Child Negative Affect Research Articles

Parent-child interaction at age 5 months: genetic and environmental contributions and associations with later socio-communicative development.

Characteristics of parent-child interaction (PCI) early in life have been associated with later development in the child. Twin studies can help to disentangle child contributions to parent-child interaction, for example, by assessing the influence of the child's genetics on his/her social environment, which includes parental behaviour. Infant twins from a community sample [354 monozygotic (MZ), 268 same-sex dizygotic (DZ)] were assessed in terms of PCI at age 5 months. We used the classical twin design to map the aetiology of several parent and child PCI scales and their covariation. We investigated the relations between PCI and later parent-rated child's social communication, language, and autistic traits at ages 2 and 3. Heritability was below 20% for all the included PCI traits. Unique (nonshared) environmental influences substantially overlapped across several PCI scales, suggesting that idiosyncrasies linked to each session shaped the scoring of several traits in a systematic way. Factor analysis revealed three uncorrelated latent factors, which were conceptualized as 'child negative affect', 'positive affective interaction', and 'parent's supportive strategies'. Parents who were rated highly on 'sensitive responsiveness' at 5 months tended to rate their offspring higher in terms of socio-communicative and language development and lower in terms of autistic traits in the second and third years of life. This study maps the phenotypic and aetiological structure of PCI in early infancy and supports the view that parents' sensitive responsiveness towards their infant is associated with later developmental gains in several domains. We did not find strong evidence of any so-called evocative genetic effects on parents' behaviour. We discuss the results considering the general challenge for lab-based observational PCI measures to capture the richness of parent-child interaction.

Maternal Phubbing and Problematic Media Use in Preschoolers: The Independent and Interactive Moderating Role of Children's Negative Affectivity and Effortful Control.

Given that mother plays the main nurturing role in a family unit and their unique influence on children's development, the current study aimed to examine the influence of maternal phubbing on children's problematic media use and the independent and interactive moderating role of children's negative affectivity and effortful control. Participants were 1986 children aged 3 to 6 years in Shanghai, China. Their mothers were asked to complete a series of questionnaires including parental phubbing scale, problematic media use measure, and child behavior questionnaire. To investigate the moderating influence of children's negative affectivity and effortful control, hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted using SPSS 24.0. Simple slopes analyses and the Johnson-Neyman technique were further used to depict moderation effects. Maternal phubbing was associated with higher levels of problematic media use in preschool children (β = 0.18, p <.001, [0.14, 0.22]). Children's negative affectivity acts as a risk factor, exacerbating the adverse effects of maternal phubbing on children's problematic media use (β = 0.05, t = 2.69, p < 0.05), whereas children's effortful control acts as a protective factor, buffering the link between maternal phubbing and children's problematic media use (β = -0.10, t = -5.00, p < 0.001). These results suggest that interventions seeking to promote appropriate digital development in preschoolers should take the child's temperament into account and be complemented by active parental mediation and involvement.

Not EF skills but play with real toys prevents screen time tantrums in children.

Limiting children's screen time has become a new parenting challenge. Due to the high attractiveness of media and digital devices, many children experience painful transitions in screen time to other activities. Screen time tantrums is a new concept that describes children's negative affect screen time limits. Knowing the factors that increase children's negative reactions will be helpful in parents and educators practice to prevent screen time tantrums or enrich children's nondigital activities, making them attractive alternatives to the media. Based on theoretical insights into the coping mechanisms of frustration and anger in preschool children, this study was aimed to explore the effects of executive functions skills, family activities, and children's play behavior with real toys on screen time tantrums. Sample included 654 caregiver-child pairs (M children age = 70.3 months, SD = 4.02). Results confirmed the hypothesis that play behavior with real toys is a stronger preventor of screen time tantrum than EF skills. The findings suggest that supporting play activity in preschool children might help them to avoid strong negative affects due to screen time limitation. The results of this study may be also considered as a support for the theoretical assumptions that play can be considered as a universal way of coping with frustration and anger in childhood.

The relationship between parental anxiety, fear of Covid‐19, partner involvement in children's care and sleep quality during the Covid‐19 pandemic in Italy

AbstractDuring the Covid‐19 pandemic new stressors were added to the usual challenges parents face, changing habits and reduced physical activity, all factors that negatively affect sleep quality in adults and children. This study examines (1) possible changes in the sleep‐wake patterns of parents and children before and after the March–May 2020 lockdown and during the new restrictions imposed by the Italian government in March 2021; (2) possible associations between children and parents' sleep quality reported by parents and intrinsic and extrinsic factors. A total of 264 Italian parents with children aged 1–6 years (M = 40 months, SD = 18.18) completed self‐report questionnaires. Children's sleep habits changed, and parental insomnia symptoms worsened after the March–May 2020 lockdown, while children's insomnia symptoms decreased. Positive associations between children's negative affectivity and insomnia symptoms emerged, as well as between generalized parental anxiety and parental insomnia symptoms and between parental fear of Covid‐19 and sleep‐related habits not in line with paediatric recommendations. Partner's involvement in children's care promoted good sleep habits. Results identified risks and protective factors that could impact Italian parents' and children's sleep during the second wave of the Covid‐19 pandemic, raising awareness among families, education practitioners, healthcare providers and the general public.Highlights Italian children's sleep habits changed, and parental insomnia symptoms worsened after the March–May 2020 lockdown, while children's insomnia symptoms decreased. During the second wave of the Covid‐19 pandemic, higher levels of children's temperamental negative affectivity were associated with higher levels of parental and children's insomnia, higher levels of parental anxiety, and the presence of children's sleep‐related habits not in line with pediatric recommendations. Partner's involvement in children's care promoted good and healthy children's sleep habits.

Child temperamental negative affectivity moderates the relation between interparental conflict and child cortisol recovery

AbstractThis study examined the relation between interparental conflict and cortisol recovery, with child temperamental negative affectivity as the moderator. Children (n = 118) ages 9–11 years observed an argument between their parents in the lab and provided saliva samples for cortisol assays. Children also reported levels of interparental conflict, and mothers reported their child's negative affectivity. Results showed that youths with high levels of negative affectivity experienced less cortisol recovery as interparental conflict levels increased. Further, demonstrating some support for differential susceptibility, youths with higher levels of negative affectivity exhibited less recovery at high levels of parental conflict but greater recovery at low levels of parental conflict, compared to peers with lower scores on negative affectivity. We also found that children with low levels of negative affectivity exhibited greater recovery as rates of interparental conflict increased. In summary, this study sheds light on sources of variability in cortisol recovery as it relates to interparental disharmony.

Maternal psychological distress and temperament traits in children from infancy to late childhood.

Maternal psychological distress during pregnancy is associated with infant temperament. Whether associations persist into late childhood, whether maternal distress is associated with temperament change from infancy to late childhood, whether associations are independent of maternal concurrent distress, and whether maternal distress has sensitive exposure periods on child temperament remain unclear. Our study includes mother-child dyads from Finnish, prospective Prediction and Prevention of Preeclampsia and Intrauterine Growth Restriction study. The mothers completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, State Anxiety Inventory and Perceived Stress Scale: biweekly up to 14 times during pregnancy; once in infancy (at child age 4-12months); and once in late childhood (at child age 7-11years). They also completed the Infant Behavior Questionnaire Revised at the infancy (n=2538) and Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire at the late childhood (n=2004; 1693 children had data at both follow-ups) follow-up on child negative affectivity, extraversion and effortful control. We examined the associations of maternal distress with child temperament with linear regression, linear mixed and Bayesian relevant lifecourse exposure models. Maternal distress during pregnancy was associated with higher negative affectivity and lower effortful control in children in infancy and late childhood. Maternal distress during pregnancy was also associated with increases in negative affectivity, decreases in effortful Control, and smaller decreases in extraversion from infancy to late childhood. The associations with late childhood temperament and temperament change were independent of maternal concurrent distress. Late childhood was a sensitive period for lifetime-to-date effects of maternal distress on late childhood negative affectivity and effortful control. Distress during pregnancy and infancy had smaller contributions. Maternal psychological distress during pregnancy is associated with individual differences and change in child temperament from infancy to late childhood. However, distress during pregnancy has a smaller effect on late childhood temperament than maternal concurrent distress.

Coparenting as a family-level construct: Parent and child inputs across the first two years.

This study examined the effects of infant negative affectivity (NA) and maternal and paternal depressive symptoms on fathers' and mothers' perceptions of coparenting across the first 2 years following an infant's birth. A total of 147 two-parent families (most couples were White, married, and living together) with healthy, full-term infants were recruited. At each time point, fathers and mothers separately reported their coparenting perceptions via the Coparenting Relationship Scale and their depressive symptoms using the depression subscale of Symptom Checklist-90-Revised. Mothers also reported their children's NA via the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised at 3 to 12 months and the Early Child Behavior Questionnaire at 18 and 24 months. Findings from growth curve models in an actor-partner interdependence model framework suggested that among parents with higher depression, there were steeper declines in coparenting quality reported by parents and their spouses across 3-24 months. In addition, three separate two-way interactions between variables including higher-than-usual parental and spousal depression, as well as higher-than-usual infant NA predicted poorer-than-usual coparenting experiences. Findings indicate that coparenting is a dynamically unfolding construct that is impacted by ongoing changes in the parents' social-ecological niche and suggest the need to consider both parent and child characteristics, and to include spousal influences, to get a comprehensive, whole-family understanding of levels and changes in coparenting relationships. The findings also confirm that coparenting dynamics may benefit from interventions engaging both couples and addressing multiple risk factors from both parents (e.g., depression) and children (e.g., NA).

Children's emotional reactivity and negative affect predict future ADHD symptom severity beyond initial ADHD symptom severity.

Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often experience significant emotion dysregulation. However, there is limited longitudinal data on associations between multiple aspects of emotion dysregulation and ADHD symptoms. Additionally, given substantial evidence that increased levels and variability of negative affect (NA) are identified in children with ADHD, it is important to examine the role of NA in this relationship. The present study used momentary and longitudinal data to examine the relation between two aspects of emotion dysregulation (emotional lability and emotional reactivity), the two ADHD symptom clusters separately (inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive), total ADHD symptom severity, and NA variability over a period of six months. Participants (N = 68) were parents of children aged 7-12years old (M = 9.80, SD = 1.34) who completed baseline and 6-month follow-up reports of children's ADHD symptoms and emotion dysregulation as well as ecological momentary assessments (EMA) of their children's NA for one week. Results were threefold: (1) children's emotional reactivity predicted inattentive, hyperactive/impulsive, and total ADHD symptom severity above and beyond initial ADHD symptom severity, but emotional lability did not significantly predict severity of any ADHD symptom cluster; (2) NA variability predicted hyperactive/impulsive and total ADHD symptom severity, but not inattentive severity; and (3) initial ADHD symptom severity did not predict emotion dysregulation at follow-up. The current study provides novel insight regarding the longitudinal influence of specific aspects of emotion dysregulation and NA on ADHD symptom severity in children and suggests that targeting emotional reactivity could minimize ADHD symptom severity.

When crying turns to hitting: Examining maternal responses to negative affect

Physical aggression in toddlerhood is empirically linked to anger and often conceptualized as a byproduct of frustration and related negative affect. Further, parenting is the major environmental construct implicated in the development of aggressive behaviors. Given parents’ role as “external regulators,” parents’ responses to their toddlers’ negative affect may serve to escalate or de-escalate their toddlers’ affective experience, thereby impacting the likelihood of subsequent aggression. In the present study, we examined whether parents’ negative affect, harsh, soothing, and distracting responses to their toddlers’ negative affect mediated the relation between toddlers’ negative affect and their aggressive behavior in brief conflict episodes. During a laboratory visit, a community sample of 69 mother-toddler dyads was observed in a structured interaction task. We found that child negative affect is associated with subsequent aggressive behavior by way of maternal harsh responses to negative affect. Negative emotional expression, soothing, and distraction neither facilitated or hindered children’s escalation from negative affect to aggression. Our findings support a dyadic intervention in which patterns of coercive parent-child interactions are targets for prevention and intervention of toddler aggression.

Screen time vs. scream time: Developmental interrelations between young children's screen time, negative affect, and effortful control

This study aimed to examine developmental relations of screen time, negative affect and effortful control in children aged 12–36 months. Parents of 462 children up to 3 years of age at the start of the study (M = 1.28 years, SD = 0.61; 50% female) participated in four assessments within 10 months. Parents reported their children's screen time, negative affect, and effortful control at each assessment in a diary study. Results of multivariate Bayesian multilevel growth modeling revealed correlations between growth parameters of (1) children's screen time and their negative affect and (2) children's negative affect and their effortful control but not between growth parameters of (3) children's screen time and their effortful control. Overall, these results indicate that children's screen time may be associated with their negative affect independently of their effortful control. Hence, we found no evidence of displacement in the development of self-regulatory strategies in children of parents with higher levels of education. Future research on this topic should focus on children's excessive screen media use, considering contextual and content-related screen media factors and other factors in the child's immediate and broader environment.

Emotional eating following a laboratory mood induction: The interaction between parental feeding practices and child temperament

Children who emotionally eat (EE) tend to consume palatable foods that are high in sugar and fat. How EE develops remains unclear, but children’s temperament and parental feeding practices may interact to shape child EE. To date, no research has explored these interaction effects on EE experimentally. Furthermore, most research has explored EE in response to generic ‘negative’ mood rather than specific negative emotions, such as boredom, which has never been explored in this context. This study aimed to explore interactions between induced mood condition (sadness, boredom, control), parent-reported non-responsive feeding practices and parent-reported child temperament (negative affect, surgency, effortful control) in predicting kilocalories consumed by children aged 4–5-years in a laboratory setting. Using three-way ANOVA, the interactions between mood state, parental feeding practice and child temperament were assessed. Results indicated that children who experienced boredom consumed significantly more total kilocalories than children in the control condition. Additionally, children with high negative affect who also had parents who reported high use of food for emotion regulation consumed significantly more kilocalories from sweet food when experiencing boredom compared to control condition, and children with high negative affect who also had parents who reported low use of food as a reward consumed significantly more kilocalories from sweet food when experiencing boredom compared to control condition. These findings suggest that feelings of boredom differentially predict children’s snack food intake, and that child negative affect and non-responsive feeding practices play an important role in the expression of this relationship.

At-Home use of App-Based Mindfulness for Children: A Randomized Active-Controlled Trial

ObjectivesSchool-based mindfulness interventions in children have shown benefits to child well-being. Here, we investigated the effectiveness of a remote, app-based mindfulness intervention for promoting well-being in children.MethodWe conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with two control groups to examine the effects of an 8-week mindfulness intervention in U.S. children ages 8–10. We compared pre-post effects between a mindfulness intervention using the Inner Explorer app, and two audiobook control interventions. The 279 children who participated in the interventions were assessed on self-report measures of anxiety and depression symptoms, perceived stress and trait mindfulness and we also collected parental reports.ResultsOver 80% of children completed the intervention in each condition. There was evidence for reduced self-perceived stress in children and reduced negative affect in children by parental reports using the mindfulness app, but no significant reduction for anxiety or depression symptoms. In general, between-group effect sizes were small (d < 0.45). Regular use, defined as at least 30 days of mindfulness practice within the study period, was associated with reduced child negative affect by parental reports, as well as reduced parental stress and child self-perceived stress.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that home use of a mindfulness app in young children can have a positive impact on children’s emotional well-being if the app is used regularly, specifically for at least 30 days in the 8-week study period. Strategies aimed at promoting regular use of the mindfulness app at home could lead to even better outcomes for children.PreregistrationPreregistered on OSF at https://osf.io/23vax

Parental drinking and observations of parent-child problem-solving discussions: Do drinking motives matter?

Alcohol is often used for emotion-regulation purposes, yet there has been little research on how emotion-regulation drinking motives relate to parenting. The present study addresses this gap by investigating possible interactions between parent drinking and drinking motives in the prediction of parenting and child affectivity during a problem-solving interaction. Participants included 199 two-parent families with a child between the ages of 6 and 12 years. Mothers and fathers self-reported their drinking and drinking motivations, and each parent separately took part in a 5-min parent-child problem-solving discussion about a topic that the parent identified as a frequent source of conflict. These discussions were later coded for parent rejection and coercion and child positive and negative affectivity. Father enhancement motives were independently related to father harsh parenting and indirectly related to lower child positive affect and greater child negative affect. Mother drinking to regulate positive and negative emotions interacted with mother drinking in association with mother harsh parenting, father harsh parenting, and child positive and negative affect during father-child interactions. Although the pattern of these interactions differed, the combination of mother greater drinking and coping or enhancement motives tended to have higher harsh parenting, child positive affect, and child negative affect. These findings indicate that parents' emotion-regulation motives for drinking warrant greater attention from researchers to understand the impact of parent drinking on parenting and emotional development of children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

6.54 The Role of Postpartum Moderate Maternal Alcohol Use on Maternal Systemic Inflammation and Child Negative Affectivity

6.54 The Role of Postpartum Moderate Maternal Alcohol Use on Maternal Systemic Inflammation and Child Negative Affectivity

Parent dysregulation and child negativity in relation to parent responses to child negative emotions

AbstractObjectiveThis study examined the effects of mothers' and fathers' emotional dysregulation and their responses to their children's distress, as well as the moderating role of child negative reactivity.BackgroundParents with better emotion regulation strategies tend to provide more supportive and less nonsupportive responses to their children's distress. Child temperamental negative reactivity may create emotionally challenging parenting situations and thus may moderate this relation. However, dyadic effects are less clear; family systems theory suggests parents' dysregulation may crossover to degrade their partners' responses, or parents may compensate for their partners' dysregulation with more constructive responses.MethodParents from 119 families with a 3‐ to 5‐year‐old child (50.4% boys) reported on their emotional dysregulation, responses to child negative emotions, and child negative affectivity. Path models tested actor and partner main effects and interaction effects.ResultsThere were two partner main effects, such that when fathers were more dysregulated, mothers reported providing more supportive and fewer nonsupportive responses to their children. Additionally, two interaction effects were found. Maternal dysregulation was related to increased maternal nonsupport only when child negative affectivity was low. Maternal dysregulation was also related to greater maternal support only when child negative affectivity was high.ConclusionOur findings demonstrate the importance of parent gender roles and compensatory processes.ImplicationsThese results provide enhanced understanding of coparenting dynamics and the combined impact of mother, father, and child negativity, which can be used by practitioners.

Modeling BMI z score lability during childhood as a function of child temperament and genetic risk for obesity.

This study aimed to examine whether child genetic risk for obesity and temperament (i.e., negative affectivity, effortful control) accounted for stability versus lability in children's weight status (BMI z score) over time. A total of 561 adopted children (42% female; 56% Caucasian, 13% African American, 11% Latino, and 20% other) and their birth and adoptive parents were followed from birth to age 9 years. The multilevel location-scale model was used to examine whether child genetic risk for obesity and temperament were related to differences in level and lability in child BMI z scores over time. For the full sample, higher levels of child negative affectivity were associated with greater BMI z score lability, whereas higher levels of effortful control and children's mean-level BMI z scores were related to less lability across childhood. Additional analyses examined associations within groups of children with healthy versus overweight/obesity weight statuses. Within the healthy weight status group only, better effortful control was associated with more stable BMI z scores, whereas genetic risk for higher BMI was associated with more labile BMI z scores. These findings provide insights into factors that can be harnessed to redirect unhealthy trajectories as well as factors that may challenge redirection or maintain a healthy trajectory.

Observing mother-child interaction in a free-play vs. a structured task context and its relationship with preterm and term born toddlers' psychosocial outcomes

IntroductionHigh quality of mother-child interaction is associated with better psychosocial outcomes in children. However, this association might depend on the context in which mother-child interaction is observed as well as specific child characteristics. In this study, we examine differences in the assessment of mother-child interaction in a free-play and a structured task context. In addition, it will be investigated whether the behaviors per context are differently associated with preterm vs. term born toddlers' psychosocial outcomes.MethodsA total of 201 Dutch mother-child dyads participated in the study, of whom 108 children were moderate to late preterm (MLP) and 93 were born at term. Mother-child interaction was observed in a free-play and a structured task context when the child was 18 months of (corrected) age. Six subscales of mother-child interaction were assessed using the Coding Interactive Behavior scheme: maternal stimulation, maternal warmth, child's negative affect, active mother and child engagement, dyadic synchrony and tense interaction. Psychosocial outcomes were assessed at 24 months of (corrected) age using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire – Social Emotional and the Child Behavior Checklist.ResultsMother-child interaction was reliably assessed (α &amp;gt; .60) in each context, except for tense interaction during free-play (α = .41) and child's negative affect when averaged across contexts (α = 0.55). Compared to the free-play context, during the structured task, more child's negative affect, tense interaction and active mother and child engagement was observed in MLP and term born children, and less dyadic synchrony in MLP children (p's &amp;lt; .01). Only during a structured task and for term born children, active mother and child engagement was related to less social-emotional difficulties, internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Only during free-play and for MLP children, active mother and child engagement was related to less externalizing behaviors. Dyadic synchrony during a structured task was associated with less social-emotional difficulties in MLP and term born children, and dyadic synchrony during free-play was only associated with less social-emotional difficulties in term born children (all p's &amp;lt; .05).DiscussionMost mother-child interactive behaviors can be reliably assessed in both contexts. The structured task context elicited more varied behaviors than the free-play context. With the observations in the structured task context, more associations with children's psychosocial outcomes were found than with the observations in the free-play context. Mother-child interactions characterized by active, engaged and synchronous behaviors were associated with better psychosocial outcomes in toddlers, with some differences observed for MLP vs. term born children and for the free-play vs. the structured task context. Suggestions for future research as well as clinical practice are provided.

Social and emotional determinants of parental reflective functioning in a multinational sample.

Parental reflective functioning refers to parents' capacity to consider their child's internal experiences and is associated with secure parent-child attachment, sensitive parenting behavior, and positive child socioemotional development. However, research into determinants of parental reflective functioning in large diverse samples has been scarce. Therefore, using a large multinational sample and longitudinal design, we aimed to: (a) identify sociodemographic determinants of parental reflective functioning; (b) investigate whether parental emotion regulation is a psychological determinant of parental reflective functioning; and (c) assess whether child negative affect, parent stress, and child age moderate longitudinal associations between parent emotion regulation and parental reflective functioning. Data were two time points of the Child and Parent Emotion Study following 2,208 parents (68% female) of a child aged 0-10 years residing in English-speaking countries. Parent emotion dysregulation, parent male cisgender status, speaking a language other than English, younger parent age, and older child age were associated with lower parental reflective functioning 12 months later, as indicated by higher levels of prementalizing. Child negative affect moderated the association between parent emotion dysregulation and parental reflective functioning, whereas child age and parent stress did not. Specifically, parent difficulty controlling impulses when distressed was associated with higher levels of prementalizing modes of reflective functioning only when child negative affect was moderate-to-high. The interplay between parent emotion dysregulation and child negative affect highlights the importance of considering both parent and child characteristics in intervention planning and suggests that personalizing parenting support according to these characteristics may be beneficial. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Mindfulness supports emotional resilience in children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An important aspect of mental health in children is emotional resilience: the capacity to adapt to, and recover from, stressors and emotional challenges. Variation in trait mindfulness, one's disposition to attend to experiences with an open and nonjudgmental attitude, may be an important individual difference in children that supports emotional resilience. In this study, we investigated whether trait mindfulness was related to emotional resilience in response to stressful changes in education and home-life during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. We conducted a correlational study examining self-report data from July 2020 to February 2021, from 163 eight-to ten-year-old children living in the US. Higher trait mindfulness scores correlated with less stress, anxiety, depression, and negative affect in children, and lower ratings of COVID-19 impact on their lives. Mindfulness moderated the relationship between COVID-19 child impact and negative affect. Children scoring high on mindfulness showed no correlation between rated COVID-19 impact and negative affect, whereas those who scored low on mindfulness showed a positive correlation between child COVID-19 impact and negative affect. Higher levels of trait mindfulness may have helped children to better cope with a wide range of COVID-19 stressors. Future studies should investigate the mechanisms by which trait mindfulness supports emotional resilience in children.

Environment-by-PGS Interaction in the Classical Twin Design: An Application to Childhood Anxiety and Negative Affect

One type of genotype-environment interaction occurs when genetic effects on a phenotype are moderated by an environment; or when environmental effects on a phenotype are moderated by genes. Here we outline these types of genotype-environment interaction models, and propose a test of genotype-environment interaction based on the classical twin design, which includes observed genetic variables (polygenic scores: PGSs) that account for part of the genetic variance of the phenotype. We introduce environment-by-PGS interaction and the results of a simulation study to address statistical power and parameter recovery. Next, we apply the model to empirical data on anxiety and negative affect in children. The power to detect environment-by-PGS interaction depends on the heritability of the phenotype, and the strength of the PGS. The simulation results indicate that under realistic conditions of sample size, heritability and strength of the interaction, the environment-by-PGS model is a viable approach to detect genotype-environment interaction. In 7-year-old children, we defined two PGS based on the largest genetic association studies for 2 traits that are genetically correlated to childhood anxiety and negative affect, namely major depression (MDD) and intelligence (IQ). We find that common environmental influences on negative affect are amplified for children with a lower IQ-PGS.