Promoting positive social-emotional pathways: A translational research program

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的总体目标是促进儿童积极的、适应性的社会情感发展途径，并防止从婴儿期到青春期的不适应途径。我们的基础研究试图解释，为什么有些孩子在家庭和更广泛的生态环境中，会走上积极的发展道路，走向成熟的良心，包括适当的道德情感、亲社会、内化、遵守规则的行为和强大的社会情感能力；为什么其他孩子会走上不适应的道路，走向麻木、无视规则和他人的感受、破坏性的、反社会的、高风险的行为、能力差。贫困的社会情感成长。虽然父母社会化的作用已得到广泛承认，但其对儿童个体影响的具体机制尚不清楚。本研究认为，早期亲子相互反应倾向（MRO）是促进长期积极社会情绪结果的重要因素。在MRO的背景下，社会化成为一个共享的、互惠的亲子企业，孩子成为一个积极的、接受的、自愿的参与者，渴望接受父母的目标和价值观。因此，父母可以放弃使用令人反感的、严厉的控制。这项研究进一步阐明了社会化过程是如何紧密地交织在一起的，其结果取决于个体儿童的生物个性。我们正在进行的对102名社区母亲、父亲和孩子的纵向家庭研究支持了这一模型，该研究使用了在孩子7、15、25、38、52、67、80和96个月时收集的大量数据。建议在10-11岁、12-13岁和14-15岁时进行新的评估，以检查早期MRO在青春期关键过渡时期的影响。我们的翻译研究，游戏研究，是一项正在进行的，有理论依据的，随机的育儿干预，对186对低收入的，不同的母亲-幼儿进行干预，培养早期的母亲-儿童MRO，从而促进社会化途径，导致积极的儿童结果。在干预前、干预期间、干预后立即和干预后6个月收集数据。一项针对7-8岁儿童的新评估将测试其在儿童进入学校后的长期影响。这项工作是重要的，因为两项研究在目标、结构和测量上是协同和平行的，但在设计和人群上是互补的，并采用大量、多方法、多特征、多评估、多信息的方法来测量儿童的基因型、心理生理学、气质、行为和情绪、良心、综合评估的能力和功能、亲子关系、父母的适应和家庭生态。跨学科团队包括社会情感发展、青少年、发展精神病理学、产妇适应、干预科学、分子遗传学和统计学专家。一个创新的、统一的理论框架将这两种研究结合起来。分析利用结构方程模型（SEM）阐明了随着时间的变化、发展轨迹的差异、过程和因果机制的联系（中介），以及多种因果途径（调节）。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching aim of this research is to promote children's positive, adaptive pathways of socio-emotional development and to prevent maladaptive pathways from infancy to adolescence. Our basic research seeks to explain why some children embark on positive developmental paths toward a mature conscience that encompasses appropriate moral emotions, prosocial, internalized, rule-abiding conduct, and robust socio- emotional competence when functioning in the family and broader ecologies, and why other children enter maladaptive paths toward callousness, disregard for rules and others' feelings, disruptive, antisocial, high-risk behavior, poor competence, and impoverished socio-emotional growth. Although the role of parental socialization is broadly acknowledged, specific mechanisms of its impact for individual children are not yet understood. In this research, early parent-child Mutually Responsive Orientation (MRO) is proposed as a powerful factor promoting positive long-term socio-emotional outcomes. In the context of MRO, socialization becomes a shared, reciprocal parent-child enterprise, and the child becomes an active, receptive, and willing participant, eager to embrace parental goals and values. Consequently, the parent can relinquish the use of aversive, heavy-handed control. This research further elucidates how socialization processes are strongly interwoven with, and their outcomes dependent on the individual child's biological individuality. Our ongoing longitudinal Family Study of 102 community mothers, fathers and children has supported this model using massive data collected when children were 7, 15, 25, 38, 52, 67, 80, and 96 months. New assessments are proposed at 10-11, 12-13, and 14-15 years, to examine implications of early MRO during the critical transition to adolescence. Our translational research, Play Study, an ongoing, theory-informed, randomized parenting intervention with 186 low-income, diverse mother-toddler dyads, fosters early mother-child MRO, and thus promotes socialization paths leading to positive child outcomes. Data are collected before, throughout, immediately after and 6 months after the intervention. A proposed new assessment at age 7-8 will test its long-term impact following the children's key transition to school. This work is significant because both studies are synergistic and parallel regarding aims, constructs, and measures, but complementary regarding designs and populations, and employ massive, multi-method, multi-trait, multi-assessment, multi-informant measures of children's genotypes, psychophysiology, temperament, behavior and emotions, conscience, comprehensively assessed competencies and functioning, parent-child relationships, and parents' adjustment and family ecology. Interdisciplinary team includes experts in socio-emotional development, adolescence, developmental psychopathology, maternal adjustment, intervention science, molecular genetics, and statistics. An innovative, unified theoretical framework integrates both studies. Analyses elucidate changes over time, divergence in developmental trajectories, processes and causal mechanisms linking constructs (mediation), and multiple causal pathways (moderation), using structural equations modeling (SEM). PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Promoting positive, adaptive socio-emotional development of the Nation's children is a key public health goal. Our longitudinal, basic research elucidates why some children embark on positive paths toward strong competence, prosocial, rule-abiding, productive functioning, and robust socio-emotional growth, whereas other children enter antisocial paths toward poor competence, disregard for rules, callousness, disruptive and high- risk behaviors, and impoverished socio-emotional growth. A mutually responsive early parent-child relationship, interwoven with the child's biological individuality, is key to successful socio-emotional paths from infancy to adolescence. Our theory-informed translational research, a randomized experimental parenting intervention, promotes successful socio-emotional outcomes and reduces developmental risks in low-income, ethnically diverse mothers and young children. Overall, this research has broad implications for effective parenting, intervention, and prevention programs that enhance children's socio-emotional growth and reduce profound burdens for children, families, and society due to negative, disruptive developmental trajectories. .