Burt S Alexandra, Carroll Sarah, Shewark Elizabeth A, Klump Kelly L, Neiderhiser Jenae M, Hyde Luke W
Department of Psychology, Michigan State University.
Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University.
Dev Psychol. 2025 May;61(5):898-911. doi: 10.1037/dev0001847. Epub 2024 Sep 19.
Although the parent-child relationship is widely regarded as a foundational context for youth development, the developmental origins of this relationship remain unknown. The present study addressed these gaps, leveraging longitudinal and genetically informed methods to illuminate the developmental origins of mother-child conflict as it unfolds from middle childhood into emerging adulthood. Participants consisted of 2,060 twins in 1,030 twin families (51% male, 49% female; 82% White, 10% Black, 1% Asian, 1% Indigenous, 6% multiracial) from the Michigan State University Twin Registry. Families were assessed up to five times. We fitted a series of latent growth curve models (univariate and parallel process) to data from mothers and children, after which we estimated genetic and environmental sources of variance within and covariance among the intercepts and slopes. Parallel process analyses indicated that maternal reports of conflict at baseline shaped their own and their children's perceptions of change in conflict over time but that children's reports of conflict at baseline predicted only their own rate of change in conflict. Subsequent biometric analyses indicated substantial environmental contributions to the intercepts in childhood, as well as prominent environmental origins to the overlap between maternal and child intercepts. By contrast, we observed robust genetically influenced child effects on maternal rate of change and on the association between the maternal and child slopes. Such findings collectively illuminate the dynamic and relational nature of mother-child conflict from childhood into emerging adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
尽管亲子关系被广泛视为青少年发展的基础背景，但这种关系的发展起源仍然未知。本研究填补了这些空白，利用纵向和遗传信息方法来阐明母子冲突从童年中期到成年早期发展过程中的起源。参与者包括来自密歇根州立大学双胞胎登记处的1030个双胞胎家庭中的2060对双胞胎（51%为男性，49%为女性；82%为白人，10%为黑人，1%为亚洲人，1%为原住民，6%为多种族）。对这些家庭进行了多达五次的评估。我们对来自母亲和孩子的数据拟合了一系列潜在增长曲线模型（单变量和平行过程），之后我们估计了截距和斜率内的方差以及它们之间协方差的遗传和环境来源。平行过程分析表明，基线时母亲对冲突的报告塑造了她们自己以及孩子对冲突随时间变化的认知，但基线时孩子对冲突的报告仅预测了他们自己冲突变化的速率。随后的生物统计学分析表明，童年时期的截距有很大的环境贡献，以及母亲和孩子截距重叠的显著环境起源。相比之下，我们观察到孩子对母亲变化速率以及母亲和孩子斜率之间关联有强大的遗传影响。这些发现共同阐明了从童年到成年早期母子冲突的动态和关系本质。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2025美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
