Infant and Child Development最新文献

Increasingly, researchers have operationalized Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)-derived attachment representations as reflecting individual differences in secure base script knowledge (AAI_sbs) – the degree to which individuals show awareness of the temporal-causal schema that summarizes the basic features of seeking and receiving effective support from caregivers when in distress. In a series of pre-registered analyses, we used AAI transcripts recently re-coded for AAI_sbs and leveraged a new follow-up assessment of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development cohort at around age 30 years (479 currently partnered participants; 59% female; 82% White/non-Hispanic) to assess and compare the links between AAI_sbs and traditional AAI coding measures at around age 18 years and self-reported romantic relationship quality in adulthood. Higher AAI_sbs predicted better dyadic adjustment scores in adulthood (r = 0.17) and this association remained significant controlling for other AAI-derived coding measures, as well as sociodemographic and cognitive functioning covariates. Findings extend previous evidence pointing to the predictive significance of AAI_sbs for multiple adult functioning domains.

This study utilised the Early Growth and Development Study (N = 561 adoptive children; 57.2% male, 55.3% White), a study of children adopted at birth, to examine heritable (birth parent psychopathology) and prenatal risk (prenatal maternal distress and smoking during pregnancy), infant negative affectivity, adoptive parent over-reactivity and warmth as independent predictors of childhood externalising symptoms. The current study evaluated if: (1) infant negative affectivity and over-reactive parenting are candidate mediators for the effects of heritable and prenatal risk on externalising symptoms and (2) parental warmth weakens the influence of heritable risk, prenatal risk, negative affectivity and over-reactive parenting on externalising symptoms. There were main effects of heritable risk, infant negative affectivity and over-reactive parenting on child externalising symptoms. The study found no support for the hypothesised mediation and moderation effects, suggesting that targeting parental over-reactivity rather than warmth would be more effective in reducing the risk for childhood externalising symptoms.

This study investigated relations between emerging adults' memories of parental acceptance–rejection during childhood and the adults' dispositions towards forgiveness and vengeance, as mediated by psychological (mal)adjustment. South Asian (Pakistani) participants, including 242 (25.6%) men (M_age = 21.69, SD = 2.34) and 704 (74.4%) women (M_age = 21.14, SD = 2.09), responded to the short forms of the maternal and paternal Adult Parental Acceptance–Rejection Questionnaires, the Adult Personality Assessment Questionnaire, the Heartland Forgiveness Scale, the Vengeance Scale and a Personal Information Form. Results revealed that memories of both maternal and paternal rejection were correlated with current psychological maladjustment. Paternal rejection amongst women and maternal rejection amongst men predicted the disposition towards vengeance. Maternal acceptance amongst both men and women predicted the disposition towards forgiveness. Paternal acceptance, however, did not predict the disposition towards forgiveness amongst either men or women. Psychological adjustment amongst both men and women mediated relations between maternal and paternal acceptance and the disposition towards forgiveness. However, psychological maladjustment was a significant mediator of the relation between maternal and paternal rejection and the disposition towards vengeance amongst men and women. Implications of the findings and future directions of research are discussed.

Events of the past decade have revealed substantial limitations in our standard approach to evaluating manuscripts for publication. Preference for ‘positive results’ and findings that are surprising or novel has led to a substantial publication bias that casts doubt on large portions of the existing literature (Davis-Kean & Ellis, 2019; Scheel et al., 2021). Registered Reports represent a major initiative to combat these problems, as they shift the focus of evaluation from the nature of the findings to the strength of the conceptualization, research design and analytic plan (Chambers, 2013).

Contrary to the standard review process, with Registered Reports the process is split into two distinct stages. Authors initially submit a Stage 1 proposal consisting of the Introduction, Method and Planned Analysis sections prior to conducting the study. The Stage 1 proposal is sent for peer review, with an ultimate positive outcome of an ‘in principle acceptance,’ which is a guarantee that the journal will publish the full article, regardless of the results, providing the authors conduct the study as planned and do so competently. Following the in principle acceptance authors collect the data and/or conduct the analysis and then submit the Stage 2 report for final review. For more information, and answers to frequently asked questions about Registered Reports, see https://cos.io/rr/.

Registered Reports have been increasingly adopted in journals across the sciences in general, and psychology in particular. Although uptake had initially been slow amongst developmental journals, this has changed considerably in recent years (see Syed et al., 2023, for Registered Reports specifically and Silverstein et al., 2024, for open science and metascience more generally). Nevertheless, there remain many questions about how the format works for complex longitudinal designs and secondary data (van den Akker et al., 2021), both of which are common in developmental research (see also Syed & Donnellan, 2020).

The purpose of this Special Issue was to feature Registered Reports using secondary (pre-existing) data pertaining to developmental issues from the prenatal period through early adulthood. Secondary datasets refer to data collected by someone other than the primary user. Datasets used in the eight articles featured in the special issue covered wide ground. Two of the articles relied on the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, one to investigate how early caregiver interactions are related to educational attainment, income and employment (Duncan et al., 2024), and the other to compare relations between parental sensitivity and two different methods for assessing attachment (Nivison et al., 2024). Examining parenting from a different perspective, Wright and Jack