Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T09:28:06.718Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Family instability and children's effortful control in the context of poverty: Sometimes a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2016

Melissa L. Sturge-Apple ,
Patrick T. Davies ,
Dante Cicchetti ,
Rochelle F. Hentges  and
Jesse L. Coe
Melissa L. Sturge-Apple*
Affiliation:
University of Rochester Mt. Hope Family Center
Patrick T. Davies
Affiliation:
University of Rochester Mt. Hope Family Center
Dante Cicchetti
Affiliation:
Mt. Hope Family Center University of Minnesota
Rochelle F. Hentges
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
Jesse L. Coe
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Melissa Sturge-Apple, Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627; E-mail: melissa.sturge-apple@rochester.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Effortful control has been demonstrated to have important ramifications for children's self-regulation and social–emotional adjustment. However, there are wide socioeconomic disparities in children's effortful control, with impoverished children displaying heightened difficulties. The current study was designed to demonstrate how instability within the proximal rearing context of young children may serve as a key operant on the development of children's effortful control in the context of poverty. Two separate studies were conducted that included samples of children living within homes characterized by heightened economic risk. In Study 1, we tested the differential prediction of family instability on two domains of children's effortful control: cool effortful control and delay control. Consistent with hypotheses, elevated instability was associated with decreased hot effortful control but not cool effortful control over the span of 2 years. In Study 2, we examined how children's basal cortisol activity may account for associations between heightened instability and effortful control in reward tasks. The results were consistent with sensitization models, suggesting that elevated cortisol activity arising from increased uncertainty and unpredictability in rearing contexts may influence children's hot effortful control. The findings are interpreted within emerging evolutionary–developmental frameworks of child development.

Type
Regular Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , August 2017 , pp. 685 - 696
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH071256 (to P.T.D. and D.C.) and Eunice Kennedy Shriver Institute for Child and Human Development Grant HD065425 (to P.T.D. and M.L.S.-A.). Both projects were conducted at Mt. Hope Family Center. The authors are grateful to the children, parents, and community agencies who participated in this project and to the Mt. Hope Family Center staff.

References

Ackerman, B. P., Kogos, J., Youngstrom, E., Schoff, K., & Izard, C. (1999). Family instability and the problem behaviors of children from economically disadvantaged families. Developmental Psychology, 35, 258–268.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Allan, N. P., & Lonigan, C. J. (2011). Examining the dimensionality of effortful control in preschool children and its relation to academic and socioemotional indicators. Developmental Psychology, 47, 905–915.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arbuckle, J. L. (2008). Amos 17.0 user's guide. Chicago: SPSS.Google Scholar
Bachman, H. J., Coley, R. L., & Carrano, J. (2011). Maternal relationship instability influences on children's emotional and behavioral functioning in low-income families. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 39, 1149–1161.Google Scholar
Belsky, J., & Pluess, M. (2013). Beyond risk, resilience, and dysregulation: Phenotypic plasticity and human development. Development and Psychopathology, 25, 1243–1261.Google Scholar
Belsky, J., Ruttle, P. L., Boyce, W. T., Armstrong, J. M., & Essex, M. J. (2015). Early adversity, elevated stress physiology, accelerated sexual maturation, and poor health in females. Developmental Psychology, 51, 816–822.Google Scholar
Belsky, J., Schlomer, G. L., & Ellis, B. J. (2012). Beyond cumulative risk: Distinguishing harshness and unpredictability as determinants of parenting and early life history strategy. Developmental Psychology, 48, 662.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Belsky, J., Steinberg, L., & Draper, P. (1991). Childhood experience, interpersonal development, and reproductive strategy: An evolutionary theory of socialization. Child Development, 62, 647–670.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bierman, K. L., Nix, R. L., Greenberg, M. T., Blair, C., & Domitrovich, C. E. (2008). Executive functions and school readiness intervention: Impact, moderation, and mediation in the Head Start REDI program. Development and Psychopathology, 20, 821–843.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bixter, M. T., & Luhmann, C. C. (2013). Adaptive intertemporal preferences in foraging-style environments. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 7, 93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bjorklund, D. F., & Ellis, B. J. (2014). Children, childhood, and development in evolutionary perspective. Developmental Review, 34, 225–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blair, C., Berry, D., Mills-Koonce, R., Granger, D., & FLP Investigators. (2013). Cumulative effects of early poverty on cortisol in young children: Moderation by autonomic nervous system activity. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 38, 2666–2675.Google Scholar
Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2012). Individual development and evolution: Experiential canalization of self-regulation. Developmental Psychology, 48, 647.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blair, C., Raver, C. C., Granger, D., Mills-Koonce, R., & Hibel, L. (2011). Allostasis and allostatic load in the context of poverty in early childhood. Development and Psychopathology, 23, 845–857.Google Scholar
Block, J. H., & Block, J. (1980). The role of ego control and ego-resiliency in the organization of behavior. In Collins, W. A. (Ed.), Minnesota symposia on child psychology (Vol. 13, pp. 39–101). New York: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Boyce, W. T., & Ellis, B. J. (2005). Biological sensitivity to context: I. An evolutionary–developmental theory of the origins and functions of stress reactivity. Development and Psychopathology, 17, 271–301.Google Scholar
Bronson, M. B. (2000). Recognizing and supporting the development of self-regulation in young children. Young Children, 55, 32–37.Google Scholar
Cavanagh, S. E., & Huston, A. C. (2008). The timing of family instability and children's social development. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70, 1258–1270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cicchetti, D. (2015). Neural plasticity, sensitive periods, and psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 27, 319–320.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cicchetti, D., & Toth, S. L. (2009). The past achievements and future promises of developmental psychopathology: The coming of age of a discipline. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50, 16–25.Google Scholar
Cowell, R. A., Cicchetti, D., Rogosch, F. A., & Toth, S. L. (in press). Childhood maltreatment and its effect on neurocognitive functioning: Chronicity and timing matter. Development and Psychopathology.Google Scholar
Davis, E. P., Bruce, J., & Gunnar, M. R. (2002). The anterior attention network: Associations with temperament and neuroendocrine activity in 6-year-old children. Developmental Psychobiology, 40, 43–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deater-Deckard, K., Mullineaux, P. Y., Beekman, C., Petrill, S. A., Schatschneider, C., & Thompson, L. A. (2009). Conduct problems, IQ, and household chaos: A longitudinal multi-informant study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50, 1301–1308.Google Scholar
Del Giudice, M., Ellis, B. J., & Shirtcliff, E. A. (2011). The adaptive calibration model of stress responsivity. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 35, 1562–1592.Google Scholar
Diamond, A., & Taylor, C. (1996). Development of an aspect of executive control: Development of the abilities to remember what I said and to “Do as I say, not as I do.” Developmental Psychobiology, 29, 315–334.3.0.CO;2-T>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dishion, T. J. (in press). Social influences on executive functions development in children and adolescents: Steps toward a social neuroscience of predictive adaptive responses. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.Google Scholar
Doom, J. R., Cicchetti, D., Rogosch, F. A., & Dackis, M. N. (2013). Child maltreatment and gender interactions as predictors of differential neuroendocrine hormone profiles. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 38, 1442–1454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doom, J. R., & Gunnar, M. R. (2013). Stress physiology and developmental psychopathology: Past, present, and future. Development and Psychopathology, 25, 1359–1373.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Edwards, C. P., & Liu, W. (2002). Parenting toddlers. In Bornstein, M. L. (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Vol. 1. Children and parenting (2nd ed., pp. 45–72). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, N., Cumberland, A., Spinrad, T. L., Fabes, R. A., Shepard, S. A., Reiser, M., et al. (2001). The relations of regulation and emotionality to children's externalizing and internalizing problem behavior. Child Development, 72, 1112–1134.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eisenberg, N., & Fabes, R. A. (1995). The relation of young children's vicarious emotional responding to social competence, regulation, and emotionality. Cognition & Emotion, 9, 203–228.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, N., Michalik, N., Spinrad, T. L., Hofer, C., Kupfer, A., Valiente, C., et al. (2007). The relations of effortful control and impulsivity to children's sympathy: A longitudinal study. Cognitive Development, 22, 544–567.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eisenberg, N., Valiente, C., Fabes, R. A., Smith, C. L., Reiser, M., Shepard, S. A., et al. (2003). The relations of effortful control and ego control to children's resiliency and social functioning. Developmental Psychology, 39, 761–776.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ellis, B. J., Figueredo, A. J., Brumbach, B. H., & Schlomer, G. L. (2009). Fundamental dimensions of environmental risk. Human Nature, 20, 204–268.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Enders, C. K. (2001). A primer on maximum likelihood algorithms available for use with missing data. Structural Equation Modeling, 8, 128–141.Google Scholar
Evans, G. W., & English, K. (2002). The environment of poverty: Multiple stressor exposure, psychophysiological stress, and socioemotional adjustment. Child Development, 73, 1238–1248.Google Scholar
Fawcett, T. W., McNamara, J. M., & Houston, A. I. (2012). When is it adaptive to be patient? A general framework for evaluating delayed rewards. Behavioural Processes, 89, 128–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flinn, M. V. (2006). Evolution and ontogeny of stress response to social challenges in the human child. Developmental Review, 26, 138–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forman, E. M., & Davies, P. T. (2003). Family instability and young adolescent maladjustment: The mediating effects of parenting quality and adolescent appraisals of family security. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 32, 94–105.Google Scholar
Frankenhuis, W. E., & de Weerth, C. (2013). Does early-life exposure to stress shape or impair cognition? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22, 407–412.Google Scholar
Frankenhuis, W. E., Gergely, G., & Watson, J. S. (2013). Infants may use contingency analysis to estimate environmental states: An evolutionary, life-history perspective. Child Development Perspectives, 7, 115–120.Google Scholar
Frodl, T., & O'Keane, V. (2013). How does the brain deal with cumulative stress? A review with focus on developmental stress, HPA axis function and hippocampal structure in humans. Neurobiology of Disease, 52, 24–37.Google Scholar
Green, L., Fry, A. F., & Myerson, J. (1994). Discounting of delayed rewards: A life-span comparison. Psychological Science, 5, 33–36.Google Scholar
Green, L., & Myerson, J. (2004). A discounting framework for choice with delayed and probabilistic rewards. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 769–792.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hardaway, C. R., Wilson, M. N., Shaw, D. S., & Dishion, T. J. (2012). Family functioning and externalizing behaviour among low-income children: Self-regulation as a mediator. Infant and Child Development, 21, 67–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hollingshead, A. B. (1975). Four Factor Index of Social Status. Unpublished manuscript, Yale University, Department of Sociology.Google Scholar
Keren, G., & Roelofsma, P. (1995). Immediacy and certainty in intertemporal choice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 63, 287–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kidd, C., Palmeri, H., & Aslin, R. N. (2013). Rational snacking: Young children's decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability. Cognition, 126, 109–114.Google Scholar
Kim, S., Nordling, J. K., Yoon, J. E., Boldt, L. J., & Kochanska, G. (2013). Effortful control in “hot” and “cool” tasks differentially predicts children's behavior problems and academic performance. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 41, 43–56.Google Scholar
Kline, R. B. (2015). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Kochanska, G., Murray, K. T., & Harlan, E. T. (2000). Effortful control in early childhood: Continuity and change, antecedents, and implications for social development. Developmental Psychology, 36, 220.Google Scholar
Krueger, R. F., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., White, J., & Stouthamer-Loeber, M. (1996). Delay of gratification, psychopathology, and personality: Is low self-control specific to externalizing problems? Journal of Personality, 64, 107–129.Google Scholar
Lengua, L. J. (2006). Growth in temperament and parenting as predictors of adjustment during children's transition to adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 42, 819–832.Google Scholar
Lengua, L. J., Honorado, E., & Bush, N. R. (2007). Contextual risk and parenting as predictors of effortful control and social competence in preschool children. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 28, 40–55.Google Scholar
Lengua, L. J., Moran, L., Zalewski, M., Ruberry, E., Kiff, C., & Thompson, S. (2014). Relations of growth in effortful control to family income, cumulative risk, and adjustment in preschool-age children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 43, 705–720.Google Scholar
Li-Grining, C. P. (2007). Effortful control among low-income preschoolers in three cities: Stability, change, and individual differences. Developmental Psychology, 43, 208.Google Scholar
Luecken, L. J., & Lemery, K. S. (2004). Early caregiving and physiological stress responses. Clinical Psychology Review, 24, 171–191.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lupien, S. J., de Leon, M., De Santi, S., Convit, A., Tarshish, C., Nair, N. P. V., et al. (1998). Cortisol levels during human aging predict hippocampal atrophy and memory deficits. Nature Neuroscience, 1, 69–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lupien, S. J., King, S., Meaney, M. J., & McEwen, B. S. (2001). Can poverty get under your skin? Basal cortisol levels and cognitive function in children from low and high socioeconomic status. Development and Psychopathology, 13, 653–676.Google Scholar
MacDonald, K. B. (2008). Effortful control, explicit processing, and the regulation of human evolved predispositions. Psychological Review, 115, 1012–1031.Google Scholar
Mahrer, A. R. (1956). The role of expectancy in delayed reinforcement. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 52, 101–106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, A., Razza, R. A., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2012). Specifying the links between household chaos and preschool children's development. Early Child Development and Care, 182, 1247–1263.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mezzacappa, E., Kindlon, D., Saul, J. P., & Earls, F. (1998). Executive and motivational control of performance task behavior, and autonomic heart-rate regulation in children: Physiologic validation of two-factor solution inhibitory control. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 39, 525–531.Google ScholarPubMed
Mischel, W., & Ebbesen, E. B. (1970). Attention in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16, 329–337.Google Scholar
Mischel, W., Ebbesen, E. B., & Raskoff Zeiss, A. (1972). Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21, 204.Google Scholar
Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Peake, P. K. (1988). The nature of adolescent competencies predicted by preschool delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 687–696.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Rodriguez, M. I. (1989). Delay of gratification in children. Science, 244, 933–938.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Munck, A., & Naray-Fejes-Toth, A. (1994). Glucocorticoids and stress: Permissive and suppressive actions. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 746, 115–130.Google Scholar
O'Brien, B. S., & Frick, P. J. (1996). Reward dominance: Associations with anxiety, conduct problems, and psychopathy in children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 24, 223–240.Google Scholar
Petrill, S. A., Pike, A., Price, T., & Plomin, R. (2004). Chaos in the home and socioeconomic status are associated with cognitive development in early childhood: Environmental mediators identified in a genetic design. Intelligence, 32, 445–460.Google Scholar
Piazza, P. V., & Le Moal, M. (1997). Glucocorticoids as a biological substrate of reward: Physiological and pathophysiological implications. Brain Research Reviews, 25, 359–372.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Putman, P., Antypa, N., Crysovergi, P., & van der Does, W. A. (2010). Exogenous cortisol acutely influences motivated decision making in healthy young men. Psychopharmacology, 208, 257–263.Google Scholar
Raver, C. C., Blackburn, E. K., Bancroft, M., & Torp, N. (1999). Relations between effective emotional self-regulation, attentional control, and low-income preschoolers’ social competence with peers. Early Education and Development, 10, 333–350.Google Scholar
Raver, C. C., Blair, C., Garrett-Peters, P., & Family Life Project Key Investigators. (2014). Poverty, household chaos, and interparental aggression predict children's ability to recognize and modulate negative emotions. Development and Psychopathology. Advance online publication.Google Scholar
Razza, R. A., & Raymond, K. (2013). Associations among maternal behavior, delay of gratification, and school readiness across the early childhood years. Social Development, 22, 180–196.Google Scholar
Rothbart, M. K., Posner, M. I., & Kieras, J. (2006). Temperament, attention, and the development of self-regulation. In Rothbart, M. K., Posner, M. I., & Kieras, J. (Eds.), Handbook of early child development (chap. 17). Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Salimetrics. (2005). HS cortisol kit information. Unpublished manuscript, State College, PA.Google Scholar
Saxbe, D. E., Negriff, S., Susman, E. J., & Trickett, P. K. (2015). Attenuated hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis functioning predicts accelerated pubertal development in girls 1 year later. Development and Psychopathology, 27, 819–828.Google Scholar
Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Peake, P. K. (1990). Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions. Developmental Psychology, 26, 978–986.Google Scholar
Sturge-Apple, M. L., Davies, P. T., Cicchetti, D., & Manning, L. G. (2012). Interparental violence, maternal emotional unavailability and children's cortisol functioning in family contexts. Developmental Psychology, 48, 237–249.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sturge-Apple, M. L., Suor, J. L., Davies, P. T., Cicchetti, D., Skibo, M. A., & Rogosch, F. A. (in press). Vagal tone and children's delay of gratification: Differential sensitivity across resource poor and resource rich environments. Psychological Science.Google Scholar
Suor, J. H., Sturge-Apple, M. L., Davies, P. T., Cicchetti, D., & Manning, L. G. (2015). Tracing differential pathways of risk: Associations among family adversity, cortisol, and cognitive functioning in childhood. Child Development, 86, 1142–1158.Google Scholar
Susman, E. J., Dockray, S., Schiefelbein, V. L., Herwehe, S., Heaton, J. A., & Dorn, L. D. (2007). Morningness/eveningness, morning-to-afternoon cortisol ratio, and antisocial behavior problems during puberty. Developmental Psychology, 43, 811–822.Google Scholar
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2000). Using multivariate statistics (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
Tarullo, A. R., & Gunnar, M. R. (2006). Child maltreatment and the developing HPA axis. Hormones and Behavior, 50, 632–639.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tofighi, D., & MacKinnon, D. P. (2011). RMediation: An R package for mediation analysis confidence intervals. Behavior Research Methods, 43, 692–700.Google Scholar
Toth, S. L., & Cicchetti, D. (2011). Frontiers in translational research on trauma. Development and Psychopathology, 23, 353–355.Google Scholar
van den Bos, R., Harteveld, M., & Stoop, H. (2009). Stress and decision-making in humans: Performance is related to cortisol reactivity, albeit differently in men and women. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 34, 1449–1458.Google Scholar
Wechsler, D. (2002). WPPSI-III: Technical and interpretive manual. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Zalewski, M., Lengua, L. J., Fisher, P. A., Trancik, A., Bush, N. R., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2012). Poverty and single parenting: Relations with preschoolers’ cortisol and effortful control. Infant and Child Development, 21, 537–554.Google Scholar