Negative Affectivity Moderates Associations Between Cumulative Risk and At-Risk Toddlers’ Behavior Problems

Abstract

This study examined cumulative risk, temperament traits, and their interplay as predictors of internalizing, externalizing, and sleep problems in at-risk toddlers. Participants were 104 low-income mother-toddler dyads recruited from Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) sites in a large city. The sample was primarily African American, and mothers were 21 years of age or younger at the child’s birth. The dyads were assessed when the toddlers were approximately 18 months old and again at 24 months of age. Though all toddlers were from low-income families with young mothers, the families varied in the degree to which other contextual risk factors were present. A cumulative risk index was calculated based on five contextual factors: maternal education, neighborhood dangerousness, social support, household overcrowding and single parenting. In multiple regressions, cumulative risk predicted sleep and externalizing problems. In addition, negative affectivity predicted all three domains of problem behaviors, effortful control predicted fewer externalizing problems, and surgency predicted fewer internalizing problems. Moreover, low negative affectivity buffered the association between cumulative risk and both internalizing and sleep problems. These findings suggest that it is important to consider children’s temperament traits in conjunction with the constellation of family risks when designing prevention programs to reduce the prevalence of behavior problems early in life.

Toddler risk and protective characteristics: Common and unique genetic and environmental influences

“…Together, these results suggest that examining internalizing and externalizing symptoms together is appropriate for younger samples. Indeed, although we found no environmental covariance between NE and problem behavior, one study of a high‐risk sample found that an environment characterized by multiple stressors (e.g., neighborhood dangerousness, and overcrowding) exacerbated the relation between toddlers’ NE and internalizing problems (Northerner, Trentacosta, & McLear, ), supporting the idea that relations between NE and more severe behavior problems can be environmentally‐dependent under stress.…”

Disturbing Dreams and Psychosocial Maladjustment in Children: A Prospective Study of the Moderating Role of Early Negative Emotionality

“…However, some studies have shown that early emotional negativity may moderate other associations implicating later externalizing behaviors, such as the relation between early child care and externalizing behaviors during adolescence (119). Another study (76) found that low early negative emotionality at 18 months emerged as a protective factor in children experiencing a cumulative risk of developing internalizing and sleep problems at 24 months. Consequently, and in the absence of a concurrent measure of negative emotionality, this long-term effect noted across several studies also supports the hypothesis that negative emotionality is a relatively stable developmental characteristic.…”

“…Recently, it is its moderating effect that has been mainly reported in the literature. Indeed, difficultness is already known to moderate relations between a variety of risk factors and children's behavior, such as the associations between cumulative contextual risk and children's externalizing, internalizing, and sleep problems (75)(76)(77)(78). Some early temperamental characteristics may indeed predispose children to develop later behavior problems, particularly when other risk factors are present (79)(80)(81)(82).…”

Prenatal risk and physical aggression during the first years of life: The gender‐specific role of inhibitory control

“…A cumulative risk approach is also more parsimonious, has more statistical power, and has no multicollinearity problems (Evans et al., ; Flouri & Kallis, ). Research using a cumulative risk index found that a higher number of risk factors at birth or during early childhood were related to more externalizing problem behavior in young children (Bennett, Marini, Berzenski, Carmody, & Lewis, ; Gassman‐Pines & Yoshikawa, ; Northerner, Trentacosta, & McLear, ; Trentacosta et al., ). These findings support the importance of examining cumulative risk compared with single risk models in relation to early childhood aggression.…”