Boys, Early Risk Factors for Alcohol Problems, and the Development of the Self: An Interconnected Matrix

Abstract

Alcohol Use Disorders (AUDs) are a major public health issue worldwide. Although drinking and problematic alcohol use usually begins during adolescence, developmental origins of the disorder can be traced back to infancy and early childhood. Identification of early risk factors is essential to understanding developmental origins. Using data from the Michigan Longitudinal Study, an ongoing, prospective, high-risk family study, this paper summarizes findings of family context and functioning of both children and parents. We draw attention to the development of the self, an understudied aspect of very young children being reared in alcoholic families that exacerbates exposure to high childhood adverse experiences. We also provide evidence demonstrating that young boys are embedded in a dynamic system of genes, epigenetic processes, brain organization, family dynamics, peers, community, and culture that strengthens risky developmental pathways if nothing is done to intervene during infancy and early childhood.

Psychology of Boys at Risk: Indicators From 0–5

“…Another significant longitudinal study is presented by Puttler, Fitzgerald, Heitzeg, and Zucker (this issue). They review the major findings of the more than 30‐year history of the Michigan Longitudinal Study to understand the risk factors for boys who are exposed early to paternal alcohol abuse.…”

“…They also are more likely themselves to develop an AUD when they are adolescents (Loukas, Fitzgerald, Zucker & von Eye, ). In this article, Puttler et al. offer a rich discussion of how development of the self and self–other relationships might be affected by familial psychopathology to prime the child to express similar outcomes over life's course.…”

Understanding alcohol use and alcohol use disorders from a developmental psychopathology perspective: Research advances, challenges, and future directions

“…Caspi et al (1996) found that boys who were either undercontrolled or inhibited at age three were more likely to have alcohol problems compared to other children, even controlling for social class. More recent work from a developmental psychopathology perspective has confirmed the importance of early self-regulation (Robson et al, 2020) and the interplay between early childhood temperament and parenting variables in shaping risk for alcohol outcomes (Eiden et al, 2020;Puttler et al, 2017). Moreover, research suggests that the shared variance between low effortful control and anger reactivity in early childhood is a significant predictor of adolescent negative urgency, which is a facet of impulsivity that consistently predicts negative alcohol outcomes (Waddell et al, 2021).…”

The affective basis of violence

“…These are critically dependent for their form on complex and interacting, psychobiological mechanisms which affect brain structural development and then functionally and the ways in which affective potentials are realized in their lived expression (Fonagy, Luyten, & Strathearn, , ; Schore, ; Siegal, ; Trevarthan, ). These include environmental influences, such as pollution, diet, parental drug and alcohol intake (Puttler, Fitzgerald, Heitzeg, & Zucker, ), and mothers’ emotional state on fetal development, through endocrinal and epigenetic changes that influence developing brain structures (Golding & Fitzgerald, ; Schore, ; Siegal, ). Postpartum, the infant is exposed to processes of socialization, patterns of attachment, and the cultural milieu for their form as mental representations (Bretherton & Munholland, ; Fonagy et al., , ).…”