Testing a Core Emotion‐Regulation Prediction: Does Early Attentional Persistence Moderate the Effect of Infant Negative Emotionality on Later Development?

Abstract

To test the hypothesis that early attentional persistence will moderate the effect of infant negative emotionality on social competence, problem behavior, and school readiness at age 3, data collected as part of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care were subject to structural equation modeling analyses (N = 1,038). Consistent with Eisenberg et al.'s data on older children, high levels of negative emotionality were associated with low levels of social competence only when attentional persistence was poor. No such moderating effects of attentional persistence emerged in the case of behavior problems. And in the case of school readiness, findings indicated that high levels of negative emotionality predicted high levels of school readiness when attentional persistence was high, a result opposite to that found with respect to the prediction of social competence.

Neural Changes Associated with Treatment Outcome in Children with Externalizing Problems

“…Effective SR has been associated with high levels of social competence (Eisenberg et al, 1993), lower levels of problem behaviours (Calkins & Dedmon, 2000), and fewer negative emotions (Belsky, Friedman, & Hsieh, 2001). For those reasons, the development of SR is thought to be crucial for adaptive socialization.…”

Self-regulatory processes in early personality development: A multilevel approach to the study of childhood social withdrawal and aggression

“…Thus, for example, the control of physiological arousal, which is achieved during early infancy and underlies mastery of state regulation and control of sleep-wake cycles, eventually becomes integrated into the processes of attention engagement and disengagement (Porges, 1996;Richards, 1985Richards, , 1987. Moreover, attentional control becomes integrated into emotional and behavioral regulation (Belsky, Friedman, & Hsieh, 2001;Rothbart, Posner, & Boylan, 1990;Sethi, Mischel, Aber, Shoda, & Rodriquez, 2000). In our view, these early developing levels of regulation-physiological, attentional, and caregiver-supported emotional regulation-play a critical role in very early personality and social behavior, and these early emerging behaviors will be reciprocally involved in the development of more complex levels of regulation, such as those involved in behavioral control, interpersonal processes, and metacognitions (Cole, Michel, & Teti, 1994;Stifter, Spinrad, & Braungart-Rieker, 1999).…”

Individual Differences in Behavioral, Physiological, and Genetic Sensitivities to Contexts: Implications for Development and Adaptation

“…However, Belsky et al [19] revealed that infants high in negative emotionality were less behaviorally inhibited toddlers if they were exposed to harsh fathering, whereas behavioral inhibition of infants low in negative emotionality was unaffected by fathering quality. Moreover, associations between negative emotionality and adaptive functioning have been shown to depend on the regulatory dimension of temperament, such that negative emotionality represents a risk factor only for children who also show low levels of self-regulation [97] . Similarly, studying the interplay among different aspects of the physiological stress response may reveal a more nuanced understanding of susceptibilities to context than studying one system at a time.…”