Year: 2016
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Early callous-unemotional behaviours identify children at risk for antisocial behaviour. Recent work suggests that the high heritability of callous-unemotional behaviours is qualified by interactions with positive parenting. AIMS: To examine whether heritable temperament dimensions of fearlessness and low affiliative behaviour are associated with early callous-unemotional behaviours and whether parenting moderates these associations. METHOD: Using an adoption sample (n = 561), we examined pathways from biological mother self-reported fearlessness and affiliative behaviour to child callous-unemotional behaviours via observed child fearlessness and affiliative behaviour, and whether adoptive parent observed positive parenting moderated pathways. RESULTS: Biological mother fearlessness predicted child callous-unemotional behaviours via earlier child fearlessness. Biological mother low affiliative behaviour predicted child callous-unemotional behaviours, although not via child affiliative behaviours. Adoptive mother positive parenting moderated the fearlessness to callous-unemotional behaviour pathway. CONCLUSIONS: Heritable fearlessness and low interpersonal affiliation traits contribute to the development of callous-unemotional behaviours. Positive parenting can buffer these risky pathways.
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Awards: G1715466578, Family and Peer Processes and G-E Interplay in Middle School: An Adoption Study, The Early Growth and Development Study: Family Process, Genes and School Entry, G411876017, Gene-Environment Interplay and Development of Psychiatric Symptoms in Children, Transmission Mechanisms of Emotion Regulation and Externalizing Problems, G647277236, G6867344379, Genes, Prenatal Drug Exposure, and the Postnatal Environment: An Adoption Study, G8117987594, Yale Clinical and Translational Science Award
OpenAlex ID: W2538634993