Prior work has suggested that parenting directly impacts the development of character behaviors (i.e. cooperativeness) particularly in adolescence; however, the majority of this work fails to consider how the child impacts interactions with their parents, which in turn impacts the development of their character. Previous genetic work has found that adolescents’ character behaviors elicit negativity and positivity from their parents, but this work hasn’t been explored as thoroughly in early childhood. One possible eliciting behavior in early childhood is callous-unemotional behaviors, the antithesis of character behaviors, which has been shown to elicit negative parenting practices. Using data from the Early Growth and Development Study, a parent-offspring adoption sample (N= 561), we examined genetic (birth parent (BP) agreeableness) and rearing environmental (adoptive parent positive reinforcement and corporal punishment) influences, as well as child evocative effects (callous-unemotional behaviors) on adopted child cooperativeness in middle childhood.
BP agreeableness was assessed using self-reports on the Adult Temperament Questionnaire, and the Harter Adult Self-Perception Profile. Adoptive parent parenting was assessed using self-report on the Alabama positive reinforcement and corporal punishment subscales at child age 4.5 years. Adopted child’s callous-unemotional behavior, social competence, and cooperativeness were assessed using parent reports on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Preschool Socioaffective Profile at 27 months, and the Junior TCI at 8 years, respectively.
The current study examined adoptive parent positive reinforcement and corporal punishment in separate regression models. Model fit was acceptable for both models, (χ2 (9) = 21.63, RMSEA = .06, CFI = .96, SRMR = .03; χ2 (9) = 8.01, RMSEA = .00, CFI = 1.00, SRMR = .02). Findings indicated that BP agreeableness was positively associated with adopted child cooperativeness (β= .09, p< .001) and negatively associated with child callous-unemotional behavior (β= -.07, p< .05), suggesting genetic influences. Child social competence was also positively associated with child cooperativeness (β= .27, p< .001), but child callous-unemotional behavior was not. Child social competence was positively associated with both adoptive mother and father positive reinforcement (β= .18, p< .001; β= .16, p< .01), but child callous-unemotional behaviors were not associated with parent positive reinforcement. Adoptive parents’ positive reinforcement was not associated with child cooperativeness in middle childhood. Both child social competence and callous-unemotional behaviors were not associated with adoptive parents’ corporal punishment at 4.5 years. Adoptive mother corporal punishment was negatively associated with child cooperativeness in middle childhood (β= -.17, p< .05), but not adoptive father corporal punishment. There were no significant indirect effects that indicated genetically-influenced child evocative child effects.
These findings suggest that genetic and environmental influences uniquely impact child cooperativeness in middle childhood. Due to the importance of child social competence for later cooperativeness, future research might consider examining the effects of early parenting on children’s early social competence in order to increase later character development.
Ramos_BGAabstractFINAL7.31.pdf 