While prior literature has largely focused on marriage effects during young adulthood, it is less clear whether these effects are as strong in middle adulthood. Thus, we investigated age differences in marriage effects on problem-drinking reduction. We employed parallel analyses with two independent samples (analytic-sample Ns of 577 and 441, respectively). Both are high-risk samples by design, with about 50% of participants having a parent with lifetime alcohol use disorder. Both samples have been assessed longitudinally from early young adulthood to the mid-to-late 30s. Separate parallel analyses with these two samples allowed evaluation of the reproducibility of results. Growth models of problem drinking tested marriage as a time-varying predictor and thereby assessed age differences in marriage effects. For both samples, results consistently showed marriage effects to be strongest in early young adulthood and to decrease somewhat monotonically thereafter with age, reaching very small (and nonsignificant) magnitudes by the 30s. Results may reflect that role transitions like marriage have more impact on problem drinking in earlier versus later adulthood, thereby highlighting the importance of life span developmental research for understanding problem-drinking desistance. Our findings can inform intervention strategies aimed at reducing problem drinking by jumpstarting or amplifying natural processes of adult role adaptation.

Caregiving experiences are implicated in children’s depression risk; however, children’s neural reactivity to positive and negative feedback from mothers, a potential mediator of depression risk, is poorly understood. In a sample of 81 children (Mage = 11.12 years, SDage = 0.63), some of whom were recruited based on a maternal history of depression (n = 29), we used fMRI to characterize children’s neural responses to maternal praise and criticism. Maternal history of depression was unrelated to children’s brain activity during both the praise and criticism conditions; however, ROI analyses showed that children’s self-reported depressive symptoms were negatively associated with functional activity in the left anterior insula and right putamen while hearing maternal criticism. Whole-brain analyses showed that children’s depressive symptoms were positively associated with left inferior frontal gyrus activity while listening to maternal praise. These findings complement past work implicating these brain regions in the processing of emotionally salient stimuli, reward processing, and internal speech. Given associations between early depressive symptoms and later disorder, findings suggest that maladaptive neural processing of maternal feedback may contribute to children’s early emerging risk for depression.

There is evidence for intergenerational transmission of substance use and disorder. However, it is unclear whether separation from a parent with substance use disorder (SUD) moderates intergenerational transmission, and no studies have tested this question across three generations. In a three-generation study of families oversampled for familial SUD, we tested whether separation between father (G1; first generation) and child (G2; second generation) moderated the effect of G1 father SUDs on G2 child SUDs. We also tested whether separation between father (G2) and child (G3; third generation) moderated the effect of G2 SUDs on G3 drinking. Finally, we tested whether G1-G2 or G2-G3 separation moderated the mediated effect of G1 SUDs on G3 drinking through G2 SUDs. G1 father-G2 child separation moderated intergenerational transmission. In families with G1-G2 separation, there were no significant effects of father SUD on G2 SUD or G3 drinking. However, in nonseparated families, greater G1 father SUDs predicted heightened G2 SUDs and G3 grandchild drinking. In nonseparated families, G1 father SUDs significantly predicted G2 SUDs, which predicted G3 drinking. However, G2-G3 separation predicted heightened G3 drinking regardless of G2 and G1 SUDs. Parental separation may introduce risk for SUDs and drinking among youth with lower familial risk.

Studies suggest that children who have experienced neglect are at risk for bullying which in turn increases the risk for poor mental health. Here we extend this research by examining whether this risk extends to the neglect associated with severe institutional deprivation and then testing the extent to which these effects are mediated by prior deprivation-related neuro-developmental problems such as symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity and autism. Data were collected at ages 6, 11, 15, and young adulthood (22–25 years) from 165 adoptees who experienced up to 43 months of deprivation in Romanian Orphanages in 1980s and 52 non-deprived UK adoptees (N = 217; 50.23% females). Deprivation was associated with elevated levels of bullying and neuro-developmental symptoms at ages 6 through 15 and young adult depression and anxiety. Paths from deprivation to poor adult mental health were mediated via cross-lagged effects from earlier neuro-developmental problems to later bullying. Findings evidence how deep-seated neuro-developmental impacts of institutional deprivation can cascade across development to impact social functioning and mental health. These results elucidate cascade timing and the association between early deprivation and later bullying victimization across childhood and adolescence.

This study aimed to articulate the roles of social support and coping strategies in the relation between childhood maltreatment (CM) and subsequent major depressive disorder (MDD) with a comprehensive exploration of potential factors in a longitudinal community-based cohort. Parallel and serial mediation analyses were applied to estimate the direct effect (DE) (from CM to MDD) and indirect effects (from CM to MDD through social support and coping strategies, simultaneously and sequentially). Sociodemographic characteristics and genetic predispositions of MDD were considered in the modeling process. A total of 902 participants were included in the analyses. CM was significantly associated with MDD (DE coefficient (β) = 0.015, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.002∼0.028). This relation was partially mediated by social support (indirect β = 0.004, 95% CI = 0.0001∼0.008) and negative coping (indirect β = 0.013, 95% CI = 0.008∼0.020), respectively. Social support, positive coping, and negative coping also influenced each other and collectively mediated the association between CM and MDD. This study provides robust evidence that although CM has a detrimental effect on later-on MDD, social support and coping strategies could be viable solutions to minimize the risk of MDD. Intervention and prevention programs should primarily focus on weakening negative coping strategies, then strengthening social support and positive coping strategies.

Gene-environment correlations and interactions for the relationship between emotional problems (EP) and family environment in adolescents in low- to middle-income countries (LMIC) have been rarely investigated. In total, 3207 adolescent twins aged 12–18 (Mean = 14.6 ± 1.73) years attending public schools in Lagos State in Nigeria completed measures of EP and Family Chaos (FC). Model-fitting analyses suggested that genetic and non-shared environmental influences on EP were 21% and 71%, respectively, and the corresponding estimates were 23% and 71% for FC. Shared environmental influences were not significant (8% and 6% respectively). Phenotypic correlation between EP and FC was .30 (95% CI = .27–.34), which was significantly influenced by genetic (A – 49%, 95% CI: 0.01–0.97) and non-shared environmental factors (E – 32%, 95% CI: 0.10–0.54). Shared environmental influences were not significant (C – 19%, 95% CI: −0.13 to 0.50). Moderation effects were significant whereby as FC increased, A on EP decreased (βA = −0.07, 95% CI: −0.12 to −0.02) while E increased (βE = 0.06, 95% CI: 0.03–0.09). Our findings indicate that genetic and non-shared environmental risk factors may mediate the relationship between EP and FC, and that as FC increases, protective genetic influences on EP may be attenuated, whereas environmental influences may become stronger in adolescents in LMIC.

The current study investigated in-the-moment links between adolescents’ autonomic nervous system activity and susceptibility to three types of peer influence (indirect, direct, continuing) on two types of behavior (antisocial, prosocial). The sample included 144 racially ethnically diverse adolescents (46% male, 53% female, 1% other; Mage = 16.02 years). We assessed susceptibility to peer influence behaviorally using the Public Goods Game (PGG) while measuring adolescents’ mean heart rate (MHR) and pre-ejection period (PEP). Three key findings emerged from bivariate dual latent change score modeling: (1) adolescents whose MHR increased more as they transitioned from playing the PGG alone (pre-influence) to playing while simply observed by peers (indirect influence) displayed more prosocial behavior; (2) adolescents whose PEP activity increased more (greater PEP activity = shorter PEP latency) as they transitioned from indirect influence to being encouraged by peers to engage in antisocial behavior (direct influence) engaged in more antisocial behavior; and (3) adolescents whose PEP activity decreased less as they transitioned from direct influence on prosocial behavior to playing the PGG alone again (continuing influence) displayed more continuing prosocial behavior (marginal effect). The discussion focuses on the role of psychophysiology in understanding adolescents’ susceptibility to peer influence.

Externalizing behavior in early adolescence is associated with alcohol use in adolescence and early adulthood and these behaviors often emerge as part of a developmental sequence. This pattern can be the result of heterotypic continuity, in which different behaviors emerge over time based on an underlying shared etiology. In particular, there is largely a shared genetic etiology underlying externalizing and substance use behaviors. We examined whether polygenic risk for alcohol use disorder predicted (1) externalizing behavior in early adolescence and alcohol use in adolescence in the Early Steps Multisite sample and (2) externalizing behavior in adolescence and alcohol use in early adulthood in the Project Alliance 1 (PAL1) sample. We examined associations separately for African Americans and European Americans. When examining European Americans in the Early Steps sample, greater polygenic risk was associated with externalizing behavior in early adolescence. In European Americans in PAL1, we found greater polygenic risk was associated with alcohol use in early adulthood. Effects were largely absent in African Americans in both samples. Results imply that genetic predisposition for alcohol use disorder may increase risk for externalizing and alcohol use as these behaviors emerge developmentally.

In this study, we sought to combine two lines of research to better understand risk for the intergenerational transmission of depression. The first focuses on the role of maternal criticism as a potential mechanism of risk for depression in youth while the second builds from interpersonal and stress generation models regarding the potential impact of youth depression on future escalations in maternal criticism. Specifically, we examined the role of maternal criticism within a transactional mediation model using data from a multi-wave study. Participants were 251 mother–offspring pairs consisting of mothers with (n = 129) and without (n = 122) a history of major depressive disorder (MDD) during their child’s lifetime who completed assessments every 6 months for 2 years. We found support for the hypothesized transactional mediational model in which maternal expressed emotion-criticism (EE-Crit) mediated the link between maternal history of MDD and residual change in youth’s depressive symptoms over the previous 6 months and, reciprocally, youth depressive symptoms mediated the relation between maternal MDD history and residual change in EE-Crit 6 months later. These results indicate that maternal criticism and offspring depressive symptoms may contribute to a vicious cycle of depression risk, which should be considered for interventions targeted toward youth at risk of developing MDD.

Pre-diagnostic deficits in social motivation are hypothesized to contribute to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a heritable neurodevelopmental condition. We evaluated psychometric properties of a social motivation index (SMI) using parent-report item-level data from 597 participants in a prospective cohort of infant siblings at high and low familial risk for ASD. We tested whether lower SMI scores at 6, 12, and 24 months were associated with a 24-month ASD diagnosis and whether social motivation’s course differed relative to familial ASD liability. The SMI displayed good internal consistency and temporal stability. Children diagnosed with ASD displayed lower mean SMI T-scores at all ages and a decrease in mean T-scores across age. Lower group-level 6-month scores corresponded with higher familial ASD liability. Among high-risk infants, strong decline in SMI T-scores was associated with 10-fold odds of diagnosis. Infant social motivation is quantifiable by parental report, differentiates children with versus without later ASD by age 6 months, and tracks with familial ASD liability, consistent with a diagnostic and susceptibility marker of ASD. Early decrements and decline in social motivation indicate increased likelihood of ASD, highlighting social motivation’s importance to risk assessment and clarification of the ontogeny of ASD.

Peer victimization is a developmentally salient stressor that elevates adolescents’ risk for anxiety disorders. However, modifiable mechanisms that explain this link and can be targeted via therapeutic interventions remain poorly understood. Drawing from psychobiological models implicating aberrant threat sensitivity in the development and maintenance of psychopathology, the current study investigated sensitivity to peer-related social threats as a mechanism underlying the association between peer victimization and anxiety. A sample of 197 dyads of early adolescents (Mage = 12.02; 46% female) and parents/guardians (Mage = 41.46; 90% female) completed online surveys assessing peer victimization, sensitivity to potential (i.e., ambiguous) social threats, and anxiety. Controlling for potentially confounding demographic and psychosocial factors, both self- and parent-reported peer victimization were positively associated with adolescent anxiety symptoms. Additionally, there were significant indirect effects from self- and parent-reported peer victimization to anxiety via social threat sensitivity. Supplemental analyses indicated unique effects of covert, but not overt, peer victimization on social threat sensitivity and anxiety. The findings provide initial evidence that peer victimization experiences lower adolescents’ threshold for interpreting threats in ambiguous social situations, which contributes to heightened anxiety. These results implicate social threat sensitivity as a potential therapeutic target for interrupting links from peer victimization to psychological distress.

This study examined parental depression and parental reflective functioning (PRF) as predictors of parental proficiency in relational savoring (RS), the association between RS proficiency and a marker of children’s physiological self-regulation, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), during a stressor, and indirect effects of parental depression and PRF on children’s RSA via parents’ RS. At Time 1 (T1), parents of 8- to 12-year-old children (N = 139) reported on their depressive symptoms and completed a parenting interview, coded for PRF. After 1.5 years (Time 2; T2), parents savored a positive relational memory that involved their children, which was coded for savoring proficiency. Children’s RSA was measured during a stressful task (a series of impossible puzzles). Depressive symptoms (inversely) and PRF (positively) were associated with RS proficiency. Higher parental RS proficiency was associated with children’s higher mean levels of RSA during the stressor. Indirect effects models supported that T2 RS proficiency mediated the negative association between parental T1 depressive symptoms and children’s T2 RSA, and between T1 PRF and children’s T2 RSA. We discuss these findings in terms of implications for parents’ emotion regulation, children’s emotion regulation, children’s mental health, and intervention.

A substantial body of work has established that mothers’ internalizing distress can negatively affect children’s socioemotional development. Yet few studies have examined how distinct patterns of mothers’ distress over time differentially impact child behaviors across early childhood. To address this gap, the current study explored developmental trajectories of mothers’ internalizing distress and examined the associations of these patterns with child adjustment outcomes. Mexican immigrant, Dominican immigrant, and African American mothers (N = 272) were annually assessed for internalizing distress over the first 6 years following childbirth. Children’s psychological adjustment (internalizing, externalizing, and hyperactivity behaviors) was measured at the last yearly assessment in first grade. A growth mixture model revealed two distinct classes of distress where mothers were classified as having low stable distress (82.4%) or moderate distress that began as stable then declined when their children were 64 months old (17.6%). Children of mothers in the moderate, late decline class showed greater internalizing, externalizing, and hyperactivity behaviors in the first grade compared to children of mothers in the low stable class. Findings highlight the necessity of supporting the mental health of ethnic minoritized mothers following childbirth and further expand our knowledge of family psychopathology to promote healthy psychological adjustment in children.

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.

Researchers have begun to examine the psychological toll of the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. Data are now emerging indicating that there may be long-term adverse effects of the pandemic on new mothers and on children born during this period. In a longitudinal study of maternal mental health and child emotional development during the pandemic, we conducted online assessments of a cohort of women at two time points: when they were pregnant at the beginning of the surge of the pandemic in the United States (baseline, N = 725), and approximately 1 year postpartum (follow-up, N = 296), examining prenatal and postnatal maternal mental health, prenatal pandemic-related stress, and infant temperament. Pandemic-related stress at baseline was associated with concurrent depressive symptoms and infant negative affect at follow-up. Baseline maternal depressive symptoms were associated with follow-up depressive symptoms, which in turn were also associated with infant negative affect. Pandemic-related stress during pregnancy may have enduring effects on infant temperament. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the emotional development of children who were in utero during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study utilised a longitudinal population-based study to explore mother and child mental health trajectories over time from child age 0 to 14 years, between children with ASD, ADHD, or ASD + ADHD. It explored whether a bidirectional relationship between mother psychological distress and child emotional and behavioural problems (EBPs) existed. The birth cohort from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children was used. Child EBPs were assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire; and mother emotional distress using the Kessler K6. Generalised estimating equations and structured equation modelling was used to understand changes over time, differences between groups and bidirectional relationships. As expected, children with ASD, ADHD or ASD + ADHD had higher EBPs than children without, and their mothers had higher levels of psychological distress across most time points, but with differing trajectories. Mothers of children with ASD (with or without ADHD) showed increasing psychological distress over time, while mothers of children with ADHD had reducing distress. The bidirectional relationship between mother and child mental health found in children without diagnoses was only partially present in children with ASD/ADHD. Findings highlight support needs and discuss implications for transactional models of parent/child emotional problems in children with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Adolescence is an important stage for the development of emotion regulation skills, especially for adolescent girls who are at elevated risk for the development of depression and anxiety. Although some emotion regulation strategies are more effective at helping adolescents regulate negative affect on average, research indicates strategy effectiveness varies with the context in which a strategy is deployed. Yet less work has been done examining which contextual factors are associated with adolescents switching emotion regulation strategies in their daily lives. This study examined individual and contextual factors related to negative interpersonal events that are associated with strategy effectiveness, including age, emotional intensity, perceived controllability, and co-regulatory support, and their association with adolescent emotion regulation strategy switching in daily life via ecological momentary assessment. Results indicated that adolescent girls differed in the degree to which they altered their emotion regulation strategies throughout their daily lives, and that switching strategies was associated with age as well as individual and within-person differences in perceived controllability, emotional intensity, and co-regulatory support. This study provides critical proof-of-concept of the utility of emotion regulation strategy switching as a measure of regulatory flexibility and highlights regulatory processes that may hold clues to the mechanisms of developmental psychopathology.

Adolescence is a significant period for the formation of relationship networks and the development of internalizing problems. With a sample of Chinese adolescents (N = 3,834, 52.01% girls, Mage = 16.68 at Wave 1), the present study aimed to identify the configuration of adolescents’ relationship qualities from four important domains (i.e., relationship quality with mother, father, peers, and teachers) and how distinct profiles were associated with the development of internalizing problems (indicated by depressive and anxiety symptoms) across high school years. Latent profile analysis identified a five-profile configuration with four convergent profiles (i.e., relationship qualities with others were generally good or bad) and one “Father estrangement” profile (i.e., the relationship quality with others were relatively good but that with father was particularly poor). Further conditional latent growth curve analysis indicated the “Father estrangement” profile was especially vulnerable to an increase in the internalizing problems as compared with other relationship profiles. This study contributes to understanding the characteristics of interpersonal relationship qualities and their influences on adolescent internalizing problems in a non-Western context. Results were further discussed from a culturally specific perspective.

The aim of this study was to use longitudinal population-based data to examine the associations between childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and risk for adverse outcomes in multiple life domains across adulthood. In 937 individuals followed from birth to age 45y, we assessed associations between CSA (retrospectively reported at age 26y) and the experience of 22 adverse outcomes in seven domains (physical, mental, sexual, interpersonal, economic, antisocial, multi-domain) from young adulthood to midlife (26 to 45y). Analyses controlled for sex, socioeconomic status, prospectively reported child harm and household dysfunction adverse childhood experiences, and adult sexual assault, and considered different definitions of CSA. After adjusting for confounders, CSA survivors were more likely than their peers to experience internalizing, externalizing, and thought disorders, suicide attempts, health risk behaviors, systemic inflammation, poor oral health, sexually transmitted diseases, high-conflict relationships, benefit use, financial difficulties, antisocial behavior, and cumulative problems across multiple domains in adulthood. In sum, CSA was associated with multiple persistent problems across adulthood, even after adjusting for confounding life stressors, and the risk for particular problems incremented with CSA severity. The higher risk for most specific problems was small to moderate, but the cumulative long-term effects across multiple domains reflect considerable individual and societal burden.