Emotion regulation as a complex system: A multi-contextual and multi- level approach to understanding emotion expression and cortisol reactivity among Chinese and US preschoolers.

Are children from "Eastern" cultures less emotionally expressive and reactive than children from "Western" cultures? To answer this, we used a multi-level and multi-contextual approach to understand variations in emotion displays and cortisol reactivity among preschoolers living in China and the United States. One hundred two preschoolers from China (N = 58; 55% males) and the United States (N = 44, 48% males) completed three (i.e., control, interpersonal-related, and achievement-related) emotion-challenging paradigms over 3 days. Behavioral emotion expressions were coded, and salivary cortisol was sampled 30 minutes before and across 90 minutes post-task. Without considering context, Chinese preschoolers displayed fewer levels of positive and negative emotion expressions relative to their United States counterparts. However, Chinese preschoolers displayed similar levels of expressions as their United States counterparts during an achievement-related challenge that is more salient to their sociocultural emphases and showed higher negative emotion expressions in this challenge, relative to other contexts. Moreover, only the achievement-related challenge elicited increased cortisol levels among Chinese preschoolers, and this was correlated with higher levels of negative expressions. For US preschoolers, no cortisol increase was observed in any challenging paradigms, nor was cortisol associated with emotional expressions. Findings counter prior notions that East Asian children are generally less emotionally expressive. Instead, an achievement-related challenge elicited higher emotion expression and cortisol reactivity among Chinese preschoolers, suggesting that children's emotion expression and biological reactivity may be most responsive to contexts salient to their socio-cultural environments. We discuss the importance of considering cultural contexts when studying emotion regulation. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Chinese preschoolers displayed lower overall positive and negative expressions relative to their US counterparts without considering situational contexts. Chinese preschoolers displayed similar levels of emotion expressions as their US counterparts during an achievement-related challenge salient to their social-cultural environment. Chinese preschoolers are particularly responsive to achievement-related challenges, relative to other emotion-challenging situations that are less culturally salient. No cortisol increase was observed in any of the emotion-challenging paradigms among US preschoolers. Children's emotion expression and biological reactivity may be most responsive to challenges relevant to their socio-cultural environments.

Developmental cascade models linking contextual risks, parenting, and internalizing symptoms: A 17-year longitudinal study from early childhood to emerging adulthood.

Although internalizing problems are the most common forms of psychological distress among adolescents and young adults, they have precursors in multiple risk domains established during childhood. This study examined cascading risk pathways leading to depression and anxiety symptoms in emerging adulthood by integrating broad contextual (i.e., multiple contextual risks), parental (i.e., negative parenting), and child (i.e., internalizing behaviors) characteristics in early and middle childhood. We also compared common and differential pathways to depression and anxiety symptoms depending on the conceptualization of symptom outcomes (traditional symptom dimension vs. bifactor dimensional model). Participants were 235 children (109 girls) and their families. Data were collected at 3, 6, 10, and 19 years of child age, using multiple informants and contexts. Results from a symptom dimension approach indicated mediation pathways from early childhood risk factors to depression and anxiety symptoms in emerging adulthood, suggesting common and distinct risk processes between the two disorders. Results from a bifactor modeling approach indicated several indirect pathways leading to a general internalizing latent factor, but not to symptom-specific (i.e., depression, anxiety) latent factors. Our findings highlighted comparative analytic approaches to examining transactional processes associated with later internalizing symptoms and shed light on issues of early identification and prevention.

Child Effortful Control as a Moderator of the Effects of Parenting on Children's Behavioral Adjustment: A Longitudinal Study Spanning 3 to 10 Years.

This study aimed to examine independent and interactive contributions of parenting behaviors (e.g., physical punishment, inductive discipline, warm responsiveness) and child effortful control on child externalizing problems during early and middle childhood. Participants were 241 children (123girls) of middle-income families in the U.S. who were primarily European Americans (91%) and at risk for school-age problem behaviors. Data were collected at ages 3, 6, and 10 using multiple methods, informants, and contexts. Results of hierarchical regression analyses indicated both independent and interactive influences of parenting behaviors and child effortful control on children's externalizing behaviors. Importantly, effortful control buffered the negative influence of physical punishment, but not other parenting behaviors, such that physical punishment was associated with external behaviors at 6 years only for children with poorer effortful control abilities. The results highlight both parental discipline strategies and child effortful control as promising targets for early identification and prevention of future problem behaviors. Summary: Parenting and child effortful control have long been topics of research on child development. However, relatively little is known about the long-term effects of early parenting in the context of effortful control and the possibility that those processes may differ across different dimensions of parenting (i.e., warm responsiveness, inductive discipline, and physical punishment) Therefore, this study aimed to examine independent and interactive contributions of parenting behaviors and child effortful control on child externalizing problems during early and middle childhood. Participants were 241 children (123girls) of middle-income families who were at risk for school-age problem behaviors. Data were collected using multiple methods, informants, and contexts. Specifically, child effortful control at 3 years was measured using multiple tasks, and parenting at 3 years was assessed via maternal report during home interview. Teachers contributed ratings of child externalizing behaviors at 3, 6, and 10 years. Results indicated both independent and interactive influences of parenting behaviors and child effortful control on children's externalizing behaviors. Importantly, effortful control buffered the negative influence of physical punishment, but not other parenting behaviors, such that physical punishment was associated with external behaviors at 6 years only for children with poorer effortful control abilities. Moreover, parents' use of physical punishment at age 3 showed a long-lasting association with children's problem behaviors at ages 6 and 10 years. The findings suggest that children with more advanced effortful control may be less susceptible to long-term detrimental contribution of physical punishment, although by no means they are protected from harmful effects of punitive discipline. This study provides more sophisticated explanations on the influence of early parenting and child effortful control on externalizing behaviors spanning early to middle childhood. The results also highlight different parental discipline strategies and child effortful controls as promising targets for early identification and prevention of children's future problem behaviors in childhood.

Are Preschoolers' Neurobiological Stress Systems Responsive to Culturally Relevant Contexts?

Adults are biologically responsive to context, and their responses to particular situations may differ across cultures. However, are preschoolers' biological systems also responsive to situational contexts and cultures? Here, we show that children's neurobiological stress responses, as indexed by salivary cortisol, are activated and responsive to psychosocial stressors relevant to their sociocultural emphases. By examining cortisol changes across different contexts among 138 preschoolers living in the United States, China, and Japan, we found that an achievement-related stressor elicited an increased cortisol response among Chinese preschoolers, whereas interpersonal-related stressors elicited an increased cortisol response among Japanese preschoolers. By contrast, U.S. preschoolers showed decreased cortisol responses after these stressors but consistently higher levels of anticipatory responses to separation at the beginning of each session. Our findings suggest that children's neurobiological stress systems may be a critical biological mechanism allowing societal-level cultural phenomena to be embodied in individual-level responses, even among preschoolers.

Emotion expression and regulation in three cultures: Chinese, Japanese, and American preschoolers' reactions to disappointment.

There are strong cultural norms for how emotions are expressed, yet little is known about cultural variations in preschoolers' outward displays and regulation of disappointment. Chinese, Japanese, and American preschoolers' (N = 150) displays of emotion to an undesired gift were coded across both social and nonsocial contexts in a "disappointing gift" paradigm. Generalized estimating equations revealed that, regardless of culture, when children received a disappointing gift, they showed more positive expressions of emotion ("fake smile") in social contexts (in the presence of unfamiliar and familiar examiners) relative to when they were alone, suggesting that preschool-aged children are able to mask their disappointment with positive displays. However, children's emotion expressions varied across both cultures and contexts. American children were more positively and negatively expressive than Japanese children and were more negatively expressive than Chinese children. Chinese and Japanese preschoolers verbally reported more negative emotions but showed more neutral expressions than American preschoolers when receiving the disappointing gift. In addition, across different contexts of the task, there were subtle differences in how Chinese and Japanese children regulated their emotional expressions, with Chinese children showing similar levels of neutral expressions (e.g., "poker face") across different contexts in the task. Thus, our findings highlight the importance of understanding cultural meanings and practices underlying emotion development during early childhood.

Emotion versus cognition: differential pathways to theory of mind for children with high versus low callous-unemotional traits.

BACKGROUND: Theory of mind (ToM) serves as a foundation for developing social cognition. Developmental theory suggests that early emotion understanding supports the development of ToM, but few studies have tested this question within longitudinal designs. Additionally, children with callous-unemotional (CU) traits directly challenge this theory as they appear to develop intact ToM despite deficits in emotion understanding. Inhibitory control is proposed as one possible compensatory mechanism for ToM development in children with high CU traits. METHODS: We examined emotion understanding and inhibitory control at age 3 as predictors of ToM at age 6 and tested whether these pathways were different in children with high versus low levels of CU traits. Multimethod data included observations of child emotion understanding and inhibitory control and parent reports of CU traits drawn from a prospective, longitudinal study (N = 240, 48% female). RESULTS: Consistent with our hypothesis, emotion understanding at age 3 significantly predicted ToM at age 6 only for children with low CU traits. Although there was a significant interaction between inhibitory control and CU traits in relation to later ToM, the simple slopes were not significant. CONCLUSIONS: We find prospective longitudinal evidence that emotion understanding is a developmental precursor of ToM. However, this pathway was not evident in children with high CU traits. Future research is needed to further explore potential mechanisms by which children with CU traits develop ToM with a potential focus on higher-order cognitive skills.

Linking Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) constructs to developmental psychopathology: The role of self-regulation and emotion knowledge in the development of internalizing and externalizing growth trajectories from ages 3 to 10.

Identifying Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) constructs in early childhood is essential for understanding etiological pathways of psychopathology. Our central goal was to identify early emotion knowledge and self-regulation difficulties across different RDoC domains and examine how they relate to typical versus atypical symptom trajectories between ages 3 and 10. Particularly, we assessed potential contributions of children's gender, executive control, delay of gratification, and regulation of frustration, emotion recognition, and emotion understanding at age 3 to co-occurring patterns of internalizing and externalizing across development. A total of 238 3-year-old boys and girls were assessed using behavioral tasks and parent reports and reassessed at ages 5 and 10 years. Results indicated that very few children developed "pure" internalizing or externalizing symptoms relative to various levels of co-occurring symptoms across development. Four classes of co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems were identified: low, low-moderate, rising, and severe-decreasing trajectories. Three-year-old children with poor executive control but high emotion understanding were far more likely to show severe-decreasing than low/low-moderate class co-occurring internalizing and externalizing symptom patterns. Child gender and poor executive control differentiated children in rising versus low trajectories. Implications for early intervention targeting self-regulation of executive control are discussed.

Early risk pathways to physical versus relational peer aggression: The interplay of externalizing behavior and corporal punishment varies by child sex.

Children who aggress against their peers may use physical or relational forms, yet little research has looked at early childhood risk factors and characteristics that uniquely predict high levels of relational versus physical aggression in preadolescence. Accordingly, the main aim of our study was to link early corporal punishment and externalizing behavior to children's physical and relational peer aggression during preadolescence and to examine how these pathways differed by sex. Participants were 193, 3-year-old boys (39%) and girls who were reassessed following the transition to kindergarten (5.5 years) and preadolescence (10.5 years). A series of autoregressive, cross-lagged path analyses were conducted to examine the relationships between child externalizing problems and corporal punishment at ages 3 and 5.5 years, and their association with physical and relational aggression at age 10.5. Multiple group analysis was used to determine whether pathways differed by sex. Three developmental pathways were identified: (i) direct associations between stable childhood externalizing problems and later physical aggression; (ii) a direct pathway from early corporal punishment to preadolescent relational and physical peer aggression; and (iii) an indirect pathway from early corporal punishment to later physical aggression via continuing externalizing problems in middle childhood. Child sex moderated the nature of these pathways, as well as the direction of association between risk and outcome variables. These data advance our understanding of the etiology of distinct forms of peer aggression and highlight the potential for more efficacious prevention and intervention efforts in the early childhood years.

Consequences of 'tiger' parenting: a cross-cultural study of maternal psychological control and children's cortisol stress response.

Parenting strategies involving psychological control are associated with increased adjustment problems in children. However, no research has examined the extent to which culture and psychological control predict children's stress physiology. We examine cultural differences in maternal psychological control and its associations with children's cortisol. Chinese (N = 59) and American (N = 45) mother-child dyads participated in the study. Mothers reported on psychological control. Children's cortisol was collected during a stressor and two indices of Area Under the Curve (AUC) were computed: AUCg which accounts for total output, and AUCi, which captures reactivity. Results indicate that Chinese mothers reported higher levels of psychological control and Chinese children had higher levels of AUCg than their American counterparts. Across both cultures, psychological control was significantly associated with increased cortisol levels as indexed by AUCg. There were no associations for AUCi. Finally, mediation analyses demonstrated that psychological control fully explained cultural differences in children's cortisol stress response as indexed by AUCg.

Trajectories of child externalizing problems between ages 3 and 10 years: Contributions of children's early effortful control, theory of mind, and parenting experiences.

Preventing problem behavior requires an understanding of earlier factors that are amenable to intervention. The main goals of our prospective longitudinal study were to trace trajectories of child externalizing behavior between ages 3 and 10 years, and to identify patterns of developmentally significant child and parenting risk factors that differentiated pathways of problem behavior. Participants were 218 3-year-old boys and girls who were reassessed following the transition to kindergarten (age 5-6 years) and during the late school-age years (age 10). Mothers contributed ratings of children's externalizing behavior at all three time points. Children's self-regulation abilities and theory of mind were assessed during a laboratory visit, and parenting risk (frequent corporal punishment and low maternal warmth) was assessed using interview-based and questionnaire measures. Four developmental trajectories of externalizing behavior yielded the best balance of parsimony and fit with our longitudinal data and latent class growth analysis. Most young children followed a pathway marked by relatively low levels of symptoms that continued to decrease across the school-age years. Atypical trajectories marked chronically high, increasing, and decreasing levels of externalizing problems across early and middle childhood. Three-year-old children with low levels of effortful control were far more likely to show the chronic pattern of elevated externalizing problems than changing or low patterns. Early parental corporal punishment and maternal warmth, respectively, differentiated preschoolers who showed increasing and decreasing patterns of problem behavior compared to the majority of children. The fact that children's poor effortful regulation skills predicted chronic early onset problems reinforces the need for early childhood screening and intervention services.

Differential associations of early callous-unemotional, oppositional, and ADHD behaviors: multiple domains within early-starting conduct problems?

BACKGROUND: Early-starting child conduct problems (CP) are linked to the development of persistent antisocial behavior. Researchers have theorized multiple pathways to CP and that CP comprise separable domains, marked by callous-unemotional (CU) behavior, oppositional behavior, or ADHD symptoms. However, a lack of empirical evidence exists from studies that have examined whether there are unique correlates of these domains. METHODS: We examined differential correlates of CU, oppositional, and ADHD behaviors during the preschool years to test their potentially distinct nomological networks. Multimethod data, including parent and teacher reports and observations of child behavior, were drawn from a prospective, longitudinal study of children assessed at age 3 and age 6 (N = 240; 48% female). RESULTS: Dimensions of CU, oppositional, and ADHD behaviors were separable within Confirmatory Factor Analyses across mother and father reports. There were differential associations between CU, oppositional, and ADHD behaviors and socioemotional, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes: CU behavior was uniquely related to lower moral regulation, guilt, and empathy. ADHD was uniquely related to lower attentional focusing and observed effortful control. Finally, CU behavior uniquely predicted increases in teacher-reported externalizing from ages 3-6 over and above covariates, and ADHD and oppositional behavior. CONCLUSIONS: Consistent with theory, dimensions of CU, ADHD, and oppositional behavior demonstrated separable nomological networks representing separable facets within early-starting CP.

The impact of culture on physiological processes of emotion regulation: a comparison of US and Chinese preschoolers.

Cognitive determinants of emotion regulation, such as effortful control, have been hypothesized to modulate young children's physiological response to emotional stress. It is unknown, however, whether this model of emotion regulation generalizes across Western and non-Western cultures. The current study examined the relation between both behavioral and questionnaire measures of effortful control and densely sampled, stress-induced cortisol trajectories in U.S. and Chinese preschoolers. Participants were 3- to 5- year-old children recruited from the United States (N = 57) and Beijing, China (N = 60). Consistent with our hypothesis, U.S. children showed a significant negative relation between maternal-rated inhibitory control and both cortisol reactivity and recovery. However, this was not replicated in the Chinese sample. Children in China showed a significant positive relation between maternal-rated attentional focusing and cortisol reactivity that was not seen in the U.S. Results suggest that children who reside in Western and non-Western cultures have different predictors of their emotion-related stress response.

Effortful control moderates bidirectional effects between children's externalizing behavior and their mothers' depressive symptoms.

This study examined bidirectional associations between mothers' depressive symptoms and children's externalizing behavior and whether they were moderated by preschool-age effortful control and gender. Mothers and teachers reported on 224 primarily White, middle-class children at ages 3, 5, and 10. Effortful control was assessed via behavioral battery and mother ratings. Structural equation modeling indicated that maternal depressive symptoms at child age 3 predicted more externalizing behavior at age 10 among children with low effortful control and among boys. Externalizing behavior at age 3 predicted fewer depressive symptoms at the age 10 assessments among mothers of children with high effortful control. Boys with suboptimal self-regulation exposed to high levels of maternal depressive symptoms were at greatest risk for school-age behavioral problems.

Predicting developmental changes in internalizing symptoms: examining the interplay between parenting and neuroendocrine stress reactivity.

In this study, we examined whether parenting and HPA-axis reactivity during middle childhood predicted increases in internalizing symptoms during the transition to adolescence, and whether HPA-axis reactivity mediated the impact of parenting on internalizing symptoms. The study included 65 children (35 boys) who were assessed at age 5, 7, and 11. Parenting behaviors were assessed via parent report at age 5 and 11. The child's HPA-axis reactivity was measured at age 7 via a stress task. Internalizing symptoms were measured via teacher reports at age 5 and 11. High maternal warmth at age 5 predicted lower internalizing symptoms at age 11. Also, high reported maternal warmth and induction predicted lower HPA-axis reactivity. Additionally, greater HPA-axis reactivity at age 7 was associated with greater increases in internalizing symptoms from age 5 to 11. Finally, the association between age 5 maternal warmth and age 11 internalizing symptoms was partially mediated by lower cortisol in response to the stress task. Thus, parenting behaviors in early development may influence the physiological stress response system and therefore buffer the development of internalizing symptoms during preadolescence when risk for disorder onset is high.

Country, sex, and parent occupational status: moderators of the continuity of aggression from childhood to adulthood.

Using data from two American and one Finnish long-term longitudinal studies, we examined continuity of general aggression from age 8 to physical aggression in early adulthood (age 21-30) and whether continuity of aggression differed by country, sex, and parent occupational status. In all samples, childhood aggression was assessed via peer nominations and early adulthood aggression via self-reports. Multi-group structural equation models revealed significant continuity in aggression in the American samples but not in the Finnish sample. These relations did not differ by sex but did differ by parent occupational status: whereas there was no significant continuity among American children from professional family-of-origin backgrounds, there was significant continuity among American children from non-professional backgrounds.

Effects of early maternal distress and parenting on the development of children's self-regulation and externalizing behavior.

Emotional distress experienced by mothers increases young children's risk of externalizing problems through suboptimal parenting and child self-regulation. An integrative structural equation model tested hypotheses that mothers' parenting (i.e., low levels of inductive discipline and maternal warmth) would mediate adverse effects of early maternal distress on child effortful control, which in turn would mediate effects of maternal parenting on child externalizing behavior. This longitudinal study spanning ages 3, 6, and 10 included 241 children, mothers, and a subset of teachers. The hypothesized model was partially supported. Elevated maternal distress was associated with less inductive discipline and maternal warmth, which in turn were associated with less effortful control at age 3 but not at age 6. Inductive discipline and maternal warmth mediated adverse effects of maternal distress on children's effortful control. Less effortful control at ages 3 and 6 predicted smaller relative decreases in externalizing behavior at 6 and 10, respectively. Effortful control mediated effects of inductive discipline, but not maternal warmth, on externalizing behavior. Findings suggest elevated maternal distress increases children's risk of externalizing problems by compromising early parenting and child self-regulation.

Deconstructing the externalizing spectrum: growth patterns of overt aggression, covert aggression, oppositional behavior, impulsivity/inattention, and emotion dysregulation between school entry and early adolescence.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether five subcomponents of children's externalizing behavior showed distinctive patterns of long-term growth and predictive correlates. We examined growth in teachers' ratings of overt aggression, covert aggression, oppositional defiance, impulsivity/inattention, and emotion dysregulation across three developmental periods spanning kindergarten through Grade 8 (ages 5-13 years). We also determined whether three salient background characteristics, family socioeconomic status, child ethnicity, and child gender, differentially predicted growth in discrete categories of child externalizing symptoms across development. Participants were 543 kindergarten-age children (52% male, 81% European American, 17% African American) whose problem behaviors were rated by teachers each successive year of development through Grade 8. Latent growth curve analyses were performed for each component scale, contrasting with overall externalizing, in a piecewise fashion encompassing three developmental periods: kindergarten-Grade 2, Grades 3-5, and Grades 6-8. We found that most subconstructs of externalizing behavior increased significantly across the early school age period relative to middle childhood and early adolescence. However, overt aggression did not show early positive growth, and emotion dysregulation significantly increased across middle childhood. Advantages of using subscales were most clear in relation to illustrating different growth functions between the discrete developmental periods. Moreover, growth in some discrete subcomponents was differentially associated with variations in family socioeconomic status and ethnicity. Our findings strongly affirmed the necessity of adopting a developmental approach to the analysis of growth in children's externalizing behavior and provided unique data concerning similarities and differences in growth between subconstructs of child and adolescent externalizing behavior.

Observant, nonaggressive temperament predicts theory of mind development.

Temperament dimensions influence children's approach to and participation in social interactive experiences which reflect and impact children's social understandings. Therefore, temperament differences might substantially impact theory of mind development in early childhood. Using longitudinal data, we report that certain early temperament characteristics (at age 3)--lack of aggressiveness, a shy-withdrawn stance to social interaction, and social-perceptual sensitivity--predict children's more advanced theory-of-mind understanding two years later. The findings contribute to our understanding of how theory of mind develops in the formative preschool period; they may also inform debates as to the evolutionary origins of theory of mind.

Individual differences in the development of early peer aggression: integrating contributions of self-regulation, theory of mind, and parenting.

This prospective longitudinal study focused on self-regulatory, social-cognitive, and parenting precursors of individual differences in children's peer-directed aggression at early school age. Participants were 199 3-year-old boys and girls who were reassessed following the transition to kindergarten (5.5-6 years). Peer aggression was assessed in preschool and school settings using naturalistic observations and teacher reports. Children's self-regulation abilities and theory of mind understanding were assessed during a laboratory visit, and parenting risk (corporal punishment and low warmth/responsiveness) was assessed using interview-based and questionnaire measures. Individual differences in children's peer aggression were moderately stable across the preschool to school transition. Preschool-age children who manifested high levels of aggressive peer interactions also showed lower levels of self-regulation and theory of mind understanding, and experienced higher levels of adverse parenting than others. Our main finding was that early corporal punishment was associated with increased levels of peer aggression across the transition from preschool to school, as was the interaction between low maternal emotional support and children's early delays in theory of mind understanding. These data highlight the need for family-directed preventive efforts during the early preschool years.

Dyadic flexibility and positive affect in parent-child coregulation and the development of child behavior problems.

Parent-child dyadic rigidity and negative affect contribute to children's higher levels of externalizing problems. The present longitudinal study examined whether the opposite constructs of dyadic flexibility and positive affect predicted lower levels of externalizing behavior problems across the early childhood period. Mother-child (N = 163) and father-child (n = 94) dyads engaged in a challenging block design task at home when children were 3 years old. Dynamic systems methods were used to derive dyadic positive affect and three indicators of dyadic flexibility (range, dispersion, and transitions) from observational coding. We hypothesized that the interaction between dyadic flexibility and positive affect would predict lower levels of externalizing problems at age 5.5 years as rated by mothers and teachers, controlling for stability in externalizing problems, task time, child gender, and the child's effortful control. The hypothesis was supported in predicting teacher ratings of child externalizing from both mother-child and father-child interactions. There were also differential main effects for mothers and fathers: mother-child flexibility was detrimental and father-child flexibility was beneficial for child outcomes. Results support the inclusion of adaptive and dynamic parent-child coregulation processes in the study of children's early disruptive behavior.