Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-lrblm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-22T06:52:22.273Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Developmental trajectories of externalizing and internalizing behaviors: Factors underlying resilience in physically abused children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2006

JENNIFER E. LANSFORD ,
PATRICK S. MALONE ,
KRISTOPHER I. STEVENS ,
KENNETH A. DODGE ,
JOHN E. BATES  and
GREGORY S. PETTIT
JENNIFER E. LANSFORD
Affiliation:
Duke University
PATRICK S. MALONE
Affiliation:
Duke University
KRISTOPHER I. STEVENS
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
KENNETH A. DODGE
Affiliation:
Duke University
JOHN E. BATES
Affiliation:
Indiana University; and
GREGORY S. PETTIT
Affiliation:
Auburn University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Using a multisite community sample of 585 children, this study examined how protective and vulnerability factors alter trajectories of teacher-reported externalizing and internalizing behavior from kindergarten through Grade 8 for children who were and were not physically abused during the first 5 years of life. Early lifetime history of physical abuse (11.8% of sample) was determined through interviews with mothers during the prekindergarten period; mothers and children provided data on vulnerability and protective factors. Regardless of whether the child was abused, being African American; being male; having low early social competence, low early socioeconomic status (SES), and low adolescent SES; and experiencing adolescent harsh discipline, low monitoring, and low parental knowledge were related to higher levels of externalizing problems over time. Having low early social competence, low early SES, low adolescent SES, and low proactive parenting were related to higher levels of internalizing problems over time. Furthermore, resilience effects, defined as significant interaction effects, were found for unilateral parental decision making (lower levels are protective of externalizing outcomes for abused children), early stress (lower levels are protective of internalizing outcomes for abused children), adolescent stress (lower levels are protective of internalizing outcomes for abused children), and hostile attributions (higher levels are protective of internalizing outcomes for abused children). The findings provide a great deal of support for an additive or main effect perspective on vulnerability and protective factors and some support for an interactive perspective. It appears that some protective and vulnerability factors do not have stronger effects for physically abused children, but instead are equally beneficial or harmful to children regardless of their abuse status.The Child Development Project was funded by Grants MH42498, MH56961, MH57024, and MH57095 from the National Institute of Mental Health and HD30572 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. We are grateful for the ongoing dedication of the Child Development Project participants and research staff. Portions of these results were presented at the 2002 American Psychological Society convention in New Orleans, LA.

Type
Research Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , March 2006 , pp. 35 - 55
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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.)

References

REFERENCES

Achenbach, T. M. (1991). Manual for Teacher's Report Form and 1991 profile. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont.
Achenbach, T. M., & Edelbrock, C. S. (1986). Manual for the Teacher's Report Form and teacher version of the Child Behavior Profile. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont.
Anthony, E. J. (1974). Introduction: The syndrome of the psychologically vulnerable child. In E. J. Anthony & C. Koupernik (Eds.), The child in his family: Children at psychiatric risk (pp. 3–10). New York: Wiley.
Attar, B., Guerra, N., & Tolan, P. (1994). Neighborhood disadvantage, stressful life events, and adjustment in urban elementary-school children. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 23, 391–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnett, D., Manley, J. T., & Cicchetti, D. (1993). Defining child maltreatment: The interface between policy and research. In D. Cicchetti & S. L. Toth (Eds.), Advances in applied developmental psychology: Vol. 8. Child abuse, child development and social policy (pp. 7–73). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Brown, B. B., Mounts, N., Lamborn, S. D., & Steinberg, L. (1993). Parenting practices and peer group affiliation in adolescence. Child Development, 64, 467–482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capaldi, D. M., & Patterson, G. R. (1989). Psychometric properties of fourteen latent constructs from the Oregon Youth Study. New York: Springer–Verlag.CrossRef
Caspi, A., McClay, J., Moffitt, T. E., Mill, J., Martin, J., Craig, I. W., et al. (2002). Role of genotype in the cycle of violence in maltreated children. Science, 297, 851–854.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, X., Li, D., Li, Z., Li, B., & Liu, M. (2000). Sociable and prosocial dimensions of social competence in Chinese children: Common and unique contributions to social, academic, and psychological adjustment. Developmental Psychology, 36, 302–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Garmezy, N. (Eds.). (1993). Milestones in the development of resilience [Special Issue]. Development and Psychopathology, 5, 497–774.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Lynch, M. (1993). Toward an ecological/transactional model of community violence and child maltreatment: Consequences for children's development. Psychiatry, 56, 96–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Rogosch, F. A. (1997). The role of self-organization in the promotion of resilience in maltreated children. Development and Psychopathology, 9, 797–815.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D., Rogosch, F. A., Lynch, M., & Holt, K. D. (1993). Resilience in maltreated children: Processes leading to adaptive outcome. Development and Psychopathology, 5, 629–647.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conger, R. D., Ge, X., Elder, G. H., Lorenz, F. O., & Simons, R. L. (1994). Economic stress, coercive family process, and developmental problems of adolescents. Child Development, 65, 541–561.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowen, E. L., Wyman, P. A., Work, W. C., Kim, J. Y., Fagen, D. B., & Magnus, K. B. (1997). Follow-up of young stress-affected and stress-resilient urban children. Development and Psychopathology, 9, 565–577.Google Scholar
Darling, N., & Steinberg, L. (1993). Parenting style as context: An integrative model. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 487–496.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deater-Deckard, K., Dodge, K. A., Bates, J. E., & Pettit, G. S. (1996). Physical discipline among African American and European American mothers: Links to children's externalizing behaviors. Developmental Psychology, 32, 1065–1072.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dishion, T. J., Patterson, G. R., Stoolmiller, M., & Skinner, M. L. (1991). Family, school, and behavioral antecedents to early adolescent involvement with antisocial peers. Developmental Psychology, 27, 172–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodge, K. A., Bates, J. E., & Pettit, G. S. (1990). Mechanisms in the cycle of violence. Science, 250, 1678–1683.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., & Bates, J. E. (1994). Socialization mediators of the relation between socioeconomic status and child conduct problems. Child Development, 65, 649–665.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., & Bates, J. E. (1997). How the experience of early physical abuse leads children to become chronically aggressive. In D. Cicchetti & S. L. Toth (Eds.), Rochester Symposium on Developmental Psychopathology: Vol. 8. Developmental perspectives on trauma (pp. 263–288). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.
Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., Bates, J. E., & Valente, E. (1995). Social information-processing patterns partially mediate the effect of early physical abuse on later conduct problems. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 104, 632–643.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., McClaskey, C. L., & Brown, M. (1986). Social competence in children. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 51(2, Serial No. 213).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodge, K. A., Price, J. M., Bachorowski, J., & Newman, J. P. (1990). Hostile attributional biases in severely aggressive adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 99, 385–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Egeland, B., & Farber, E. (1987). Invulnerability among abused and neglected children. In E. J. Anthony & B. Cohler (Eds.), The invulnerable child (pp. 253–288). New York: Guilford Press.
Foley, D. L., Eaves, L. J., Wormley, B., Silberg, J. L., Maes, H. H., Kuhn, J., et al. (2004). Childhood adversity, monoamine oxidase A genotype, and risk for conduct disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 61, 738–744.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garbarino, J. (1995). Raising children in a socially toxic environment. San Francisco, CA: Jossey–Bass.
Gershoff, E. T. (2002). Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 539–579.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollingshead, A. B. (1979). Four-Factor Index of Social Status. Unpublished manuscript, Yale University, New Haven, CT.
Johnson, R. M., Kotch, J. B., Catellier, D. J., Winsor, J. R., Dufort, V., Hunter, W., et al. (2002). Adverse behavioral and emotional outcomes from child abuse and witnessed violence. Child Maltreatment, 7, 179–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, H. B. (1999). Toward an understanding of resilience: A critical review of definitions and models. In M. D. Glantz & J. L. Johnson (Eds.), Resilience and development: Positive life adaptations. Longitudinal research in the social and behavioral sciences (pp. 17–83). New York: Kluwer.
Keiley, M. K., Bates, J. E., Dodge, K. A., & Pettit, G. S. (2000). A cross-domain growth analysis: Externalizing and internalizing behaviors during 8 years of childhood. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 28, 161–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keiley, M. K., Howe, T. R., Dodge, K. A., Bates, J. E., & Pettit, G. S. (2001). The timing of child physical maltreatment: A cross-domain growth analysis of impact on adolescent externalizing and internalizing problems. Development and Psychopathology, 13, 891–912.Google Scholar
Ladd, G. W., Kochenderfer, B. J., & Coleman, C. C. (1997). Classroom peer acceptance, friendship, and victimization: Distinct relational systems that contribute uniquely to children's school adjustment? Child Development, 68, 1181–1197.Google Scholar
Lansford, J. E., Criss, M. M., Pettit, G. S., Dodge, K. A., & Bates, J. E. (2003). Friendship quality, peer group affiliation, and peer antisocial behavior as moderators of the link between negative parenting and adolescent externalizing behavior. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 13, 161–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lansford, J. E., Deater-Deckard, K., Dodge, K. A., Bates, J. E., & Pettit, G. S. (2004). Ethnic differences in the link between physical discipline and later adolescent externalizing behaviors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45, 801–812.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lansford, J. E., Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., Bates, J. E., Crozier, J., & Kaplow, J. (2002). A 12-year prospective study of the long-term effects of early child physical maltreatment on psychological, behavioral, and academic problems in adolescence. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 156, 824–830.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lochman, J. E., & Wells, K. C. (2002). Contextual social–cognitive mediators and child outcome: A test of the theoretical model in the coping power program. Development and Psychopathology, 14, 945–967.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luthar, S. S. (1991). Vulnerability and resilience. A study of high-risk adolescents. Child Development, 62, 600–616.Google Scholar
Luthar, S. S., & Cicchetti, D. (2000). The construct of resilience: Implications for interventions and social policies. Development and Psychopathology, 12, 857–885.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luthar, S. S., Cicchetti, D., & Becker, B. (2000). The construct of resilience: A critical evaluation and guidelines for future work. Child Development, 71, 543–562.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, M., & Cicchetti, D. (1998). An ecological–transactional analysis of children and contexts: The longitudinal interplay among child maltreatment, community violence, and children's symptomatology. Development and Psychopathology, 10, 235–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maccoby, E. E. (1990). Gender and relationships: A developmental account. American Psychologist, 45, 513–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manly, J. T., Kim, J. E., Rogosch, F. A., & Cicchetti, D. (2001). Dimensions of child maltreatment and children's adjustment: Contributions of developmental timing and subtype. Development and Psychopathology, 13, 759–782.Google Scholar
McClelland, G. H., & Judd, C. M. (1993). Statistical difficulties of detecting interactions and moderator effects. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 376–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGloin, J. M., & Widom, C. S. (2001). Resilience among abused and neglected children grown up. Development and Psychopathology, 13, 1021–1038.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLoyd, V. (1998). Socioeconomic disadvantage and child development. American Psychologist, 53, 185–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molnar, B. E., Buka, S. L., Brennan, R. T., Holton, J. K., & Earls, F. (2003). A multilevel study of neighborhoods and parent-to-child physical aggression: Results from the Project on Human Development in Chicago neighborhoods. Child Maltreatment, 8, 84–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moran, P. B., & Eckenrode, J. (1992). Protective personality characteristics among adolescent victims of maltreatment. Child Abuse and Neglect, 16, 743–754.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muthen, L. K., & Muthen, B. O. (2001). Mplus user's guide. Los Angeles: Muthen & Muthen.
National Research Council. (1993). Understanding child abuse and neglect. Washington, DC: Author.
Ng-Mak, D. S., Salzinger, S., Feldman, R. S., & Stueve, C. A. (2004). Pathologic adaptation to community violence among inner-city youth. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 74, 196–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogbu, J. U. (1985). A cultural ecology of competence among inner-city Blacks. In M. B. Spencer, G. K. Brookins, & W. R. Allen (Eds.), Beginnings: The social and affective development of Black children (pp. 44–66). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Patterson, G. R., Reid, J., & Dishion, T. J. (1992). Antisocial boys. Eugene, OR: Castilia.
Pettit, G. (2000). Mechanisms in the cycle of maladaptation: The life-course perspective. Prevention and Treatment, 3, Article 35. Retrieved from http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/pre0030035c.html.Google Scholar
Pettit, G. S., Bates, J. E., & Dodge, K. A. (1997). Supportive parenting, ecological context, and children's adjustment: A seven-year longitudinal study. Child Development, 68, 908–923.Google Scholar
Pettit, G. S., Bates, J. E., Dodge, K. A., & Meece, D. W. (1999). The impact of after-school peer contact on early adolescent externalizing problems is moderated by parental monitoring, neighborhood safety, and prior adjustment. Child Development, 70, 768–778.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, J. K., & Vandell, D. L. (1994). Low-income children's after-school care: Are there beneficial effects of after-school programs? Child Development, 65, 440–456.Google Scholar
Rogosch, F. A., Cicchetti, D., & Aber, J. L. (1995). The role of child maltreatment in early deviations in cognitive and affective processing abilities and later peer relationship problems. Development and Psychopathology, 7, 591–609.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rutter, M. (1985). Resilience in the face of adversity: Protective factors and resistance to psychiatric disorder. British Journal of Psychiatry, 147, 598–661.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schafer, J. L., & Graham, J. W. (2002). Missing data: Our view of the state of the art. Psychological Methods, 7, 147–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwab-Stone, M. E., Ayers, T. S., Kasprow, W., Voyce, C., Barone, C., Shriver, T., et al. (1995). No safe haven: A study of violence exposure in an urban community. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 34, 1343–1352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shields, A., Ryan, R. M., & Cicchetti, D. (2001). Narrative representations of caregivers and emotion dysregulation as predictors of maltreated children's rejection by peers. Developmental Psychology, 37, 321–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinberg, L., Elmen, J. D., & Mounts, N. S. (1989). Authoritative parenting, psychosocial maturity, and academic success among adolescents. Child Development, 60, 1424–1426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stouthamer-Loeber, M., Loeber, R., Homish, D. L., & Wei, E. (2001). Maltreatment of boys and the development of disruptive and delinquent behavior. Development and Psychopathology, 13, 941–955.Google Scholar
Straus, M. A., & Gelles, R. J. (Ed.). (1990). Physical violence in American families: Risk factors and adaptations to violence in 8145 families. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Toth, S. L., Manly, J. T., & Cicchetti, D. (1992). Child maltreatment and vulnerability to depression. Development and Psychopathology, 4, 97–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trickett, P. K. (1997). Sexual and physical abuse and the development of social competence. In S. S. Luthar, J. A. Burack, D. Cicchetti, & J. R. Weisz (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology: Perspectives on adjustment, risk, and disorder (pp. 390–416). New York: Cambridge University Press.
US Department of Health and Human Services. (2000). Child maltreatment 1998: Reports from the states to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System. Washington, DC: Author.