Elucidating the legacy of early parent-child relationship: A new developmental synthesis of temperament, internal representation, and behavior

摘要 这项研究的首要目标是促进儿童积极的社会情绪途径，并防止 不适应的路径。我们解释了为什么一些儿童走上了亲社会的积极道路， 内化、遵守规则的行为和强大的社交能力，而其他人则进入不适应的道路 冷酷无情，无视行为准则和他人感情，反社会行为，贫困 能力。我们关注亲子早期关系，形成于生命的最初几年，作为一种有影响力的关系 这是不同道路的源头，我们从纵向上描绘出它复杂、间接但强大的长期遗产。 根据我们在低风险和高风险家庭中的广泛研究，相关的和实验的，我们建议 尽管早期的关系可能不会产生长期的、无条件的、直接的影响，但它仍然是一种 未来亲子关系发展动态的有力调节者。具体地说，早期的关系可以为你铺平道路 对于一场对抗性的、负面的瀑布。在次优、不安全的亲子二元组中，孩子很难 气质很容易引发父母消极、苛刻、强势的控制，这反过来又会导致 对孩子不利的后果。相比之下，早期的最佳关系为积极、合作、 有效的社会化，并化解负面连锁效应的风险。我们建议父母和孩子的 不同的内部表示、期望和对彼此的看法(内部工作模型，IWM) 它描述了次优和最佳的关系，并来指导父母和孩子的行为和 相互作用是造成发散级联的关键机制。我们正在测试这个框架 一项对200名社区父母和儿童进行的持续研究，评估年龄分别为8岁、16岁、38岁和50-54岁 月份。这个应用程序建议利用这些海量数据来跟踪5-6岁、7-8岁、 和9比10。在目标1中，我们使用父母和孩子的社会表征的最新科学测量方法 研究他们彼此之间展开的信息沟通是如何与他们的关系质量联系在一起的，儿童理论是如何 心理对他们的IWM的贡献，父母的孩子的IWM如何概括为他们对 社交世界，特别是敌对的归因偏差，以及孩子父母的信息素养如何融合 正在开发中。在目标2中，我们考察了父母对儿童的IWM，作为从儿童困难到儿童困难的调节路径 父母控制，以及孩子对父母的IWM，作为从父母控制到孩子结果的调节路径。 在目标3中，我们将我们的模型嵌入到家庭系统的动力学中。我们的多方法、多层次的方法 包括父母和孩子关系的观察性、遗传性和报告性测量 信息处理、表征、气质、关系、父母控制和儿童发展 结果。以变量和以人为中心的分析依赖于结构方程模型来解释分歧 发展级联效应。我们的目标是实现长期倡导但尚未实现的研究愿景 将关系、气质、表征和行为整合到儿童适应的路径中。

ABSTRACT The overarching goal of this research is to promote children’s positive socioemotional pathways and to prevent maladaptive pathways. We elucidate why some children embark on positive paths toward prosocial, internalized, rule-abiding conduct, and robust social competence, whereas others enter maladaptive paths toward callousness, disregard for conduct rules and others’ feelings, antisocial behavior, and impoverished competence. We focus on the parent–child early relationship, formed in the first years of life, as an influential source of the divergent paths, and we longitudinally chart its complex, indirect yet powerful, long-term legacy. Drawing from our extensive research, correlational and experimental, in low- and high-risk families, we propose that although early relationship may not have long-term unqualified, direct effects, it nevertheless serves as a powerful moderator of future parent–child unfolding dynamics. Specifically, early relationship can set the stage for an adversarial, negative cascade. In suboptimal, insecure parent–child dyads, the child’s difficult temperament easily triggers the parent’s negative, harsh, power-assertive control, which, in turn, leads to detrimental child outcomes. In contrast, an early optimal relationship sets the stage for positive, cooperative, effective socialization, and defuses risks of negative cascades. We proposed that parents’ and children’s differing internal representations, expectations, and perceptions of each other (Internal Working Models, IWMs) that characterize suboptimal and optimal relationships and come to guide parents’ and children’s behavior and interactions are the key mechanisms that account for the divergent cascades. We are testing this framework in an ongoing study of 200 community mothers, fathers, and children, richly assessed at 8, 16, 38, and 50-54 months. This application proposes to leverage those massive data to follow up the families at ages 5-6, 7-8, and 9-10. Using state-of-science measures of parents’ and children’s social representations, in Aim 1 we examine how their unfolding IWMs of each other are linked to their relationship quality, how children’s Theory of Mind contributes to their IWMs, how children’s IWMs of the parents generalize to their representations of the social world, particularly hostile attributional biases, and how the child’s IWMs of two parents become integrated in development. In Aim 2, we examine the parent’s IWM of the child as moderating paths from child difficulty to parental control, and the child’s IWM of the parent as moderating paths from parental control to child outcomes. In Aim 3, we embed our model in the dynamics of the family system. Our multi-method, multi-level approach encompasses observational, genetic, and reported measures of the parent’s and the child’s relational information processing, representations, temperament, relationships, parental control, and child developmental outcomes. Variable- and person-centered analyses rely on structural equation modeling to elucidate divergent developmental cascades. We aim to realize a long-advocated – but yet to be accomplished – vision of research integrating relationships, temperament, representation, and behavior in pathways to children’s adjustment.