Parent & Relational Predictors of Conduct Problems &n Callous/Unemotional Traits

描述(由申请人提供)：反社会成年人表现出一种生命过程中持续存在的行为问题(CP)模式，根源于儿童早期，包括证据表明先驱可以追溯到婴儿时期。精神变态的一个特定方面，即冷酷无情(CU)特征，已被确定为有行为问题的幼儿的另一个风险因素。有品行问题和CU特质(CP+CU)的儿童在行为、情绪、生物、认知和发展方面与没有CU特质的儿童不同。此外，患有CP+CU的儿童通常表现出更严重和更暴力的反社会行为，这种行为更像是随着时间的推移而持续存在的。然而，CU和CP+CU的病因尚不清楚。虽然消极的父母教养是慢性阻塞性肺病发展的既定风险因素，但对于患有慢性阻塞性肺病的儿童来说，父母教养和早期关系经验的作用却鲜为人知。此外，虽然已经有关于早期依恋质量和后来的CP的研究，但到目前为止还没有关于早期依恋和后来的CU或CP+CU的大规模调查，尽管有证据表明无组织的依恋质量是青春期和成年期不良适应行为结果的危险因素。这一建议与之前在两个重要领域的研究是独一无二的。首先，这项建议将利用观察到的父母养育和依恋的测量，包括父母教养方式的规范性差异(母亲的不敏感)、非规范性父母养育方式(非典型照顾)，以及从奇异情境范式观察到的依恋质量。以前对CP、CU和CP+CU的研究在很大程度上依赖于父母对照看行为的报告。其次，据我们所知，这将是第一个研究生命最初几年中CU和Cp+CU的照顾和关系先行因素的研究之一。这是获得自我调节和移情功能的关键发育期，这些功能的缺陷与CP、CU和CP+CU有关。在这项研究中，我们认为父母养育行为和早期依恋关系的独特维度可以从正常对照中不同地预测患有CP、CU和CP+CU的儿童。这些假设包括母亲不敏感、非典型父母教养和依恋质量的主效应，以及依恋不安全感可能导致儿童对不敏感和非典型父母教养效果的易感性增加的预测，使来自这些照顾和依恋背景的儿童在以后的CP、CU和CP+CU中最容易受到伤害。为了验证这些假设，我们将利用NICHD早期儿童护理和青年发展研究(SECCYD)提供的关于母亲敏感性、依恋质量和儿童行为结果的纵向数据集。除了辅助数据分析，我们还将重新编码SECCYD亲子互动的一个子样本，以编码非典型的母性行为。SECCYD是为数不多的拥有纵向数据和足够大的样本来检验这些假设的研究之一。此外，由于这项建议主要侧重于二次数据分析，因此它是解决具有重大科学和社会意义的问题的一种具有成本效益的手段。 与公共健康相关：这项拟议的项目旨在更好地了解早期儿童行为问题以及冷酷无情和情绪特征的起源，方法是检查儿童出生后一年的早期养育行为和亲子依恋质量，以预测3岁时的行为结果。这项研究的目标是更好地了解家庭因素如何导致幼儿的破坏性和适应不良行为，这些行为可能会持续到儿童后期、青春期甚至成年。这是一项新颖的研究，因为它是第一个研究婴儿期这一亚群儿童的研究之一，也是第一个研究父母养育和依恋质量对以后的行为问题和冷酷无情特征的独立和联合影响的研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Antisocial adults exhibit a life-course persistent pattern of conduct problems (CP) with roots in early childhood, including evidence for precursors dating to infancy. A specific aspects of psychopathy, namely callous and unemotional (CU) traits, has been identified as an additional risk factor for young children with conduct problems. Children with conduct problems and CU traits (CP+CU) differ from those without CU traits on behavioral, emotional, biological, cognitive, and developmental measures. Furthermore, children with CP+CU typically exhibit more severe and violent antisocial behavior that is more like to persist over time. The etiology of CU and CP+CU, however, is still relatively unknown. Whereas negative parenting is an established risk factor for the development of CP, the roles of parenting and early relational experience is less understood for children with CU. In addition, although there has been research on early attachment quality and later CP, to date there has been no large-scale investigation of early attachment and later CU or CP+CU, despite evidence that disorganized attachment quality is a risk factor for maladaptive behavioral outcomes well into adolescence and adulthood. This proposal is unique from previous research in two important domains. First, this proposal will utilize observed measures of parenting and attachment, including normative variations in parenting (maternal insensitivity), non-normative parenting (atypical caregiving), and observed attachment quality from the Strange Situation Paradigm. Previous studies examining CP, CU, and CP+CU have largely relied on parent-report of caregiving behaviors. Second, to our knowledge this would be one of the first studies to examine caregiving and relational antecedents of CU and CP+CU during the first years of life. This is a critical developmental period for the acquisition of self-regulatory and empathetic functioning, deficits of which have been associated with CP, CU, and CP+CU. In this proposal we argue that unique dimensions of parenting behavior and early attachment relationships may differentially predict children with CP, CU and CP+CU from normative controls. These hypotheses include main effects for maternal insensitivity, atypical parenting, and attachment quality, as well as the prediction that attachment insecurity may result in heightened child susceptibility to the effects of insensitivity and atypical parenting, rendering children from these caregiving and attachment backgrounds most vulnerable for later CP, CU and CP+CU. To test these hypotheses we will utilize the longitudinal dataset on maternal sensitivity, attachment quality, and child behavior outcomes provided by the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD). In addition to secondary data analyses, we will recode a subsample of SECCYD parent-child interactions for coding atypical maternal behaviors. The SECCYD is one of the few studies with longitudinal data and a sample size large enough to test these hypotheses. Furthermore, because this proposal focuses largely on secondary data analyses, it is a cost efficient means of addressing questions of significant scientific and societal importance. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed project aims to better understand the origins of early child conduct problems and callous and emotional traits by examining early parenting behaviors and parent-child attachment quality during the first year of life as predictors of behavioral outcomes at age 3. The goal of this research is to better understand how family factors contribute to disruptive and maladaptive behaviors in young children, behaviors which may persist into later childhood, adolescence and even adulthood. This is a novel study because it is one of the first to examine this subgroup of children during infancy, and is the first to examine the independent and joint effects of parenting and attachment quality on later conduct problems and callous and unemotional traits.