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Parenting and childhood irritability: Negative emotion socialization and parental control moderate the development of irritability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2022

Sanjana Ravi Open the ORCID record for Sanjana Ravi [Opens in a new window] ,
Mazneen Havewala ,
Katharina Kircanski ,
Melissa A. Brotman ,
Leslie Schneider ,
Kathryn Degnan ,
Alisa Almas ,
Nathan Fox ,
Daniel S. Pine  and
Ellen Leibenluft
...Show all authors
Sanjana Ravi*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
Mazneen Havewala
Affiliation:
Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
Katharina Kircanski
Affiliation:
Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
Melissa A. Brotman
Affiliation:
Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
Leslie Schneider
Affiliation:
Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
Kathryn Degnan
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA
Alisa Almas
Affiliation:
School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Nathan Fox
Affiliation:
Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
Daniel S. Pine
Affiliation:
Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
Ellen Leibenluft
Affiliation:
Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
Courtney Filippi
Affiliation:
Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
*
Corresponding author: Sanjana Ravi, email: sanjana.ravi@vanderbilt.edu
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Abstract

Irritability, characterized by anger in response to frustration, is normative in childhood. While children typically show a decline in irritability from toddlerhood to school age, elevated irritability throughout childhood may predict later psychopathology. The current study (n = 78) examined associations between trajectories of irritability in early childhood (ages 2–7) and irritability in adolescence (age 12) and tested whether these associations are moderated by parenting behaviors. Results indicate that negative emotion socialization moderated trajectories of irritability – relative to children with low stable irritability, children who exhibited high stable irritability in early childhood and who had parents that exhibited greater negative emotion socialization behaviors had higher irritability in adolescence. Further, negative parental control behavior moderated trajectories of irritability – relative to children with low stable irritability, children who had high decreasing irritability in early childhood and who had parents who exhibited greater negative control behaviors had higher irritability in adolescence. In contrast, positive emotion socialization and control behaviors did not moderate the relations between early childhood irritability and later irritability in adolescence. These results suggest that both irritability in early childhood and negative parenting behaviors may jointly influence irritability in adolescence. The current study underscores the significance of negative parenting behaviors and could inform treatment.

Keywords

emotion socializationirritabilityparental controlparentingpsychopathology
Type
Regular Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , August 2023 , pp. 1444 - 1453
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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