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- All Subjects: parenting
- Creators: Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn
- Creators: Chassin, Laurie
Description
The interplay of genes and environment on children's development is a complex dynamic process. As behavior geneticists begin to model protective as well as risk factors, and interactive as well as main effect influences, development is elucidated. It was hypothesized that positive parenting, a quality home environment, and high family cohesion would moderate the heritability of three components of temperament: Effortful Control, Negative Affectivity, and Extraversion/Surgency. Participants were drawn from the Wisconsin Twin Project and consisted of 1573 twins (51% boys), 88.5% Caucasian, M=7.93 years (SD=0.87). Higher order composites for the parenting and family environment moderators were formed from mother and father reports of Behavior Management Self-Assessment, Child Rearing Practices Report, Family Assessment Device, and Family Conflict Scale. Measures of the home environment (LEOS Living Environment Observation Scale and CHAOS Confusion, Hubbub, and Order Scale) were not composited due to the nature of the variables. Correlational analyses showed a majority of the temperament and environmental measures to be correlated (rs = -.49-.57). For Effortful Control, Negative Affectivity, and Extraversion/Surgency, estimates for the heritability and nonshared environment were 0.60 and 0.40, 0.80 and 0.20, and 0.59 and 0.41, respectively, with no significant main effects of the shared environment. Models incorporating environmental moderation of these estimates yielded parenting as a significant moderator for Negative Affectivity, LEOS for Effortful Control and Extraversion/Surgency, and CHAOS for Effortful Control and Extraversion/Surgency. Results suggest that the quality of the family environment may act as a permissive or determinative influence on the heritability and expression of temperament. Future analyses include the examination of interactive genetic influences. These findings underscore the importance of shared environment, and support the recent literature on the benefits of positive influences on children's development.
ContributorsKao, Karen (Author) / Bradley, Robert H. (Thesis advisor) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn (Thesis advisor) / Nagoshi, Craig (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Externalizing behaviors are pervasive, widespread, and disruptive across a multitude of settings and developmental contexts. While the conventional diathesis-stress model typically measures the disordered end of the spectrum, studies that span the range of behavior, from externalizing to competence behaviors, are necessary to see the full picture. To that end, this study examined the additive and nonadditive relations of a dimension of parenting (ranging from warm to rejecting), and variants in dopamine, vasopressin, and neuropeptide-y receptor genes on externalizing/competence in a large sample of predominantly Caucasian twin children in toddlerhood, middle childhood, and early adolescence. Variants within each gene were hypothesized to increase biological susceptibility to both negative and positive environments. Consistent with prediction, warmth related to lower externalizing/higher competence at all ages. Earlier levels of externalizing/competence washed out the effect of parental warmth on future externalizing/competence with the exception of father warmth in toddlerhood marginally predicting change in externalizing/competence from toddlerhood to middle childhood. Warmth was a significant moderator of the heritability of behavior in middle childhood and early adolescence such that behavior was less heritable (mother report) and more heritable (father report) in low warmth environments. Interactions with warmth and the dopamine and vasopressin genes in middle childhood and early adolescence emphasize the moderational role gene variants play in relations between the rearing environment and child behavior. For dopamine, the long variant related to increased sensitivity to parent warmth such that the children displayed more externalizing behaviors when exposed to rejection but they also displayed more competence behaviors when exposed to high warmth. Vasopressin moderation was only present under conditions of parental warmth, not rejection. Interactions with neuropeptide-y and warmth were not significant. The picture that emerges is one of gene-environment interplay, wherein the influence of both parenting and child genotype each depend on the level of the other. As genetic research moves forward, gene variants previously implicated as conferring risk for disorder should be reexamined in conjunction with salient aspects of the environment on the full range of the behavioral outcome of interest.
ContributorsO'Brien, T. Caitlin (Author) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn (Thesis advisor) / Eisenberg, Nancy (Committee member) / Enders, Craig (Committee member) / Nagoshi, Craig (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
I examined the role of children's or teacher's effortful control (EC) in children's academic functioning in early elementary school in two separate studies. In Study 1, I tested longitudinal relations between parents' reactions to children's displays of negative emotions in kindergarten, children's EC in first grade, and children's reading or math achievement in second grade (N = 291). In the fall of each school year, parents reported their positive or negative reactions and parents and teachers reported on children's EC. Standardized achievement tests assessed achievement each spring. Results from autoregressive panel mediation models demonstrated that constructs exhibited consistency across study years. In addition, first-grade EC mediated relations between parents' reactions (i.e., a difference composite of positive minus negative reactions) at kindergarten and second-grade math, but not reading, achievement. Findings suggest that one method of promoting math achievement in early school is through the socialization of children's EC. In Study 2, I examined relations between teachers' EC, teachers' reactions to children's negative emotions, the student-teacher relationship (STR), and children's externalizing behaviors or achievement among 289 second-graders and their 116 teachers. Results from mixed-model regressions showed that negative reactions and teacher-reported STR mediated relations between teachers' EC and math achievement. In addition, teacher-reported STR mediated links between teachers' EC and externalizing problems across reporters and between teachers' EC and reading achievement. Tests of moderated mediation indicated that a high-quality STR was negatively associated with externalizing problems and high levels of teachers' negative reactions were negatively related to math achievement only for students low in EC. In tests of moderation by social competence, teachers' reports of high-quality STRs tended to be negatively associated with externalizing problems, but relations were strongest for students not high in social competence. For students low in social competence only, children's reports of a high-quality STR was related to lower reading achievement. These results highlight the utility of considering whether and how teachers' own intrinsic characteristics influence classroom dynamics and students' academic functioning outcomes.
ContributorsSwanson, Jodi Michelle (Author) / Valiente, Carlos (Thesis advisor) / Bradley, Robert H (Thesis advisor) / Kochenderfer-Ladd, Becky (Committee member) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Prior research has established a relation between parenting behaviors and symptoms of child psychopathology, and this association may be influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Gene-environment correlation, or the influence of a child’s genes on the environment they receive, represents one possible mechanism through which genes and environment combine to influence child outcomes. This study examined evocative gene-environment correlation in the relation between parenting and symptoms of child psychopathology in a sample of 676 twins (51.5% female, 58.5% Caucasian, 23.7% Hispanic/Latinx, primarily middle class, MAge=8.43, SD=.62) recruited from Arizona birth records. Using univariate ACE twin biometric models, genetic influences were found to moderately contribute to internalizing symptoms (A=.47, C=.25, E=.28), while externalizing (A=.86, E=.14) and ADHD (A=.84, E=.16) symptoms were found to be highly heritable. The genetic influences for positive (C=.54, E=.46) and negative (C=.44, E=.56) parenting were smaller and found to be nonsignificant. The correlations between parenting and types of psychopathology were examined and bivariate Cholesky decompositions were conducted for statistically significant correlations. Negative parenting was moderately positively correlated with externalizing and ADHD symptoms; the relation between externalizing symptoms and negative parenting was found to be due to shared genetics, whereas the relation between negative parenting and ADHD symptoms was due to the shared environment. The mixed results regarding the role of gene environment correlation in relations between parenting and child psychopathology indicate that further research on the mechanisms of this relation is needed.
ContributorsCarrizosa, Mya Grace (Author) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn (Thesis director) / Corbin, William (Committee member) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Oro, Veronica (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
Sleep and weight health during childhood can be the essential building blocks that influence later physical and psychological health. Researchers note how neighborhood effects on health may be mediated or moderated by parenting or family-related factors. This dissertation expanded on the efforts through an examination of contextual predictors of children’s health using the Arizona Twin Project dataset (N = 933; 51.7% female; 56.5% White; 25.6% Latino). The family stress model (FSM), contextual relevance model (CRM), and the integrated model were used to test the relations between neighborhood and family factors on children sleep and weight health. Parent perceptions of neighborhood danger and childhood opportunities index were tested using multilevel- mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation models to address some of the limitations in previous reviews. The FSM was partially supported: parental stress and strain mediated the association between perceived neighborhood danger with sleep efficiency. However, the FSM was not fully supported as parental stress and disrupted parenting did not serially mediate the associations between neighborhood conditions and sleep efficiency. Moderation analyses revealed that negative parenting exacerbates associations between perceived neighborhood danger and sleep duration, demonstrating amplified disadvantages processes of the CRM. Negative parenting also moderated the associations between perceived neighborhood danger and sleep efficiency; the relationship was beyond what was noted in the CRM. Greater neighborhood opportunity was more strongly related to greater body fat percentage in families with higher positive parenting, as compared to families with lower positive parenting. Familism significantly moderated the association between neighborhood contexts and parental stress and strain within a subsample (Latino descent only). Last, the exploratory multilevel moderated mediation models suggested that most associations did not vary by the subgroups explored (i.e., positive parenting, familism cultural value). These results join a growing initiative to explore the science of ecological context, culture, and family interplay.
ContributorsPark, HyeJung (Author) / Doane, Leah D. (Thesis advisor) / White, Rebecca M.B. (Committee member) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn (Committee member) / Su, Jinni (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Adverse neighborhood environments have been found to negatively influence children’s sleep and physical activity outcomes (Pabayo et al., 2014; Aguilar-Farias et al., 2020). Previous literature suggests that positive parenting and familism values may play protective roles in high-risk neighborhood contexts (Romero et al., 2020). This study utilized a strengths-based approach to examine relations between neighborhood opportunities and sleep and physical activity in children, and whether positive parenting and familism values buffered these associations. This study utilized a racially and socioeconomically diverse sample of 710 twin children (Mage=8.44 years, SD=.69; 51.4% female; 58.5% non-Hispanic White, 23.7% Hispanic). Children wore actigraphy watches for 7 nights (M=6.79, SD=.71) to capture sleep (duration, efficiency, midpoint, midpoint variability) and physical activity (MVPA and sedentary behaviors) parameters. Objective neighborhood opportunity was evaluated using the Child Opportunity Index 2.0 (COI; Noelke et al., 2020). Positive parenting behaviors were observed and coded in the context of a parent-child interaction task. Primary caregivers reported on their children’s sleep problems and their familism values. Results revealed that higher COI predicted earlier sleep midpoint and less midpoint variability. Interactions between COI and positive parenting were nonsignificant. Though marginal, associations between the COI and midpoint variability were most negatively related in children whose primary caregiver reported high familism values. Future research should look at children’s engagement in family activities to better understand whether children who reside in low opportunity neighborhoods and experience high familism values have to face additional competing family demands, leading to greater individual variation in sleep timing.
ContributorsGutierrez, Valeria (Author) / Doane, Leah (Thesis director) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn (Committee member) / Cruz, Rick (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor)
Created2022-12
Description
This study investigated whether the patterns of direct association, and of gene-environment interaction (GxE), between family variables (i.e., parenting, family conflict, and attitudinal familism) and youth externalizing behaviors differed across racial/ethnic groups. The sample was composed of 772 twin pairs from the Adolescent Brain Development Study (ABCD) and analyses were run on three racial/ethnic groups (White [n=1023], Black/African American [n=220], Hispanic [n=152]; Mage=10.14 years). Youth reports of parental warmth, parental monitoring, family conflict, parent-reported attitudinal familism, and parent reports of youth externalizing behaviors were collected at baseline when children were 10 years old. Regression analyses tested the direct association between the family variables and youth externalizing behaviors, and moderated heritability models tested for GxE. Family conflict was associated with more externalizing behaviors for White youth, and parental warmth was associated with fewer externalizing behaviors for Hispanic youth. Parental attitudinal familism composite and familism support were associated with fewer externalizing behaviors for Black youth but more externalizing behaviors for Hispanic youth. We found no effects for parental monitoring, familism obligations, and familism referent on youth externalizing behaviors. Additive genetic and non-shared environmental influences explained the variance in youth externalizing behaviors across all groups. For White youth, parental warmth, parental monitoring, and familism support moderated additive genetic (A), shared-environmental (C), and non-shared environmental (E) influences on externalizing behaviors, and familism obligations moderated C and E influences. Results from exploratory moderated heritability analyses conducted for the Black/African American and Hispanic samples are discussed. Altogether, these findings highlight the multiple avenues through which the family context can impact the development of youth externalizing behaviors, and reinforce the need to examine how these relations differ across racial/ethnic groups.
ContributorsTrevino, Angel Daniel (Author) / Su, Jinni (Thesis advisor) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn (Committee member) / Causadias, Jose (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Adolescence is an important period of scaffolding for educational attainment, which is among the strongest predictors of outcomes in multiple domains. Parents who encourage academic success and promote self-regulation may enhance their offspring’s educational attainment. However, parents with externalizing disorders present a complex constellation of risk factors, including low educational attainment and poor parenting, and are more likely to have children with high levels of disinhibition. Previous research has identified low parental education, poor parenting and adolescent impulsivity as threats to educational attainment, but has not examined risk factors for discrepancies in educational attainment among siblings of the same family. Furthermore, studies have not examined the between- and within-family mechanisms that may explain why adolescents with externalizing parents have low educational attainment. The current study addressed these gaps by testing between- and within-family predictors of educational attainment using data from a longitudinal, multigenerational study that oversampled families at risk for alcohol use disorder. The sample consisted of 555 biological siblings within 240 families. We tested whether parental externalizing predicted lower educational attainment through parents’ own lower education, parents’ differential treatment of offspring, and impulsivity. Results suggested that between families, parents with externalizing disorders had lower educational attainment and more impulsive offspring, but did not exhibit increased differential parenting. Within families, siblings with greater impulsivity had lower educational attainment, whereas receiving more preferential maternal treatment than one’s siblings predicted higher educational attainment. Low parental educational attainment mediated the relation between parental externalizing disorders and low offspring educational attainment.
ContributorsPaxton, Lauren (Author) / Chassin, Laurie (Thesis director) / Corbin, William (Committee member) / Blake, Austin (Committee member) / Edwards, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor)
Created2021-12
Description
Adolescent substance use carries a considerable public health burden, and early initiation into use is especially problematic. Research has shown that sensation seeking traits increase risk for substance use experimentation, but less is known about individual and contextual factors that can potentially protect against this risk. This study utilized a longitudinal sub sample of youth (N=567) from a larger study of familial alcoholism to examine sensation seeking in early adolescence (ages 10-15) and its relations to later substance use experimentation. Hypotheses tested whether individual executive control, parenting consistency, neighborhood disadvantage, and neighborhood ethnic concentration moderated sensation seeking’s effects on substance use experimentation using multilevel zero-inflated Poisson modeling. Across models, higher levels of sensation seeking were predictive of a higher likelihood of having initiated substance use, but sensation seeking was not significantly related to the number of different substance use classes tried. Only neighborhood disadvantage emerged as a significant moderator of the path from sensation seeking to substance use initiation. The strength of sensation seeking effects on substance use initiation increased as neighborhood disadvantage decreased below average levels, with the most advantaged neighborhoods exhibiting the strongest link between sensation seeking and substance use. There was also a trend towards the most disadvantaged neighborhoods exhibiting increased sensation seeking effects on substance use initiation. These results highlight the importance of focusing on relatively more advantaged areas as potentially risky environments for the externalizing pathway to substance use.
ContributorsJensen, Michaeline R (Author) / Gonzales, Nancy A. (Thesis advisor) / Chassin, Laurie (Thesis advisor) / Enders, Craig (Committee member) / White, Rebecca (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The present study utilized longitudinal data from a high-risk community sample (n=254, 52.8% female, 47.2% children of alcoholics, 74% non-Hispanic Caucasian) to test questions concerning the effects of genetic risk, parental knowledge, and peer substance use on emerging adult substance use disorders (SUDs). Specifically, this study examined whether parental knowledge and peer substance use mediated the effects of parent alcohol use disorder (AUD) and genetic risk for behavioral undercontrol on SUD. The current study also examined whether genetic risk moderated effects of parental knowledge and peer substance use on risk for SUD. Finally, this study examined these questions over and above a genetic "control" which explained a large proportion of variance in the outcome, thereby providing a stricter test of environmental influences.
Analyses were performed in a path analysis framework. To test these research questions, the current study employed two polygenic risk scores. The first, a theory-based score, was formed using single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from receptor systems implicated in the amplification of positive effects in the presence of new/exciting stimuli and/or pleasure derived from using substances. The second, an empirically-based score, was formed using a data-driven approach that explained a large amount of variance in SUDs. Together, these scores allowed the present study to test explanations for the relations among parent AUD, parental knowledge, peer substance use, and SUDs.
Results of the current study found that having parents with less knowledge or an AUD conferred greater risk for SUDs, but only for those at higher genetic risk for behavioral undercontrol. The current study replicated research findings suggesting that peer substance use mediated the effect of parental AUD on SUD. However, it adds to this literature by suggesting that some mechanism other than increased behavioral undercontrol explains relations among parental AUD, peer substance use, and emerging adult SUD. Taken together, these findings indicate that children of parents with AUDs comprise a particularly risky group, although likelihood of SUD within this group is not uniform. These findings also suggest that some of the most important environmental risk factors for SUDs exert effects that vary across level of genetic propensity.
Analyses were performed in a path analysis framework. To test these research questions, the current study employed two polygenic risk scores. The first, a theory-based score, was formed using single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from receptor systems implicated in the amplification of positive effects in the presence of new/exciting stimuli and/or pleasure derived from using substances. The second, an empirically-based score, was formed using a data-driven approach that explained a large amount of variance in SUDs. Together, these scores allowed the present study to test explanations for the relations among parent AUD, parental knowledge, peer substance use, and SUDs.
Results of the current study found that having parents with less knowledge or an AUD conferred greater risk for SUDs, but only for those at higher genetic risk for behavioral undercontrol. The current study replicated research findings suggesting that peer substance use mediated the effect of parental AUD on SUD. However, it adds to this literature by suggesting that some mechanism other than increased behavioral undercontrol explains relations among parental AUD, peer substance use, and emerging adult SUD. Taken together, these findings indicate that children of parents with AUDs comprise a particularly risky group, although likelihood of SUD within this group is not uniform. These findings also suggest that some of the most important environmental risk factors for SUDs exert effects that vary across level of genetic propensity.
ContributorsBountress, Kaitlin (Author) / Chassin, Laurie (Thesis advisor) / Crnic, Keith (Committee member) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn (Committee member) / MacKinnon, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015