Work

Predicting Social Wariness in Middle Childhood: The Moderating Roles of Childcare History, Maternal Personality and Maternal Behavior

Year: 2008

Type: article

Abstract: Children with behavioral inhibition, a temperamental style characterized by infant distress to novelty and childhood social reticence, exhibit both continuity and discontinuity of this behavioral trait over the course of development. However, few researchers have identified factors that might be responsible for these different patterns. In the current study, child care history, maternal personality and maternal behavior were examined as moderators of the relations between infant temperament, preschool social reticence and childhood social wariness. Seventy-seven children participated in this longitudinal study that began in infancy and continued into middle childhood. Maternal negative personality moderated the relation between infant temperament and 7-year social wariness. In addition, maternal behavior moderated the relation between preschool social reticence and 7-year social wariness. The findings suggest that a complex interplay of within-child and maternal factors affect the development of internalizing behavior in the early school years.

Source: Social Development

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2007.00437.x

Authors: Kathryn Amey Degnan, Heather A. Henderson, Nathan A. Fox, Kenneth H. Rubin

Institutions: University of Miami, University of Maryland, College Park

Language: English

Topic: Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development

Subfield: Clinical Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development