The etiology of the association between parental nurturance and youth antisocial behavior: Evidence from a twin differences study.

Background: Lower parental nurturance is consistently associated with higher levels of youth antisocial behavior (ASB), but the etiology of this association remains unclear. To fill this gap, we employed a twin differences approach to illuminate the environmental and genetic origins of the association between parental nurturance and children's ASB.

Methods: Participants were 2060 twins (49% female) ages 6-10 from the Michigan State University Twin Registry.

Both stressors and assets moderated the etiology of mothers' parenting during the pandemic.

We sought to illuminate whether and how pandemic-related experiences shaped the genetic and environmental influences on mothering behavior to better understand the effects of stress on parenting. Participants included 710 mothers of twins ( = 47.00; = 5.

The dynamic and relational nature of parent-child conflict from childhood into emerging adulthood.

Although the parent-child relationship is widely regarded as a foundational context for youth development, the developmental origins of this relationship remain unknown. The present study addressed these gaps, leveraging longitudinal and genetically informed methods to illuminate the developmental origins of mother-child conflict as it unfolds from middle childhood into emerging adulthood. Participants consisted of 2,060 twins in 1,030 twin families (51% male, 49% female; 82% White, 10% Black, 1% Asian, 1% Indigenous, 6% multiracial) from the Michigan State University Twin Registry.

Child effects on positive parenting vary with neighborhood opportunity.

Prior theoretical and empirical research has highlighted links between positive parenting and the socioeconomic characteristics of the family's neighborhood, but has yet to illuminate the etiologic origins of this association. One possibility is that the various predictors of parenting outlined by Belsky (1984; e.g.

Neighborhood features moderate genetic and environmental influences on children's social information processing.

Neighborhood is a key context where children learn to process social information; however, the field has largely overlooked the ways children's individual characteristics might be moderated by neighborhood effects. We examined 1,030 six- to 11-year-olds (48.7% female; 82% White) twin pairs oversampled for neighborhood disadvantage from the Twin Study of Behavioral and Emotional Development in Children.

Parent Mental Health Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Although extant cross-sectional data suggest that parents have experienced numerous challenges (e.g., homeschooling, caregiver burden) and mental health consequences during the COVID-19 pandemic, longitudinal data are needed to confirm mental health changes relative to pre-pandemic levels and identify which specific pandemic-related changes most highly predict mental health during the pandemic.

Parental Nurturance Moderates the Etiology of Youth Resilience.

Parenting behaviors are among the most robust predictors of youth resilience to adversity. Critically, however, very few studies examining these effects have been genetically-informed, and none have considered parenting as an etiologic moderator of resilience. What's more, despite the multidimensionality of resilience, extant etiologic literature has largely focused on a single domain.

Identifying the 'active ingredients' of socioeconomic disadvantage for youth outcomes in middle childhood.

Background: Youth experiencing socioeconomic deprivation may be exposed to disadvantage in multiple contexts (e.g., neighborhood, family, and school).

Illuminating Associations between Parenting and Deleterious Neighborhood Characteristics via an Exhaustive Modeling Approach.

Objective: Our goal was to illuminate associations between specific characteristics of under-resourced neighborhoods (i.e., socioeconomic deprivation, danger) and specific aspects of parenting (e.

Family interactions in toddlerhood influence social competence in preschool age: Accounting for genetic and prenatal influences.

Identification of early promotive and risk factors for social competence is important for fostering children's successful social development; particularly given social competence is essential for children's later academic and psychological well-being. While research suggests that the early parent-child relationship, genetics, and prenatal influences are associated with social competence, there is less research considering how these factors may operate together to shape children's social competence in early childhood. Using a genetically informed sample from the Early Growth and Development Study ( = 561), we examined multiple levels of influence (i.

Associations between neighborhood built, social, or toxicant conditions and child externalizing behaviors in the Detroit metro area: a cross-sectional study of the neighborhood 'exposome'.

Background: The specific 'active ingredients' through which neighborhood disadvantage increases risk for child psychopathology remains unclear, in large part because research to date has nearly always focused on poverty to the exclusion of other neighborhood domains. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether currently assessed neighborhood built, social, or toxicant conditions were associated with child externalizing psychopathology outcomes separately, and in a combined model, using data from the Detroit-metro county area.

Methods: We conducted principal components analyses for built, social, or toxicant conditions.

The Etiology of Resilience to Disadvantage.

Background: Although early-life exposure to chronic disadvantage is associated with deleterious outcomes, 40-60% of exposed youth continue to thrive. To date, little is known about the etiology of these resilient outcomes.

Methods: The current study examined child twin families living in disadvantaged contexts (N=417 pairs) to elucidate the etiology of resilience.

Interpersonal complementarity as a predictor of parent-child relationship quality.

The parent-child relationship is critically important for children's functioning and long-term outcomes. Although typically measured by self-report or global codes in observed interactions, parent-child interactions actually occur on a moment-to-moment basis, with frequent shifts in behavior and affect happening in each member of the dyad. Even so, moment-to-moment interactions in these dyads are rarely studied.

Reexamining the association between the interparental relationship and parent-child interactions: Incorporating heritable influences.

Family systems research has identified two key processes (spillover and compensatory), linking interparental relationship quality to the parent-child relationship. However, previous research has focused on the parent as the sole initiator and had not often considered the role of the child in these processes. The present study adds to the literature by leveraging a genetically informed design to examine possible child evocative effects on spillover and compensatory processes.

Identifying Patterns of Youth Resilience to Neighborhood Disadvantage.

The present report describes the motivation for the Michigan Twin Neurogenetic Study (MTwiNS), which seeks to illuminate underlying biological mechanisms through which familial and community factors support resilience (i.e., adaptive competence in the face of adversity) in youth exposed to neighborhood disadvantage.

Understanding the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Youth Psychopathology: Genotype-Environment Interplay.

Background: Adversity has consistently been found to predict poor mental health outcomes in youth. Perhaps the most omnipresent form of adversity in the past several decades has been the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, a global health crisis linked to elevated rates of numerous forms of youth psychopathology. The ongoing nature of the pandemic renders it critical to identify the mechanisms underlying its effects on mental health.

The role of child negative emotionality in parenting and child adjustment: Gene-environment interplay.

Background: Evocative gene-environment correlation (rGE) describes a process through which children's heritable characteristics influence their rearing environments. The current study examined whether heritable influences on parenting and children's behavioural outcomes operate through child negative emotionality.

Method: Using data from the Early Growth and Development Study, we examined associations among adoptive parent reports of child anger and sadness at 4.

Capturing temporal dynamics of fear behaviors on a moment-to-moment basis.

Identifying patterns of fearful behaviors early and accurately is essential to identify children who may be at increased risk for psychopathology. Previous work focused on the total amount of fear by using composites across time. However, considering the temporal dynamics of fear expression might offer novel insights into the identification of children at risk.

Preschoolers' emotion expression and regulation: relations with school adjustment.

Children's expression and regulation of emotions are building blocks of their experiences in classrooms. Thus, the authors' primary goal was to investigate whether preschoolers' expression or ability to regulate emotions were associated with teachers' ratings of school adjustment. A secondary goal was to investigate how boys and girls differed across these associations.