Ng-Knight, T; Schoon, I; (2021) Self-control in early childhood: Individual differences in sensitivity to early parenting. Journal of Personality , 89 (3) pp. 500-513. 10.1111/jopy.12595.

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Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This study extends existing research on the role of infant temperament as a moderator of the association between the quality of parent-child relationships and children's self-control during the pre-school years. In particular, we focus on the potential moderating role of a dimension of early infant temperament known as behavioral inhibition. Assumptions formulated within the diathesis-stress, the vantage-sensitivity, and the differential susceptibility models of individual differences in environmental sensitivity are tested. METHOD: Data are from the Millennium Cohort Study, a nationally representative birth cohort of 18,552 infants born in the United Kingdom during 2000/01. RESULTS: The results show that the quality of both mother-child and father-child relationships are associated with children's development of self-control in early childhood. Additionally, individual differences in infant temperament moderate the association between mother-child conflict and children's development of self-control. Specifically, high behavioral inhibition shows a vantage-sensitivity pattern for mother-child conflict. CONCLUSION: Aspects of both mothers' and fathers' relationships with their young children independently predict variations in self-control. This study also provides an initial indication that behavioral inhibition, a temperamental trait best-known for being a risk factor for anxiety, may provide small benefits in relation to young children's self-control development.

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