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Children's Early Difficulty and Agreeableness in Adolescence: Testing a Developmental Model of Interplay of Parent and Child Effects
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Children's Early Difficulty and Agreeableness in Adolescence: Testing a Developmental Model of Interplay of Parent and Child Effects

Grazyna Kochanska and Sanghag Kim
Developmental psychology, Vol.56(8), pp.1556-1564
08/2020
DOI: 10.1037/dev0001023
PMCID: PMC8262374
PMID: 32510231
url
https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001023View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Although the trait of Agreeableness is broadly considered a key facet of adjustment, mental health, and socioemotional competence, surprisingly little is known about its developmental origins. Laursen and Richmond (2014) proposed that children's early difficulty poses a challenge for their future social relationships, ultimately leading to low Agreeableness. Drawing from that model, we examined a path to Agreeableness in adolescence, originating in children's early temperamental difficulty and involving bidirectional effects of parenting and children's self-regulation. In a community sample of 102 mothers, fathers, and children, we assessed children's difficulty at age 3, and parental power-assertive discipline and children's self-regulation at ages 4.5 and 5.5, using behavioral observations in lengthy interactive contexts and in standard laboratory paradigms. Agreeableness at age 14 was modeled as a latent construct, derived from mothers', fathers', and teachers' ratings. Model-fitting analyses, testing the unfolding developmental path from child difficulty to Agreeableness while controlling for continuity of parental power assertion and child self-regulation, supported a process linking early difficulty with Agreeableness at age 14 through transactions over time between the child's self-regulation and power-assertive parenting. The findings highlight the early dynamics of children's temperament characteristics and parenting in the origins of Agreeableness.
self-regulation difficult temperament parental control Agreeableness longitudinal studies

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