N. A., Pine, D. S., Walker, O. L., Degnan, K. A., & Chronis-Tuscano, A. (2015). Early childhood behavioral inhibition, adult psychopathology and the buffering effects of adolescent social networks: A twenty-year prospective study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Advance online publication.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gazelle, H., & Ladd, G. W. (2003). Anxious solitude and peer exclusion: A diathesis–stress model of internalizing trajectories in childhood. Child Development, 74, 257–278.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldsmith, H. H., & Rothbart, M. K. (1999). The Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (Lab-TAB): Pre-locomotor version 3.1. Unpublished manuscript, University of Oregon, Department of Psychology.Google Scholar
Grady, J. S., & Karraker, K. (2014). Do maternal warm and encouraging statements reduce shy toddlers’ social reticence? Infant and Child Development. Advance online publication. doi:10.1002/icd.1850 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hane, A. A., & Barrios, E. (2011). Mother and child interpretations of threat in ambiguous situations: Relations with child anxiety and autonomic responding. Journal of Family Psychology, 25, 644–652.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hane, A. A., Cheah, C., Rubin, K. H., & Fox, N. A. (2008). The role of maternal behavior in the relation between shyness and social withdrawal in early childhood and social withdrawal in middle childhood. Social Development, 17, 795–811.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hane, A. A., & Fox, N. A. (2006). Ordinary variations in maternal caregiving influence human infants’ stress reactivity. Psychological Science, 17, 550–556.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hane, A. A., & Fox, N. A. (2009, April). Maternal contributions to the development of withdrawn behavior in temperamentally at-risk children. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.Google Scholar
Hane, A. A., Fox, N. A., Henderson, H., & Marshall, P. J. (2008). Behavioral reactivity and approach–withdrawal bias in infancy. Developmental Psychology, 44, 1491–1496.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hane, A. A., Fox, N. A., Polak-Toste, C., Ghera, M. M., & Guner, B. (2006). The contextual basis of maternal perceptions of infant temperament. Developmental Psychology, 42, 1077–1088.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hane, A. A., Henderson, H. A., Reeb-Sutherland, B. C., & Fox, N. A. (2010). Ordinary variations in human maternal caregiving in infancy and biobehavioral development in early childhood: A follow-up study. Developmental Psychobiology, 52, 558–567.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kagan, J., Arcus, D., & Snidman, N. (1993). The idea of temperament: Where do we go from here? In Plomin, R. & McClearn, G. E. (Eds.), Nature, nurture, & psychology (pp. 197–210). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kagan, J., Reznick, J. S., Clarke, C., Snidman, N., & Garcia-Coll, C. (1984). Behavioral inhibition to the unfamiliar. Child Development, 55, 2212–2225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kagan, J., Reznick, J. S., & Snidman, N. (1987). The physiology and psychology of behavioral inhibition in children. Child Development, 58, 1459–1473.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kagan, J., & Snidman, N. (1999). Early childhood predictors of adult anxiety disorders. Biological Psychiatry, 46, 1536–1541.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kiel, E. J., & Buss, K. A. (2011). Prospective relations among fearful temperament, protective parenting, and social withdrawal: The role of maternal accuracy in a moderated mediation framework. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 39, 953–966.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kochanska, G. (1995). Children's temperament, mother's discipline, and security of attachment: Multiple pathways to emerging internalization. Child Development, 66, 597–615.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kochanska, G. (1997). Multiple pathways to conscience for children with different temperaments: From toddlerhood to age 5. Developmental Psychology, 33, 228–240.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kochanska, G., Askan, N., & Joy, M. E. (2007). Children's fearfulness as a moderator of parenting in early socialization: Two longitudinal studies. Developmental Psychology, 43, 222–237.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kuperminc, G. P., & Brookmeyer, K. A. (2006). Developmental psychopathology. In Ammerman, R. (Ed.), Comprehensive handbook of personality and psychopathology: Vol. 3. Child psychopathology (pp. 100–113). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Leerkes, E. M., Blankson, A. N., & O'Brien, M. (2009). Differential effects of maternal sensitivity to infant distress and non-distress on social emotional functioning. Child Development, 80, 762–775.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Letcher, P., Smart, D., Sanson, A., & Toumbourou, J. W. (2009). Psychosocial precursors and correlates of differing internalizing trajectories from 3 to 15 years. Social Development, 18, 618–646.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis-Morrarty, E., Degnan, K. A., Chronis-Tuscano, A., Pine, D. S., Henderson, H. A., & Fox, N. A. (2014). Infant attachment security and early behavioral inhibition interact to predict adolescent social anxiety symptoms. Child Development. Advance online publication.Google ScholarPubMed
Lewis-Morrarty, E., Degnan, K. A., Chronis-Tuscano, A., Rubin, K. H., Cheah, C. S. L., Pine, D. S., et al. (2012). Maternal over-control moderates the association between early childhood behavioral inhibition and adolescent social anxiety. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 40, 1363–1373.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Luebbe, A. M., Kiel, E. J., & Buss, K. A. (2011). Toddlers’ context-varying emotions, maternal responses to emotions, and internalizing behaviors. Emotion, 11, 697–703.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Madigan, S., Voci, S., & Benoit, D. (2011). Stability of atypical caregiver behaviors over six years and associations with disorganized infant-caregiver attachment. Attachment and Human Development, 13, 237–252.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marshall, P. J., Reeb, B. C., & Fox, N. A. (2009). Electrophysiological responses to auditory novelty in temperamentally different 9-month-old infants. Developmental Science, 12, 568–582.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McArdle, J. J. (2007). Five steps in the structural factor analysis of longitudinal data. In Cudeck, R. & MacCallum, R. C. (Eds.), Factor analysis at 100: Historical developments and future directions (pp. 99–130). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
McClowry, S. G., Rodriguez, E. T., & Koslowitz, R. (2008). Temperament-based intervention: Re-examining goodness of fit. European Journal of Developmental Science, 2, 120–135.Google ScholarPubMed
McLeod, B. D., Wood, J. J., & Weisz, J. R. (2007). Examining the association between parenting and childhood anxiety: A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 27, 155–172.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moore, G. A., & Calkins, S. D. (2004). Infants’ vagal regulation in the still-face paradigm is related to dyadic coordination of mother-infant interaction. Developmental Psychology, 40, 1068–1080.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mount, K. S., Crockenberg, S. C., Bárrig Jó, P. S., & Wagar, J. (2010). Maternal and child correlates of anxiety in 2½-year-old children. Infant Behavior and Development, 33, 567–578.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Muris, P., van Zwol, L., Huijding, J., & Mayer, B. (2010). Mom told me scary things about this animal: Parenting instilling fear beliefs in their children via the verbal information pathway. Behavioral Research Therapy, 48, 341–346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, L., Rosnay, M. D., Pearson, J., Bergeron, C., Schofield, E., Royal-Lawson, M., et al. (2008). Intergenerational transmission of social anxiety: The role of social referencing processes in infancy. Child Development, 79, 1049–1064.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Muthén, B. (2004). Latent variable analysis: Growth mixture modeling and related techniques for longitudinal data. In Kaplan, D. (Ed.), Handbook of quantitative methodology for the social sciences (pp. 345–368). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Muthén, B., & Muthén, L. (1998–2010). Mplus user's guide (6th ed.). Los Angeles: Author.Google Scholar
Nigg, J. T. (2006). Temperament and developmental psychopathology. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 395–422.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oh, W., Rubin, K. H., Bowker, J. C., Booth-Laforce, C., Rose-Krasnor, L., & Laursen, B. (2008). Trajectories of social withdrawal from middle childhood to early adolescence. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 36, 553–566.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ollendick, T. H., Greene, R. W., Weist, M. D., & Oswald, D. P. (1990). The predictive validity of teacher nominations: A five-year follow-up of at risk youth. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 18, 699–713.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Park, S., Belsky, J., Putnam, S., & Crnic, K. (1997). Infant emotionality, parenting, and 3-year inhibition: Exploring stability and lawful discontinuity in a male sample. Developmental Psychology, 33, 218–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penela, E. C., Henderson, H. A., Hane, A. A., Ghera, M. M., & Fox, N. A. (2012). Maternal caregiving moderates the relation between temperamental fear and social behavior with peers. Infancy. Advance online publication.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pérez-Edgar, K., & Fox, N. A. (2005). Temperament and anxiety disorders. Child Adolescent Psychiatry Clinics of North America, 14, 681–706.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pluess, M., & Belsky, J. (2010). Differential susceptibility to parenting and quality child care. Developmental Psychology, 46, 379–390.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rapee, R. M., Schniering, C. A., & Hudson, J. L. (2009). Anxiety disorders during childhood and adolescence: Origins and treatment. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 5, 311–341.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rothbart, M. K., & Bates, J. E. (2006). Temperament. In Damon, W. & Eisenberg, N. (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development (6th ed., pp. 99–166). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Rubin, K. H., Burgess, K. B., & Hastings, P. D. (2002). Stability and social-behavioral consequences of toddlers’ inhibited temperament and parenting behaviors. Child Development, 73, 483–495.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rubin, K. H., Coplan, R. J., & Bowker, J. C. (2009). Social withdrawal in childhood. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 141–171.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rubin, K. H., Hastings, P. D., Stewart, S. L., Henderson, H. A., & Chen, X. (1997). The consistency and concomitants of inhibition: Some of the children, all of the time. Child Development, 68, 467–483.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rubin, K. H., Nelson, L. J., Hastings, P., & Asendorpf, J. (1999). The transaction between parents' perception of their children's shyness and their parenting styles. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 23, 937–957.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, C. L., Calkins, S. D., Keane, S. P., Anastopoulos, A. D., & Shelton, T. L. (2004). Predicting stability and change in toddler behavior problems: Contributions of maternal behavior and child gender. Developmental Psychology, 40, 29–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
White, L. K., McDermott, J. M., Degnan, K. A., Henderson, H. A., & Fox, N. A. (2011). Behavioral inhibition and anxiety: The moderating roles of inhibitory control and attention shifting. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 39, 735–747.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williford, A. P., Calkins, S. D., & Keane, S. P. (2007). Predicting change in parenting stress across early childhood: Child and maternal factors. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 35, 251–263.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wood, J. J., McLeod, B. D., Sigman, M., Hwang, W. C., & Chu, B. C. (2003). Parenting and childhood anxiety: Theory, empirical findings, and future directions. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 44, 134–151.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed