Effortful control (EC), the capacity to deliberately suppress a dominant response and perform a subdominant response, rapidly developing in toddler and preschool age, has been shown to be a robust predictor of children’s adjustment. Not settled, however, is whether a view of EC as a heterogeneous rather than unidimensional construct may offer advantages in the context of predicting diverse developmental outcomes. This study focused on the potential distinction between “hot” EC function (delay-of-gratification tasks that called for suppressing an emotionally charged response) and more abstract “cool” EC functions (motor inhibition tasks, suppressing-initiating response or Go-No Go tasks, and effortful attention or Stroop-like tasks). Children (N=100) were observed performing EC tasks at 38 and 52 months. Mothers, fathers, and teachers rated children’s behavior problems and academic performance at 67, 80, and 100 months, and children participated in a clinical interview at 100 months. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analyses with latent variables produced consistent findings across all informants: Children’s scores in “hot” EC tasks, presumably engaging emotion regulation skills, predicted behavior problems but not academic performance, whereas their scores in “cool” EC tasks, specifically those engaging effortful attention, predicted academic performance but not behavior problems. The models of EC as a heterogeneous construct offered some advantages over the unidimensional models. Methodological and clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

Background Growing research on children's traits as moderators of links between parenting and developmental outcomes has shown that variations in positivity, warmth, or responsiveness in parent-child relationships are particularly consequential for temperamentally difficult or biologically vulnerable children. But very few studies have addressed the moderating role of children's callous-unemotional (CU) traits, a known serious risk factor for antisocial cascades. We examined children's CU traits as moderators of links between parent-child Mutually Responsive Orientation (MRO) and shared positive affect and future externalizing behavior problems. Methods Participants included 100 two-parent community families of normally developing children, followed longitudinally. MRO and shared positive affect in mother-child and father-child dyads was observed in lengthy, diverse naturalistic contexts when children were 38 and 52 months. Both parents rated children's CU traits at 67 months and their externalizing behavior problems (Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder) at 67, 80, and 100 months. Results Children's CU traits moderated links between early positive parent-child relationships and children's future externalizing behavior problems, even after controlling for strong continuity of those problems. For children with elevated CU traits, higher mother-child MRO and father-child shared positive affect predicted a decrease in mother-reported future behavior problems. There were no significant associations for children with relatively lower CU scores. Conclusions Positive qualities for early relationships, potentially different for mother-child and father-child dyads, can serve as potent factors that decrease probability of antisocial developmental cascades for children who are at risk due to elevated CU traits.

Examination of developmental links among early maternal behavior, the child's responsive stance toward the mother, conscience, and disruptive behavior is a promising step toward elucidating mechanisms of children's adaptive and maladaptive trajectories.

Psychologists have long tried to understand why trajectories of socialization in individual parent–child dyads can be distinct, leading to adaptive or maladaptive developmental outcomes. In this article, we elucidate origins of those differences by examining the subtle yet enduring implications of early parent–child relationships in longitudinal studies of low‐ and high‐risk families, using correlational and experimental designs, and multiple measures. Those relationships are key for socialization because they can alter cascades from children's biologically based difficult temperament to parents' negative control to negative children's outcomes, as demonstrated by social‐learning theories. We suggest that those cascades unfold only in parent–child dyads whose early relationships lack positive mutuality and security. Such relationships set the tone for adversarial cascades. In contrast, early mutually positive, secure relationships initiate cooperative, effective socialization and defuse risks of negative cascades. Parents' and children's internal representations of each other may explain how such divergent sequelae unfold.

Parents' personality was examined as a moderator of the impact of demographic risk on parenting in a longitudinal study (N ϭ 102 families). Parents' personality and demographic risk (i.e., education level, age, family income, and family size) were assessed when children were infants, and parents' power assertion, warmth, and positive affect were observed in naturalistic interactions 2.5 years later. Parents' personality moderated the adverse impact of demographic risk on parenting. For parents who had memories of unstable and unhappy childhood experiences and who reported low conventionality, higher risk was linked to more power assertion, but there was no such link for those parents who recalled happy childhood experiences and who embraced conventions. For both parents who lacked a sense of optimism and social trust, and for fathers who reported low conventionality, higher risk was linked to less affectively positive parenting, but there was no such link for parents who were optimistic and trusting or for fathers who were conventional. Higher risk was linked to more power assertion, but only for mothers low in Extraversion and for fathers high in Neuroticism.