This study tested whether children's more anxious and avoidant attachment is linked to decreased support-seeking behavior toward their mother during stress in middle childhood, and whether children's decreased support-seeking behavior enhances the impact of experiencing life events on the increase of depressive symptoms 18 months later.…

This study tested the 5-HTTLPR gene as a moderator in the relation between maternal unresponsiveness and child externalizing symptoms in a disadvantaged, predominantly Black sample of two hundred and one 2-year-old children and their mothers. Using a multimethod, prospective design, structural equation model analyses indicated that maternal…

In the current study (a) maternal insightfulness into the experience of the child and (b) resolution with respect to the child's diagnosis and their associations with children's security of attachment were examined in a sample of 45 preschoolers (mean age = 49 months) with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). It was hypothesized that mothers who were…

Individual differences in parental reminiscing style are hypothesized to have long-lasting effects on children's autobiographical memory development, including the age of their earliest memories. This study represents the first prospective test of this hypothesis. Conversations about past events between 17 mother-child dyads were recorded on…

Processing the self-relevance of information facilitates recall. Similarly, processing close-other-related information facilitates recall to a lesser degree than processing self-relevant information. This memory advantage may be viewed as an index of the degree to which the representation of self is differentiated from representations of close…

Parental supportiveness and protective overcontrol and preschoolers' parasympathetic regulation were examined as predictors of temperamental inhibition, social wariness, and internalizing problems. Lower baseline vagal tone and weaker vagal suppression were expected to mark poorer dispositional self-regulatory capacity, leaving children more…

Two hypotheses--high self-esteem leads children to act on antisocial cognitions (disposition-activating hypothesis) and high self-esteem leads children to rationalize antisocial conduct (disposition-rationalizing hypothesis)--were investigated in two longitudinal studies. In Study 1 (N = 189; mean age = 11.1 years), antisocial behavior was…

Results of a study of low-income, inner-city mothers and their 13-month-old infants supported the hypothesis that increased physical contact achieved through the use of a soft baby carrier makes mothers more responsive to their infants and promotes the formation of more secure attachment between infants and mothers. (RH)

Asserts that the sensitive-period hypothesis has not been tested on three counts: (1) no systematic studies of initial mother/infant contacts exist, (2) the majority of studies confound timing and amount of contact, and (3) failure to consider underlying mechanisms results in the omission of designs and dependent measures that could address…

Based on 25 white middle-class infants from 9 to 12 months of age, the earliest manifestation of obedience to appear was a simple disposition to comply with maternal commands and prohibitions, independent of efforts to train or discipline the baby. (Authors/RY)

Mothers' and teachers' ratings showed that children of in-remission and in-episode mothers manifested significantly higher levels of behavior problems than children of control mothers. Agreement between mothers and teachers was moderate for all groups. (RH)

When high anxious mothers administered tasks to their children, they facilitated the task performance of their daughters but were strongly detrimental to that of their sons. Low anxious mothers chose more difficult tasks for sons than for daughters, and they facilitated the task performance of sons more than that of daughters. (Authors/RY)