Risky beginnings

幼儿期行为问题非常常见，并预示着多种不利的人生结局，因此了解其根源是一项紧迫的挑战。该提案以多种方式扩展了申请人之前关于家庭对儿童调节思想和行为的能力的影响的研究：关注生命的头两年；通过检查父亲和母亲的影响；将这种认知视角与共同研究者评估生物和社会层面个体差异的专业知识相结合；最后采用多中心设计，对研究结果的普遍性进行严格的测试。将采用丰富抽样设计招募 400 名准妈妈及其伴侣（英国 200 名，美国和荷兰 100 名）作为样本，以最大限度地提高幸福感较低的准父母的参与。将使用经过验证的实验方法评估自我调节技能。我们希望研究一系列社会因素（例如家庭关系的质量）认知因素（父母和婴儿）和生物因素（母亲和婴儿的应激激素皮质醇水平）之间复杂的相互作用，作为婴儿调整和幸福的预测因素。这项研究的一个关键优势是将父亲纳入其中，因为有关父母影响的许多基本问题仍未得到解答：例如，父母预测因素与婴儿结果之间的关系在性质和程度上对父亲和母亲来说是否相似？基于强调儿童对环境影响的易感性变化的研究的快速发展，拟议的研究将探讨婴儿适应的家庭预测因素的性质和程度的对比，这些预测因素与婴儿的特征（例如压力反应性）、父母（例如养育方式）和文化（例如个人向为人父母过渡的社会支持水平）有关。

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).