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Parent and child endorsement of reactive aggression both predict the emergence of child aggression, but they are rarely studied together and in longitudinal contexts. The present study does so by examining the unique predictive effects of parent and child endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 on child aggression at age 9 in 1456 children from 13 cultural groups in 9 nations. Multiple group structural equation models explored whether age 8 child and parent endorsement of reactive aggression predicted subsequent age 9 child endorsement of reactive aggression and child aggression, after accounting for prior child aggression and parent education. Results revealed that greater parent endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 predicted greater child endorsement of aggression at age 9, that greater parent endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 uniquely predicted greater aggression at age 9 in girls, and that greater child endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 uniquely predicted greater aggression at age 9 in boys. All three of these associations emerged across cultures. Implications of, and explanations for, study findings are discussed., (© 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Background: High levels of sedentary behaviour (SB) are associated with poor health outcomes in children, but the effects on mental health are less clear. This study explored the relationship between SB and psychosocial aspects of health in children, and what influence key role models, including parents and schoolteachers, have on the SB levels of children., Methods: Physical activity (PA) and SB were measured using accelerometery in 101 children, 113 parents and 9 teachers. Children were aged 9 or 10 years old and in fourth grade. Child psychosocial outcomes were assessed using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire., Results: Children engaged in a high volume of SB (9.6 h/day) but interrupted SB often. They accumulated less than 11,000 steps per day, and thus, many may not meet the recommended daily levels of PA. No associations were found between child SB and teacher SB during the school day or child SB and parent SB during the after-school period. No association was found between SB and self-esteem, although children with a higher body mass index had a higher number of emotional and behavioural difficulties., Conclusions: Although there was no indication that children's SB was linked to that of parents and teachers, or that SB was associated with self-esteem or behavioural problems, school children were highly sedentary and insufficiently physically active. Therefore, there is a need to explore school practices and curriculum delivery methods, as well as school and home environments, to reduce the volume of SB children engage in., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Background: Studies of U.S. and European samples demonstrate that parental warmth and behavioral control predict child internalizing behaviors and vice versa. However, these patterns have not been researched in other cultures. This study investigates associations between parent warmth and control and three child-reported internalizing behavior clusters to examine this question., Methods: Data from 12 cultural groups in 9 countries were used to investigate prospective bidirectional associations between parental warmth and control, and three child-reported internalizing behavior types: withdrawn/depressed, anxious/depressed, and somatic problems. Multiple-group structural equation modeling was used to analyze associations in children followed from ages 8 to 12., Results: Parent warmth and control effects were most pervasive on child-reported withdrawn/depressed problems, somewhat pervasive on anxious/depressed problems and least pervasive on somatic problems. Additionally, parental warmth, as opposed to control, was more consistently associated with child-reported internalizing problems across behavior clusters. Child internalizing behavior effects on parental warmth and control appeared ubiquitously across cultures, and behaviors, but were limited to ages 8-10. Most effects were pancultural, but culture-specific effects emerged at ages 9-10 involving the associations between parent warmth and withdrawn/depressed and somatic behaviors., Conclusions: Effects of parent warmth and control appear stronger on some types of child-reported internalizing behaviors. Associations are especially strong with regard to parental warmth across cultures, and culture-specific effects may be accounted for by cultural normativeness of parent warmth and child-reported somatic symptoms. Child internalizing behavior effects on subsequent parenting are common across cultures., (© 2019 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.)

This study investigated the association between perceived material deprivation, children's behavior problems, and parents' disciplinary practices. The sample included 1,418 8- to 12-year-old children and their parents in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. Multilevel mixed- and fixed-effects regression models found that, even when income remained stable, perceived material deprivation was associated with children's externalizing behavior problems and parents' psychological aggression. Parents' disciplinary practices mediated a small share of the association between perceived material deprivation and children's behavior problems. There were no differences in these associations between mothers and fathers or between high- and low- and middle-income countries. These results suggest that material deprivation likely influences children's outcomes at any income level., (© 2018 Society for Research in Child Development.)

The current longitudinal study is the first comparative investigation across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to test the hypothesis that harsher and less affectionate maternal parenting (child age 14 years, on average) statistically mediates the prediction from prior household chaos and neighborhood danger (at 13 years) to subsequent adolescent maladjustment (externalizing, internalizing, and school performance problems at 15 years). The sample included 511 urban families in six LMICs: China, Colombia, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, and Thailand. Multigroup structural equation modeling showed consistent associations between chaos, danger, affectionate and harsh parenting, and adolescent adjustment problems. There was some support for the hypothesis, with nearly all countries showing a modest indirect effect of maternal hostility (but not affection) for adolescent externalizing, internalizing, and scholastic problems. Results provide further evidence that chaotic home and dangerous neighborhood environments increase risk for adolescent maladjustment in LMIC contexts, via harsher maternal parenting., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Research reveals longitudinal bidirectional associations between changes in academic achievement and psychopathological symptoms. However, little is known about developmental changes in the magnitude of these associations, from childhood to adolescence., Methods: Participants were 648 Chinese children (347 males) who were followed from Grade 5 (mean age: 11.18 years) to Grade 9. Academic achievement and two types of symptoms (externalizing, depressive) were assessed annually. Structural equation modeling was used to examine longitudinal bidirectional associations between achievement and psychopathological symptoms, and developmental changes in effect sizes. Models were estimated using cross-lagged panel modeling (CLPM), as well as random intercepts cross-lagged panel modeling (RI-CLPM)., Results: The data supported the hypothesized academic incompetence and adjustment erosion effects, as well as the hypothesized developmental change in the academic incompetence effect whereby prior achievement's effects on subsequent externalizing increased with age. Results were similar for both genders and unaffected by inclusion of common risk factors as covariates., Conclusions: There are bidirectional associations between symptoms and achievement that change markedly across the transition into adolescence. Interpreting the effects using a developmental perspective, changes in reciprocal effects may be dynamic. The findings suggest that targeting both psychopathology and low academic achievement is worthwhile, but that distinct treatment effects will be found in childhood versus adolescence., (© 2018 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.)

Using multilevel models, we examined mother-, father-, and child-reported (N = 1,336 families) externalizing behavior problem trajectories from age 7 to 14 in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States). The intercept and slope of children's externalizing behavior trajectories varied both across individuals within culture and across cultures, and the variance was larger at the individual level than at the culture level. Mothers' and children's endorsement of aggression as well as mothers' authoritarian attitudes predicted higher age 8 intercepts of child externalizing behaviors. Furthermore, prediction from individual-level endorsement of aggression and authoritarian attitudes to more child externalizing behaviors was augmented by prediction from cultural-level endorsement of aggression and authoritarian attitudes, respectively. Cultures in which father-reported endorsement of aggression was higher and both mother- and father-reported authoritarian attitudes were higher also reported more child externalizing behavior problems at age 8. Among fathers, greater attributions regarding uncontrollable success in caregiving situations were associated with steeper declines in externalizing over time. Understanding cultural-level as well as individual-level correlates of children's externalizing behavior offers potential insights into prevention and intervention efforts that can be more effectively targeted at individual children and parents as well as targeted at changing cultural norms that increase the risk of children's and adolescents' externalizing behavior.

Promoting children's prosocial behavior is a goal for parents, healthcare professionals, and nations. Does positive parenting promote later child prosocial behavior, or do children who are more prosocial elicit more positive parenting later, or both? Relations between parenting and prosocial behavior have to date been studied only in a narrow band of countries, mostly with mothers and not fathers, and child gender has infrequently been explored as a moderator of parenting-prosocial relations. This cross-national study uses 1,178 families (mothers, fathers, and children) from 9 countries to explore developmental transactions between parental acceptance-rejection and girls' and boys' prosocial behavior across 3 waves (child ages 9 to 12). Controlling for stability across waves, within-wave relations, and parental age and education, higher parental acceptance predicted increased child prosocial behavior from age 9 to 10 and from age 10 to 12. Higher age 9 child prosocial behavior also predicted increased parental acceptance from age 9 to 10. These transactional paths were invariant across 9 countries, mothers and fathers, and girls and boys. Parental acceptance increases child prosocial behaviors later, but child prosocial behaviors are not effective at increasing parental acceptance in the transition to adolescence. This study identifies widely applicable socialization processes across countries, mothers and fathers, and girls and boys. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

This study used data from 12 cultural groups in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States; N = 1,298) to understand the cross-cultural generalizability of how parental warmth and control are bidirectionally related to externalizing and internalizing behaviors from childhood to early adolescence. Mothers, fathers, and children completed measures when children were ages 8-13. Multiple-group autoregressive, cross-lagged structural equation models revealed that child effects rather than parent effects may better characterize how warmth and control are related to child externalizing and internalizing behaviors over time, and that parent effects may be more characteristic of relations between parental warmth and control and child externalizing and internalizing behavior during childhood than early adolescence., (© 2018 Society for Research on Adolescence.)

Childhood adverse experiences have been consistently documented to engender persistent changes in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis reactivity to chronic stress. However, there has been very little research examining whether this effect can be elicited among children when using a standardized laboratory stress test, or whether such effects are found in non-Western youth. In the current study, 80 10-year-old Chinese children (45% girls, 4-5th grades) were selected from 970 students based on the experience of being bullied, resulting in a sample of 59 victims (physical, verbal, and relational/social), and a group of 21 nonbullied children with distributions of age and gender that were comparable. We examined the association between bullying victimization and cortisol reactivity to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) at six time points using repeated-measures analyses of variance. The results showed that the TSST was a valid protocol among Chinese children for testing the functioning of HPA axis, based on two indicators: cortisol increase in response to stressor, and cortisol decrease after stressor removal. Based on the TSST, both cortisol reactivity and total cortisol concentration over the course of TSST were higher in bullied children relative to nonbullied children. Moreover, there were no differences in cortisol levels between victimization sub-types. Our study extended prior findings, by showing that cortisol dysregulation in response to stress may be related to bullying victimization.

Background: Most studies of the effects of parental religiousness on parenting and child development focus on a particular religion or cultural group, which limits generalizations that can be made about the effects of parental religiousness on family life., Methods: We assessed the associations among parental religiousness, parenting, and children's adjustment in a 3-year longitudinal investigation of 1,198 families from nine countries. We included four religions (Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, and Islam) plus unaffiliated parents, two positive (efficacy and warmth) and two negative (control and rejection) parenting practices, and two positive (social competence and school performance) and two negative (internalizing and externalizing) child outcomes. Parents and children were informants., Results: Greater parent religiousness had both positive and negative associations with parenting and child adjustment. Greater parent religiousness when children were age 8 was associated with higher parental efficacy at age 9 and, in turn, children's better social competence and school performance and fewer child internalizing and externalizing problems at age 10. However, greater parent religiousness at age 8 was also associated with more parental control at age 9, which in turn was associated with more child internalizing and externalizing problems at age 10. Parental warmth and rejection had inconsistent relations with parental religiousness and child outcomes depending on the informant. With a few exceptions, similar patterns of results held for all four religions and the unaffiliated, nine sites, mothers and fathers, girls and boys, and controlling for demographic covariates., Conclusions: Parents and children agree that parental religiousness is associated with more controlling parenting and, in turn, increased child problem behaviors. However, children see religiousness as related to parental rejection, whereas parents see religiousness as related to parental efficacy and warmth, which have different associations with child functioning. Studying both parent and child views of religiousness and parenting are important to understand the effects of parental religiousness on parents and children., (© 2017 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.)

It is well accepted that parent-child interactions are bidirectional by nature, yet not much is known about the psychophysiological activity underlying these interactions. This study examined, during a parent-child interaction, how a child's negativity statistically predicted maternal frontal electroencephalograph (EEG) asymmetry and how a mother's negativity statistically predicted child frontal EEG asymmetry. Thirty-four mother-child dyads participated in the study. Maternal and child behaviors and physiology were measured during a puzzle task. Results indicated that mothers whose children exhibited more challenging behaviors during the dyadic interaction displayed more right (relative to left) asymmetry, as did children whose mothers were high in negativity during the interaction. These findings suggest that mothers and children react to each other's signals not only behaviorally but also physiologically., (© 2016 The Authors. Child Development © 2016 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.)

Background: Research supports the beneficial role of prosocial behaviors on children's adjustment and successful youth development. Empirical studies point to reciprocal relations between negative parenting and children's maladjustment, but reciprocal relations between positive parenting and children's prosocial behavior are understudied. In this study reciprocal relations between two different dimensions of positive parenting (quality of the mother-child relationship and the use of balanced positive discipline) and children's prosocial behavior were examined in Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States., Methods: Mother-child dyads (N = 1105) provided data over 2 years in two waves (Mage of child in wave 1 = 9.31 years, SD = 0.73; 50% female)., Results: A model of reciprocal relations between parenting dimensions, but not among parenting and children's prosocial behavior, emerged. In particular, children with higher levels of prosocial behavior at age 9 elicited higher levels of mother-child relationship quality in the following year., Conclusions: Findings yielded similar relations across countries, evidencing that being prosocial in late childhood contributes to some degree to the enhancement of a nurturing and involved mother-child relationship in countries that vary widely on sociodemographic profiles and psychological characteristics. Policy and intervention implications of this study are discussed., (© 2015 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.)

This study advances understanding of predictors of child abuse and neglect at multiple levels of influence. Mothers, fathers, and children (N = 1,418 families, M age of children = 8.29 years) were interviewed annually in three waves in 13 cultural groups in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States). Multilevel models were estimated to examine predictors of (a) within-family differences across the three time points, (b) between-family within-culture differences, and (c) between-cultural group differences in mothers' and fathers' reports of corporal punishment and children's reports of their parents' neglect. These analyses addressed to what extent mothers' and fathers' use of corporal punishment and children's perceptions of their parents' neglect were predicted by parents' belief in the necessity of using corporal punishment, parents' perception of the normativeness of corporal punishment in their community, parents' progressive parenting attitudes, parents' endorsement of aggression, parents' education, children's externalizing problems, and children's internalizing problems at each of the three levels. Individual-level predictors (especially child externalizing behaviors) as well as cultural-level predictors (especially normativeness of corporal punishment in the community) predicted corporal punishment and neglect. Findings are framed in an international context that considers how abuse and neglect are defined by the global community and how countries have attempted to prevent abuse and neglect.

We tested a model that children's tendency to attribute hostile intent to others in response to provocation is a key psychological process that statistically accounts for individual differences in reactive aggressive behavior and that this mechanism contributes to global group differences in children's chronic aggressive behavior problems. Participants were 1,299 children (mean age at year 1 = 8.3 y; 51% girls) from 12 diverse ecological-context groups in nine countries worldwide, followed across 4 y. In year 3, each child was presented with each of 10 hypothetical vignettes depicting an ambiguous provocation toward the child and was asked to attribute the likely intent of the provocateur (coded as benign or hostile) and to predict his or her own behavioral response (coded as nonaggression or reactive aggression). Mothers and children independently rated the child's chronic aggressive behavior problems in years 2, 3, and 4. In every ecological group, in those situations in which a child attributed hostile intent to a peer, that child was more likely to report that he or she would respond with reactive aggression than in situations when that same child attributed benign intent. Across children, hostile attributional bias scores predicted higher mother- and child-rated chronic aggressive behavior problems, even controlling for prior aggression. Ecological group differences in the tendency for children to attribute hostile intent statistically accounted for a significant portion of group differences in chronic aggressive behavior problems. The findings suggest a psychological mechanism for group differences in aggressive behavior and point to potential interventions to reduce aggressive behavior.

This review examines mechanisms contributing to the intergenerational transmission of self-regulation. To provide an integrated account of how self-regulation is transmitted across generations, we draw from over 75 years of accumulated evidence, spanning case studies to experimental approaches, in literatures covering developmental, social, and clinical psychology, and criminology, physiology, genetics, and human and animal neuroscience (among others). First, we present a taxonomy of what self-regulation is and then examine how it develops--overviews that guide the main foci of the review. Next, studies supporting an association between parent and child self-regulation are reviewed. Subsequently, literature that considers potential social mechanisms of transmission, specifically parenting behavior, interparental (i.e., marital) relationship behaviors, and broader rearing influences (e.g., household chaos) is considered. Finally, evidence that prenatal programming may be the starting point of the intergenerational transmission of self-regulation is covered, along with key findings from the behavioral and molecular genetics literatures. To integrate these literatures, we introduce the self-regulation intergenerational transmission model, a framework that brings together prenatal, social/contextual, and neurobiological mechanisms (spanning endocrine, neural, and genetic levels, including gene-environment interplay and epigenetic processes) to explain the intergenerational transmission of self-regulation. This model also incorporates potential transactional processes between generations (e.g., children's self-regulation and parent-child interaction dynamics that may affect parents' self-regulation) that further influence intergenerational processes. In pointing the way forward, we note key future directions and ways to address limitations in existing work throughout the review and in closing. We also conclude by noting several implications for intervention work., ((c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).)

In order to advance our understanding of the etiology of individual differences in child maladjustment (i.e., conduct and emotional problems), we tested hypotheses about the statistical interactions between child temperament and two aspects of the family environment: maternal negativity and positivity, and household chaos (e.g., crowding, noise, lack of routines). Mothers (n = 149) reported on their child's effortful control, negative affect, surgency, and behavioral/emotional problems. The age range of the children was 3 to 7 years old and half of the sample was girls. Observers rated maternal negativity and positivity based on brief structured interaction tasks in the laboratory. Child temperament moderated the association between maternal negativity/positivity and child maladjustment. Maternal negativity and child problem behavior were associated only for those children who also were high in surgency or negative affectivity. Maternal positivity was associated with less child problem behavior for those high in surgency. Child effortful control interacted with both maternal negativity and chaos. Maternal negativity and child problem behavior were most strongly associated for children who were low in effortful control and living in chaotic homes. The results point to distinct transactions between child temperament and maternal negativity/positivity that depend in part on the dimensions of temperament and parenting behavior in question.

Intervention studies indicate that children's early child-care experiences can be leveraged to foster their development of effective self-regulation skills. It is less clear whether typical child-care experiences play a similar role. In addition, evidence suggests that children with a common variant of the DRD4 gene (48-bp VNTR, 7-repeat) may be more sensitive to their experiences than those without this variant. Using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we considered the degree to which children's early child-care experiences-quantity, quality, and type-were associated with their attention and self-regulation abilities in prekindergarten, and, in particular, whether these relations were conditional on DRD4 genotype. G × E interactions were evident across multiple neuropsychological and observational measures of children's attention and self-regulation abilities. Across most outcome measures, DRD4 7+ children spending fewer hours in child care showed more effective attention/self-regulation abilities. For those without a copy of the DRD4 7-repeat allele, such associations were typically null. The results for child-care quality and type indicated no interactions with genotype; the main-effect associations were somewhat inconsistent., (© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Two key tasks facing parents across cultures are managing children's behaviors (and misbehaviors) and conveying love and affection. Previous research has found that corporal punishment generally is related to worse child adjustment, whereas parental warmth is related to better child adjustment. This study examined whether the association between corporal punishment and child adjustment problems (anxiety and aggression) is moderated by maternal warmth in a diverse set of countries that vary in a number of sociodemographic and psychological ways. Interviews were conducted with 7- to 10-year-old children (N = 1,196; 51% girls) and their mothers in 8 countries: China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Thailand, and the United States. Follow-up interviews were conducted 1 and 2 years later. Corporal punishment was related to increases, and maternal warmth was related to decreases, in children's anxiety and aggression over time; however, these associations varied somewhat across groups. Maternal warmth moderated the effect of corporal punishment in some countries, with increases in anxiety over time for children whose mothers were high in both warmth and corporal punishment. The findings illustrate the overall association between corporal punishment and child anxiety and aggression as well as patterns specific to particular countries. Results suggest that clinicians across countries should advise parents against using corporal punishment, even in the context of parent-child relationships that are otherwise warm, and should assist parents in finding other ways to manage children's behaviors.

Distinguishing between relational and physical aggression has become a key feature of many developmental studies in North America and Western Europe, but very little information is available on relational and physical aggression in more diverse cultural contexts. This study examined the factor structure of, associations between, and gender differences in relational and physical aggression in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. Children ages 7–10 years (N = 1,410) reported on their relationally and physically aggressive behavior. Relational and physical aggression shared a common factor structure across countries. In all nine countries, relational and physical aggression were significantly correlated (average r = .49). Countries differed in the mean levels of both relational and physical aggression that children reported using and with respect to whether children reported using more physical than relational aggression or more relational than physical aggression. Boys reported being more physically aggressive than girls across all nine countries; no consistent gender differences emerged in relational aggression. Despite mean-level differences in relational and physical aggression across countries, the findings provided support for cross-country similarities in associations between relational and physical aggression as well as links between gender and aggression.

Background: Low levels of dispositional anger and a good attention span are critical to healthy social emotional development, with attention control reflecting effective cognitive self-regulation of negative emotions such as anger. Using a longitudinal design, we examined attention span as a moderator of reciprocal links between changes in anger and changes in externalizing and internalizing problems from 4.5 to 11 years of age., Method: Participants were children from the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), assessed four times between 4.5 and 11 years. Composite scores for anger and attention were computed using indicators from multiple informants. Externalizing and internalizing problems were reported by mothers., Results: Latent difference score analysis showed reciprocal lagged effects between increased anger and elevated levels of externalizing or internalizing problems. Significant moderating effects of attention indicated more persistent effects of anger on externalizing problems in the poor attention group. Although the poor and the good attention groups did not differ regarding the effects of anger on internalizing problems, significant moderating effects of attention indicated stronger and more persistent reciprocal effects of internalizing problems on anger in the poor attention group., Conclusions: Attention control mechanisms are involved in self-regulation of anger and its connections with changes in behavioral and emotional problems. Strong attention regulation may serve to protect children with higher levels of dispositional anger from developing behavioral and emotional problems in middle childhood., (© 2010 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. © 2010 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.)

We examined mothers' ratings of children's affective and behavioral aspects of approach tendencies and links with overt aggressive behavior problems while considering the genetic etiology of these processes. Approach/positive anticipation (AP), frustration/anger (FA), and overt aggression in 4-9-year-olds were assessed using mothers' reports in a diverse national sample (n=992) and a sample of same-sex twins (n=195 pairs). AP and FA were positively correlated with each other and with overt aggression (r from .2 to .5), and these associations were very similar for boys and girls. AP and FA provided overlapping as well as independent statistical prediction of aggression. AP statistical prediction of aggression was substantially mediated by FA, an effect that was accounted for by underlying genetic and nonshared environmental influences.

This study examined the associations of 11 discipline techniques with children's aggressive and anxious behaviors in an international sample of mothers and children from 6 countries and determined whether any significant associations were moderated by mothers' and children's perceived normativeness of the techniques. Participants included 292 mothers and their 8- to 12-year-old children living in China, India, Italy, Kenya, Philippines, and Thailand. Parallel multilevel and fixed effects models revealed that mothers' use of corporal punishment, expressing disappointment, and yelling were significantly related to more child aggression symptoms, whereas giving a time-out, using corporal punishment, expressing disappointment, and shaming were significantly related to greater child anxiety symptoms. Some moderation of these associations was found for children's perceptions of normativeness.

We examined the role of working memory in observed reactive parenting in a sample of 216 mothers and their same-sex twin children. The mothers and their children were observed completing two frustrating cooperation tasks during a visit to the home. The mothers worked one-on-one with each child separately. Mothers completed the Vocabulary (verbal), Block Design (spatial), and Digit Span (working memory) subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition. We used a within-family quasi-experimental design to estimate the magnitude of the association between sibling differences in observed challenging behaviors (i.e., opposition and distractibility) and the difference in the mother's negativity toward each child. As hypothesized, reactive negativity was evident only among mothers with poorer working memory. Verbal and spatial ability did not show this moderating effect. The effect was replicated in a post hoc secondary data analysis of a sample of adoptive mothers and sibling children. Results implicate working memory in the etiology of harsh reactive parenting.

Change in task persistence was assessed in two annual assessments using teachers', testers', and observers' ratings. Participants included 79 monozygotic and 116 same-sex dizygotic twin pairs who were in Kindergarten or 1st grade (4.3 to 7.9 years old) at the initial assessment. Task persistence was widely distributed and higher among older children and girls. Overall, there was modest growth in persistence over time, and moderate stability of individual differences. Most of the stability was accounted for by genetic influences, whereas most of the change was accounted for by nonshared environment, including an association with observed differential maternal warm supportive behavior.