A three-wave longitudinal study design with two 6-month intervals was used to examine the stability and change in Internalizing, Externalizing, and Total Problem behavior among children and adolescents referred to outpatient mental health services. Our results indicated high stabilities for parent ratings of child psychopathology across a 1year interval. Additionally, we found decreases in the level of problem behavior. Interindividual differences in change were found for Total Problems and Externalizing behavior but not for Internalizing. While both the child's temperament and intelligence level and family relations were related to the initial level of parent-rated problem behavior, only intermediary stressful life events had an influence on the rate of change of child psychopathology. Despite considerable stability for a wide range edge of the development of psychopathology in children and adolescents. Furthermore, our of problem behaviors in referred (Asarnow, Goldstein, Tompson, & Guthrie, 1993; Camp-knowledge of mechanisms underlying changes in problem behavior among referred children

The present study investigated whether personality judgments involve different processes in a family setting than in a nonfamily setting. We used the Social Relations Model to distinguish the effects of perceiver, target, perceiver-target relationship, and family on personality judgments. Family members of families with adolescents judged their own and the other members' Big Five factors. Judgments were found to depend on the relevance of personality factors within the family setting: Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were judged most consistently. Large relationship variance indicated that parents adjust their judgments to the target family member; large perceiver variance indicated that adolescents judge family members' personalities rather similarly. However, a comparison of self- and other-judgments showed adolescents' judgments to be no more related to their self-perceptions than parents' judgments. We concluded that the relevance of personality factors may differ on specific tasks within a setting.

The associations of the mutual mother-child, father-child, and mother-father relationship and various patterns of family relations with child psychopathology were investigated in a sample of 137 families referred to outpatient mental health services. Assessment of the relative association of the different family dyads showed that both the mother-child and the mother-father relationship were related to child problem behaviour. However, whereas the mother-child relationship was consistently more related to externalising behaviour, the mother-father relationship was particularly related to internalising behaviour. Our findings gave clear support for the cumulative risk model: having more negatively qualified relationships was associated with more problem behaviour. Furthermore, our results suggested a protective influence of the parent-child relationship: having one or two positive parent-child relationships was associated with less problem behaviour. No support was found for the cross-generational coalition hypothesis. Implications for future research are discussed.