Risky beginnings

儿童早期行为问题非常常见，并预示着多种不利的人生结局，因此了解其起源是一项紧迫的挑战。这项建议从几个方面扩展了申请者先前关于家庭对儿童调节思想和行为能力的影响的工作：通过关注生命的头两年；通过检查父亲和母亲的影响；通过将这种认知视角与合作研究人员在生物和社会层面上评估个体差异的专业知识相结合；最后通过采用多地点设计，对研究结果的普适性进行严格的测试。通过丰富的抽样设计，将招募400名孕妇及其伴侣(英国200名，美国和荷兰100名)，以最大限度地提高幸福感水平较低的孕妇父母的参与度。自我调节技能将使用经过验证的实验方法进行评估。我们希望考察一系列社会因素(如家庭关系质量)、认知因素(父母和婴儿)和生物因素(母婴应激激素皮质醇水平)之间复杂的相互作用，作为婴儿适应和幸福的预测因素。这项研究的一个关键优势是它纳入了父亲，因为许多关于父母影响的基本问题仍然没有答案：例如，父母预测因素和婴儿结局之间的关系在性质和程度上对父亲和母亲是否相似？在强调儿童对环境影响的易感性差异的研究迅速增长的基础上，拟议的研究将探索与婴儿的特征(例如，压力反应)、父母(例如，父母的教养方式)和文化(例如，社会对向父母过渡的个人的支持水平)有关的婴儿适应家庭预测因素的性质和大小的对比。

Early childhood conduct problems are very common and predict multiple adverse life-courseoutcomes, such that understanding their origins is an urgent challenge. This proposal extendsthe applicants' previous work on family influences on children's abilities to regulate their thoughts and behaviours in several ways: by focusing on the first two years of life; by examining effects of paternal as well as maternal influences; by integrating this cognitive perspective with the co-investigators' expertise in assessing individual differences at biological and social levels; and finally by adoptinga multi-site design that provides a stringent test of the generalisability of study findings. A sample of 400 expectant mothers and their partners (200 in the UK and 100 in the USA andthe Netherlands) will be recruited using an enriched sampling design to maximize theparticipation of expectant parents showing low levels of well-being. Self-regulatoryskills will be assessed using validated experimental methods. We hope to examine the complex interplay between a range of social factors (e.g., quality of family relationships) cognitive factors (in both parents and infants) and biological factors (maternal and infant levels of the stress hormone cortisol) as predictors of infant adjustment and well-being.A key strength of the study is its inclusion of fathers, as many basic questions regarding parental influences remain unanswered: For example are the relations between parental predictors and infant outcomes similar in nature and magnitude for fathers and mothers? Building on the rapid growth of studies that highlight variation in children's susceptibility to environmental influences, the proposed study will explore contrasts in the nature and magnitude of family predictors of infant adjustment that relate to characteristics of the infant (e.g., stress reactivity), the parent (e.g., parenting style) and the culture (e.g., level of societal support for individuals making the transition to parenthood).