TY - JOUR
T1 - Early socioemotional competence, psychopathology, and latent class profiles of reparative prosocial behaviors from preschool through early adolescence
AU - Donohue, Meghan Rose
AU - Tillman, Rebecca
AU - Luby, Joan
N1 - Funding Information:
Financial support. All phases of this study were supported by NIH Grant R01 MH064769-06A1. Dr. Donohue’s work was supported by NIH Grant T32 MH100019 (PIs: Barch and Luby).
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2019 Cambridge University Press.
PY - 2020/5/1
Y1 - 2020/5/1
N2 - Children who have difficulty using reparative behaviors following transgressions display a wide range of poorer social and emotional outcomes. Despite the importance of reparative skills, no study has charted the developmental trajectory of these behaviors or pinpointed predictors of poorer reparative abilities. To address these gaps in the literature, this study applied growth mixture modeling to parent reports of children's reparative behaviors (N = 230) in a 9-year longitudinal data set spanning from preschool to early adolescence. Three distinct trajectories of reparative behaviors were found: a low-stable, moderate-stable, and high-stable latent class. Poorer emotion understanding, social withdrawal, social rejection, and maladaptive guilt in the preschool period predicted membership in a low-stable reparative trajectory. Externalizing diagnoses, particularly conduct disorder and oppositional defiant disorder, also predicted membership in a low-stable reparative trajectory. Preschool-onset depression predicted membership in a low-stable reparative trajectory through high levels of maladaptive guilt. The findings from this study suggest that socioemotional deficits in the preschool period set children on longstanding trajectories of impaired reparative responding. Thus, emotion understanding, social functioning, maladaptive guilt, and early psychiatric symptoms should be targeted in early preventive interventions.
AB - Children who have difficulty using reparative behaviors following transgressions display a wide range of poorer social and emotional outcomes. Despite the importance of reparative skills, no study has charted the developmental trajectory of these behaviors or pinpointed predictors of poorer reparative abilities. To address these gaps in the literature, this study applied growth mixture modeling to parent reports of children's reparative behaviors (N = 230) in a 9-year longitudinal data set spanning from preschool to early adolescence. Three distinct trajectories of reparative behaviors were found: a low-stable, moderate-stable, and high-stable latent class. Poorer emotion understanding, social withdrawal, social rejection, and maladaptive guilt in the preschool period predicted membership in a low-stable reparative trajectory. Externalizing diagnoses, particularly conduct disorder and oppositional defiant disorder, also predicted membership in a low-stable reparative trajectory. Preschool-onset depression predicted membership in a low-stable reparative trajectory through high levels of maladaptive guilt. The findings from this study suggest that socioemotional deficits in the preschool period set children on longstanding trajectories of impaired reparative responding. Thus, emotion understanding, social functioning, maladaptive guilt, and early psychiatric symptoms should be targeted in early preventive interventions.
KW - emotion understanding
KW - growth mixture modeling
KW - preschool depression
KW - reparative behaviors
KW - social functioning
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85066883315&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S0954579419000397
DO - 10.1017/S0954579419000397
M3 - Article
C2 - 31131786
AN - SCOPUS:85066883315
VL - 32
SP - 573
EP - 585
JO - Development and Psychopathology
JF - Development and Psychopathology
SN - 0954-5794
IS - 2
ER -