Leiden Consortium on Individual Development, Leiden University.
Centre for Child and Family Studies, Institute of Education and Child Studies, Leiden University.
J Fam Psychol. 2018 Feb;32(1):49-59. doi: 10.1037/fam0000345. Epub 2017 Aug 28.
Young children's behavioral control predicts a broad range of developmental outcomes in child- and adulthood. It is therefore important to study how individual differences in behavioral control arise. Previous studies suggest that there are both genetic and environmental influences, which were estimated in the current study using a sample of mono- and dizygotic same-sex twins. Furthermore, we examined the associations between indicators of a stressful family environment like household chaos, parenting daily hassles, and parental depressive symptoms and children's behavioral control in 2 samples. Children of the same twin pair were randomly divided over 2 samples; a test (N = 201, 48.3% boys, M age 46.53 months) and replication sample (N = 201, 49.8% boys, M age 46.06 months). Both parents reported on their children's effortful control via the Child Behavior Questionnaire and children's cheating behavior was observed during a throwing game. We found that AE models fitted the data for effortful control (A = 31%, E = 69%) and cheating (A = 16%, E = 84%) best. Path analyses revealed that children of parents experiencing more parenting daily hassles and depressive symptoms had lower levels of effortful control in the test sample. Furthermore, we found that children growing up in more chaotic households (parent report) had an increased risk of being in the cheating group versus the possible intention to cheat group in the test sample. These results were partially replicated. We suggest that the role of stressful family environments in the development of behavioral control should be considered when setting up prevention and intervention programs targeting children's behavioral control. (PsycINFO Database Record
儿童的行为控制能力在儿童期和成年期预测着广泛的发展结果。因此，研究行为控制能力的个体差异是如何产生的是很重要的。先前的研究表明，行为控制能力既有遗传影响，也有环境影响，本研究使用同卵和异卵同性双胞胎的样本对此进行了估计。此外，我们在两个样本中检查了与紧张的家庭环境相关的指标（如家庭混乱、父母日常麻烦和父母抑郁症状）与儿童行为控制之间的关联。同一双胞胎的孩子被随机分配到两个样本中；一个测试样本（N = 201，48.3%的男孩，M 年龄为 46.53 个月）和一个复制样本（N = 201，49.8%的男孩，M 年龄为 46.06 个月）。父母双方都通过儿童行为问卷报告了他们孩子的努力控制情况，并且在投掷游戏中观察了孩子的作弊行为。我们发现，AE 模型最适合努力控制（A = 31%，E = 69%）和作弊（A = 16%，E = 84%）的数据。路径分析显示，在测试样本中，父母经历更多日常育儿麻烦和抑郁症状的孩子的努力控制水平较低。此外，我们发现，在测试样本中，生活在更混乱家庭（父母报告）中的孩子更有可能作弊，而不是可能有作弊意图的孩子。这些结果得到了部分复制。我们认为，在制定针对儿童行为控制的预防和干预计划时，应该考虑紧张的家庭环境在行为控制发展中的作用。
