Reward sensitivity, impulse control, and social cognition as mediators of the link between childhood family adversity and externalizing behavior in eight countries.

Abstract

Using data from 1,177 families in eight countries (Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States), we tested a conceptual model of direct effects of childhood family adversity on subsequent externalizing behaviors as well as indirect effects through psychological mediators. When children were 9 years old, mothers and fathers reported on financial difficulties and their use of corporal punishment, and children reported perceptions of their parents' rejection. When children were 10 years old, they completed a computerized battery of tasks assessing reward sensitivity and impulse control and responded to questions about hypothetical social provocations to assess their hostile attributions and proclivity for aggressive responding. When children were 12 years old, they reported on their externalizing behavior. Multigroup structural equation models revealed that across all eight countries, childhood family adversity had direct effects on externalizing behaviors 3 years later, and childhood family adversity had indirect effects on externalizing behavior through psychological mediators. The findings suggest ways in which family-level adversity poses risk for children's subsequent development of problems at psychological and behavioral levels, situated within diverse cultural contexts.

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Published Version (Please cite this version)

10.1017/S0954579417001328

Publication Info

Lansford, Jennifer E, Jennifer Godwin, Marc H Bornstein, Lei Chang, Kirby Deater-Deckard, Laura Di Giunta, Kenneth A Dodge, Patrick S Malone, et al. (2017). Reward sensitivity, impulse control, and social cognition as mediators of the link between childhood family adversity and externalizing behavior in eight countries. Dev Psychopathol, 29(5). pp. 1675–1688. 10.1017/S0954579417001328 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/15828.

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Scholars@Duke

Lansford

Jennifer Lansford

S. Malcolm Gillis Distinguished Research Professor of Public Policy

Jennifer Lansford is the director of the Center for Child and Family Policy and S. Malcolm Gillis Distinguished Research Professor of Public Policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy.

Dr. Lansford's research focuses on the development of aggression and other behavior problems in youth, with an emphasis on how family and peer contexts contribute to or protect against these outcomes. She examines how experiences with parents (e.g., physical abuse, discipline, divorce) and peers (e.g., rejection, friendships) affect the development of children's behavior problems, how influence operates in adolescent peer groups, and how cultural contexts moderate links between parenting and children's adjustment.

Jennifer Godwin

Research Scientist

Jennifer Godwin is a research scientist at the Center for Child and Family Policy. She joined the Center in 2003 to provide statistical expertise for various projects. Currently, she works on the Fast Track and Childhood Risk Factors and Young Adult Competence projects, providing statistical analyses. She has extensive programming experience in SAS, Stata and MPlus, including survival analysis, mediation models, and multilevel models for continuous and categorical dependent variables.

Dodge

Kenneth A. Dodge

William McDougall Distinguished Professor of Public Policy Studies

Kenneth A. Dodge is the William McDougall Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. He is also the founding and past director of the Center for Child and Family Policy, as well as the founder of Family Connects International

Dodge is a leading scholar in the development and prevention of aggressive and violent behaviors. His work provides a model for understanding how some young children grow up to engage in aggression and violence and provides a framework for intervening early to prevent the costly consequences of violence for children and their communities.

Dodge joined the faculty of the Sanford School of Public Policy in September 1998. He is trained as a clinical and developmental psychologist, having earned his B.A. in psychology at Northwestern University in 1975 and his Ph.D. in psychology at Duke University in 1978. Prior to joining Duke, Dodge served on the faculty at Indiana University, the University of Colorado, and Vanderbilt University.

Dodge's research has resulted in the Family Connects Program, an evidence-based, population health approach to supporting families of newborn infants. Piloted in Durham, NC, and formerly known as Durham Connects, the program attempts to reach all families giving birth in a community to assess family needs, intervene where needed, and connect families to tailored community resources. Randomized trials indicate the program's success in improving family connections to the community, reducing maternal depression and anxiety, and preventing child abuse. The model is currently expanding to many communities across the U.S.

Dodge has published more than 500 scientific articles which have been cited more than 120,000 times.

Elected into the National Academy of Medicine in 2015, Dodge has received many honors and awards, including the following:

  • President (Elected), Society for Research in Child Development
  • Fellow, Society for Prevention Research
  • Distinguished Scientist, Child Mind Institute
  • Research Scientist Award from the National Institutes of Health
  • Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution from the American Psychological Association
  • J.P. Scott Award for Lifetime Contribution to Aggression Research from the International Society for Research on Aggression
  • Science to Practice Award from the Society for Prevention Research
  • Inaugural recipient of the “Public Service Matters” Award from the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs and Administration
  • Inaugural recipient of the Presidential Citation Award for Excellence in Research from the Society for Research on Adolescence
Skinner

Ann Skinner

Research Scientist

Ann Skinner joined the Center in 2001 and is a Research Scientist with Parenting Across Cultures (PAC) and C-StARR.  She is also the Principal Investigator for a study examining the effects of the war on young people and their families in Ukraine.

Her research focuses on the ways in which stressful community, familial, and interpersonal events impact parent-child relationships and the development of aggression and internalizing behaviors in youth. She has extensive experience in data management of multisite projects and in supervising teams for school- and community-based interventions and data collection. 

Skinner is a former supervisor in the Junior Researcher Programme, where she led a group of junior international scholars exploring the impact of COVID-19 on adolescent and young adult development.  She is currently a 2022-23 fellow with the ICDSS COVID-19 Global Scholars Program.

Prior to her work with Parenting Across Cultures, Skinner was a senior school specialist and research analyst on the GREAT Schools and Families middle school violence prevention project at the Center, as well as Project CLASS.

Skinner has a Ph.D in developmental psychology from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, a master's degree in education, and B.A. in psychology, both from the College of William and Mary, with a focus on teaching students with emotional and learning disabilities. Before joining the Center, she worked as a special education teacher, trainer, and supervisor in the North Carolina public schools and at residential facilities for at-risk youth in Rhode Island and North Carolina.


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