Risky beginnings

幼儿期行为问题非常普遍，并预示着多种不利的生活过程结果，因此了解其起源是一项紧迫的挑战。这项建议以几种方式扩展了申请人以前关于家庭影响儿童调节其思想和行为的能力的工作：着重于生命的头两年;审查父亲和母亲影响的影响;将这一认知观点与共同调查者在评估生物和社会层面的个体差异方面的专门知识结合起来;最后，采用多中心设计，对研究结果的普遍性进行严格检验。400名准妈妈及其伴侣（英国200名，美国和荷兰100名）的样本将被招募，使用丰富的抽样设计，以最大限度地提高表现出低水平的幸福感的准父母的参与。自我调节技能将使用经过验证的实验方法进行评估。我们希望研究一系列社会因素（例如，家庭关系质量）认知因素（父母和婴儿）和生物因素这项研究的一个关键优势是它包括了父亲，因为关于父母影响的许多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对于父亲和母亲来说在性质和程度上相似吗？在强调儿童对环境影响的敏感性变化的研究迅速增长的基础上，拟议的研究将探讨与婴儿特征有关的婴儿适应的家庭预测因素的性质和程度的对比（例如，应激反应性），亲本（例如，养育方式）和文化（例如，向父母过渡的个人的社会支持水平）。

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).