Early Negative Affect Research Articles

Early childhood executive control modulates negative affectivity's role in increasing adolescent body mass index trajectories.

Executive control and temperament have been associated with pediatric obesity. However, interactions between these constructs in relation to future weight outcomes have not been investigated. This longitudinal study examined early childhood executive control, early temperament (negative affectivity and surgency), and their interactions as predictors of adolescent BMI trajectories. At age 5.25, children (N = 229) completed executive control tasks, and parents completed the Child Behavior Questionnaire to assess temperament. BMI was calculated annually between ages 14-17. Greater early negative affectivity predicted more positive BMI growth. Although early childhood executive control was not associated with BMI growth, greater negative affectivity predicted greater BMI escalation at average and below average executive control abilities. For children without robust executive control abilities early in development, negative affectivity may be a risk factor for accelerated adolescent BMI growth. Targeted assessment of early risk factors may be useful for childhood obesity prevention efforts.

Associations between observed and reported infant negative affectivity, fear and self-regulation, and early communicative development-Evidence from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study.

Self-regulation and language are intertwined abilities, but the nature of their relations in early childhood when both skills are still emerging is insufficiently understood. Our knowledge of the relations between early negative affectivity and preverbal and verbal communicative development is still limited. Further, observed and reported temperament capture how aspects of temperament operate in different settings but are rarely used in parallel in studies examining early language. During the period of rapid development, longitudinal studies are needed to identify early risk factors for delayed communicative development. We studied relations between aspects of emerging self-regulation and negative affectivity using both observations at 8months and mother-reports at 6 and 12months, and communicative development measured by gesturing and vocabulary at 14 and vocabulary at 30months in 183 children. Mother-reported self-regulation was related to a higher use of communicative gestures and observed self-regulation by gaze aversion to poorer receptive and expressive vocabulary at 14months, but neither was significantly associated with vocabulary at 30months. We found little evidence for associations between negative affectivity and fear in infancy and communicative development. Our findings highlight different aspects of self-regulation as both potential risk and protective factors for communicative development. Mixed results indicate a need for a more detailed examination of different strategies of self-regulation in different conditions and developmental stages to yield a deeper understanding of the relations between self-regulation in infancy and communicative development.

Effects of infant negative affect and contextual factors on infant regulatory capacity: The moderating role of infant sex

AbstractInfants' abilities to orient and regulate are directly linked to self‐regulatory capacity in childhood, which is subsequently associated with indicators of health and well‐being. However, relatively little is known regarding factors affecting early orienting and regulation. The current study evaluated the effects of infant negative affect and household chaos when children were 4 months old and parenting at 6 months of age on subsequent regulatory capacity at 8 months of age in a sample of 179 mother‐infant dyads. The potential moderating role of infant sex was examined in consideration of the viability–vulnerability tradeoff theory, which posits that females may be more susceptible to the impact of stressful environments in early development. Analyses indicated that early household chaos was related to subsequently lower orienting/regulatory abilities at 8 months of age. Additionally, there were significant sex‐by‐negative affectivity and sex‐by‐household chaos interactions, such that boys' regulatory capacity was negatively impacted by early negative affectivity and girls' was adversely affected by household chaos. Findings indicate some support for the viability–vulnerability tradeoff theory.Highlights The current study evaluated whether early negative affect and contextual factors impacted infant orienting/regulation at 8 months of age, and whether they influenced boys and girls differently. Results indicate that chaotic household environments negatively impact infants' ability to orient/regulate, and that male and female infants are differently affected by early negative affectivity and household chaos. This study suggests that parents should aim to decrease levels of home chaos to promote optimal regulatory development, and finds some support for the viability‐vulnerability tradeoff theory.

Early negative affect in males and females with fragile X syndrome: implications for anxiety and autism

BackgroundFragile X syndrome (FXS) is a genetic disorder that is highly comorbid with anxiety and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Elevated negative affect in young children has been associated with increased risk for both anxiety and ASD; however, these relations remain poorly understood in FXS.MethodsThe present prospective longitudinal study examined the trajectory of negative affect from infancy through preschool in males and females with FXS and typical development and its relation to anxiety and ASD.ResultsResults indicate a complex association reflecting group, developmental, and sex effects. Specifically, the group with FXS displayed a trajectory of increasing negative affect across age that was distinct from the typical controls. This atypical trajectory of negative affect in FXS was driven by sex effects in that males showed lower negative affect during infancy followed by steep increases across the toddler and preschool years whereas the females displayed a flatter trajectory. Finally, elevated negative affect predicted anxiety symptoms in males, but not females, with no relationship to ASD in males or females with FXS.ConclusionsThe current work addresses the importance of studying the development of psychopathology in a specific neurogenetic population. Temperamental negative affect was shown to be an important early marker for anxiety in young children with FXS, with subtle differences observed between males and females.

Infant frontal EEG asymmetry moderates the association between maternal behavior and toddler negative affectivity

Relatively little work has examined potential interactions between child intrinsic factors and extrinsic environmental factors in the development of negative affect in early life. This work is important because high levels of early negative affectivity have been associated with difficulties in later childhood adjustment. We examined associations between infant frontal electroencephalogram (EEG), maternal parenting behaviors, and children’s negative affect across the first two years of life. Infant baseline frontal EEG asymmetry was measured at 5 months; maternal sensitivity and intrusiveness were observed during mother-child interaction at 5 and 24 months; and mothers provided reports of toddler negative affect at 24 months. Results indicated that maternal sensitive behaviors at 5 months were associated with less negative affect at 24 months, but only for infants with left frontal EEG asymmetry. Similarly, maternal sensitive behaviors at 24 months were associated with less toddler negative affect at 24 months, but only for infants with left frontal EEG asymmetry. In contrast, maternal intrusive behaviors at 5- and 24-months were associated with greater toddler negative affect, but only for infants with right frontal EEG asymmetry at 5-months. Findings suggest that levels of negative affect in toddlers may be at least partially a result of interactions between children’s own early neurophysiological functioning and maternal behavior during everyday interactions with children in the first two years of life.

Multiple pathways between affect and mathematical competence in young children—commentary on the studies in the Special Issue

Affect and mathematical competence are each multifaceted constructs. Accordingly, the studies in this Special Issue address multiple pathways between the two in young children. This commentary highlights the variability of these pathways and asks how affective variables are specifically related to core mathematical activities such as problem solving. One conclusion is that affective and cognitive variables seem to be related already in young children, but that there is also considerable variation in this relationship. Future studies should address inter-individual differences and use more content-specific measures of affect, to identify factors that cause early negative affect that is specific to mathematics. The studies further suggest that among the sources of children’s negative affect towards mathematics are the abstract nature of mathematics as well as the view of mathematics that young children experience in their classrooms. Creating fearless learning environments that allow for failure, and that enable children to make early experiences of success, is an important challenge for early mathematics education.

Negative (but not Positive) Parenting Interacts with Infant Negative Affect to Predict Infant Approach: Evidence of Diathesis-Stress.

Temperament by parenting interactions may reflect that individuals with greater risk are more likely to experience negative outcomes in adverse contexts (diathesis-stress) or that these individuals are more susceptible to contextual influences in a 'for better or for worse' pattern (differential susceptibility). Although such interactions have been identified for a variety of child outcomes, prior research has not examined approach characteristics - excitement and approach toward pleasurable activities - in the first year of life. Therefore, the current study investigated whether 6-month maternal reported infant negative affect - a phenotypic marker of risk/susceptibility - interacted with 8-month observed parenting behaviors (positive parenting, negative parenting) to predict 12-month infant behavioral approach. Based a sample of mothers and their infants (N=150), results indicated that negative parenting was inversely associated with subsequent approach for infants with high, but not low, levels of early negative affect. Similar results did not occur regarding positive parenting. These findings better fit a diathesis-stress model rather than a differential susceptibility model. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

Early Negative Affect Predicts Anxiety, not Autism, in Preschool Boys with Fragile X Syndrome

Children with fragile X syndrome (FXS) face high risk for anxiety disorders, yet no studies have explored FXS as a high-risk sample for investigating early manifestations of anxiety outcomes. Negative affect is one of the most salient predictors of problem behaviors and has been associated with both anxiety and autistic outcomes in clinical and non-clinical pediatric samples. In light of the high comorbidity between autism and anxiety within FXS, the present study investigates the relationship between longitudinal trajectories of negative affect (between 8 and 71 months) and severity of anxiety and autistic outcomes in young males with FXS (n = 25). Multilevel models indicated associations between elevated anxiety and higher fear and sadness, lower soothability, and steeper longitudinal increases in approach. Autistic outcomes were unrelated to negative affect. These findings suggest early negative affect differentially predicts anxiety, not autistic symptoms, within FXS. Future research is warranted to determine the specificity of the relationship between negative affect and anxiety, as well as to explore potential moderators. Characterizing the relationship between early negative affect and anxiety within FXS may inform etiology and treatment considerations specific to children with FXS, as well as lend insight into precursors of anxiety disorders in other clinical groups and community samples.

Relationships between early behavioural characteristics and temperament at 6 years

The aim of this study was to analyze the extent to which the relations and the stability of the neonatal behaviour and the infant behaviour at both 4 and 12 months could be used to predict the infant temperament at 6 years. Seventy-two full-term, normal-weight, healthy children were followed from 3 days postpartum to 6 years. Neonatal behaviour at 3 and 30 days was assessed using the Neonatal Behaviour Assessment Scale (NBAS), behaviour at 4 and 12 months was assessed using the Infant Behaviour Record (IBR) from the Bayley Scales for Infant Development (BSID) and temperament at 6 years was assessed using the Dimensions of Temperament Survey-Revised (DOTS-R). Negative and positive affectivity and attention were the factors extracted from the behaviours of the IBR. Our results showed a low/moderate correlation between neonatal behaviour on the one hand and behaviour at 4 and 12 months and temperament at 6 years on the other hand. The motor performance, orientation and ANS stability of the neonate at 3 and 30 days were predictors of positive and negative affectivity at 4 months. State regulation and ANS stability at 3 days were predictors of negative affectivity and attention respectively at 12 months. Negative affectivity at 12 months and endurance at 30 days were predictors of general activity and persistence/attention at 6 years. Also, an inverse relation was found between state regulation at 30 days and general activity at 6 years, and a positive relation was found between attention at 4 months and persistence/attention at 6 years. We conclude that neonatal behaviour and behaviour in the first year of life are good predictors of temperament at 6 years and that early negative affectivity has an important role on infant temperament development.

Developmental trajectories of positive and negative affect in children at high and low familial risk for depressive disorder

Although low positive affect (PA) and high negative affect (NA) have been posited to predispose to depressive disorders, little is known about the developmental trajectories of these affects in children at familial risk for mood disorders. We examined 202 offspring of mothers who had a history of juvenile-onset unipolar depressive disorder (n = 60) or no history of major psychopathology (n = 80). Offspring participated in up to seven annual, structured laboratory tasks that were designed to elicit PA and NA. Growth curve analyses revealed that PA increased linearly and similarly for all children from late infancy through age 9. However, there also were individual differences in early PA. Relative to control peers, offspring of mothers with lifetime unipolar depression had consistently lower levels of PA, and this association remained significant even when controlling for current maternal depression and maternal affect displays. Growth curve analyses also revealed a significant linear decrease in NA in children across time; however, there was no significant inter-individual variation either in early NA or rate of change in NA. Attenuated PA (rather than excessive NA) may be an early vulnerability factor for eventual unipolar depressive disorder in at-risk children and may represent one pathway through which depression is transmitted.

Negative Affectivity and Drinking in Adolescents: An Examination of Moderators Predicted by Affect Regulation Theory

This investigation examined potential moderators of the longitudinal relation between negative affectivity and drinking. Specifically tested was the degree to which alcohol expectancies and coping styles moderate the relation between negative affectivity in early adolescence and drinking in middle and late adolescence. Four hundred ninety nine early adolescents completed inventories of negative affectivity, coping style, and tension reduction expectancies, and were followed up with inventories of drinking in middle and late adolescence. Constructive coping moderated the relation between negative affectivity and drinking in middle adolescence, such that only those with poor coping skills exhibited this positive relation. Although early negative affectivity was directly related to drinking in late adolescence, no interactions between negative affectivity and expectancies or coping were detected for drinking at that age. This absence of consistent moderating effects indicates significant limitations in the ability of the traditionally-conceived affect regulation model to reliably predict adolescent drinking.