The present study assessed both concurrent and early influences of the maternal caregiving environment to examine unique contributions of each to variation in children's emotional responses to COVID-19 pandemic. Preschoolers (3-5 years; M = 4.12, SD = 0.49) previously assessed in infancy, several years prior to pandemic outbreak, were re-assessed…

This study examined whether childhood interparental conflict moderated the mediational pathway involving adolescent exposure to interparental conflict, their negative emotional reactivity to family conflict, and their psychological problems in a sample of 235 children (M[subscript age] = 6 years). Significant moderated-mediation findings indicated…

Reactivity to others' emotions not only can result in empathic concern (EC), an important motivator of prosocial behavior, but can also result in personal distress (PD), which may hinder prosocial behavior. Examining neural substrates of emotional reactivity may elucidate how EC and PD differentially influence prosocial behavior. Participants…

Stress responses to social evaluation are thought to increase during adolescence, which may be due to pubertal maturation. However, empirical evidence is scarce. This study is the first to investigate the relation between pubertal development and biological responses to a social-evaluative stressor longitudinally. Participants performed the Leiden…

This study attempted to establish and quantify the connections between parenting, offspring psychosocial adjustment, and the epigenome. The participants, 35 African American young adults (19 females and 16 males; age = 17-29.5 years), represented a subsample of a 3-wave longitudinal 15-year study on the developmental trajectories of low-income…

To evaluate whether conjoined maternal posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression are associated with increased behavioral problems among terrorism-exposed preschool children (N = 116; 18-54 months), this study compared clinically significant child behavioral problem rates among the preschool children of mothers with PTSD and depression,…

An estimated 200 million children worldwide experience various forms of disability. This critical review extrapolates from existing literature in 2 distinct areas of scholarship: one on individuals with disabilities in disaster, and the other on children in disaster. The extant literature suggests that various factors may contribute to the…

This study examined interrelationships among children's cortisol reactivity and their psychological reactivity to interparental conflict in a sample of 208 first graders (mean age = 6.6 years). Assessments of children's psychological reactivity to conflict distinguished among their distress, hostile, and involvement responses across multiple…

Longitudinal study of two cohorts of children selected in the second or third year of life as being extremely cautious and shy (inhibited) or fearless and outgoing (uninhibited) in regards to unfamiliar events revealed preservation of these two behavioral qualities through their sixth year. (PCB)

Found that, although 10- to 14-year-old sons of hypertensive parents showed greater systolic blood pressure reactivity to interadult anger and to a challenging task than sons of normotensive parents, there was no consistent pattern in the response of girls. (MDM)

Stress exposure and reactivity models were examined as explanations for why girls exhibit greater levels of depressive symptoms than boys. In a multiwave, longitudinal design, adolescents' depressive symptoms, alcohol usage, and occurrence of stressors were assessed at baseline, 6, and 12 months later (N=538; 54.5% female; ages 13-18, average…

Examined relations between reactivity (peak response) and regulation (response dampening) in 6-month-olds' cortisol and behavioral responses to inoculation. Found that reactivity and regulation were unrelated for both cortisol and behavior, suggesting both measures are needed to characterize more accurately infant response to stress. Found…

Investigates the relation between neonatal cry features elicited by painful circumcision procedures and the perceived urgency of those cries. (HOD)

This study examined individual differences in 4-year-old children's expression of the self-conscious emotions of embarrassment and shame and their relation to differences in cortisol response to stress. Results indicated the presence of two different types of embarrassment--one that reflected negative evaluation of the self, and the other a…

This study examined the relationship between moderate-level prenatal alcohol exposure, prenatal stress, and postnatal response to a challenging event in 6-month-old rhesus monkeys. Forty-one rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) infants were exposed prenatally to moderate level alcohol, maternal stress, or both. Offspring plasma cortisol and…