The current Special Issue marks a major milestone in the history of developmental psychopathology; as the final issue edited by Cicchetti, we have an opportunity to reflect on the remarkable progress of the discipline across the last four decades, as well as challenges and future directions for the field. With contemporary issues in mind, including rising rates of psychopathology, health disparities, and international conflict, as well as rapid growth and accessibility of digital and mobile technologies, the discipline of developmental psychopathology is poised to advance multidisciplinary, developmentally- and contextually- informed research, and to make substantial progress in supporting the healthy development of individuals around the world. We highlight key future directions and challenges for the next generation of developmental psychopathology research including further investigation of culture at multiple levels of analysis, incorporation of macro-level influences into developmental psychopathology research, methods advances to address heterogeneity in translational research, precision mental health, and the extension of developmental psychopathology research across the lifespan.

The field of developmental psychopathology tends to focus on the negative aspects of functioning. However, prosocial behavior and empathy-related responding – positive aspects of functioning– might relate to some aspects of psychopathology in meaningful ways. In this article, we review research on the relations of three types of developmental psychopathology– externalizing problems (EPs), internalizing problems (IPs), and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) – to empathy-related responding (e.g., affective and cognitive empathy, sympathy, personal distress) and prosocial behavior. Empathy-related responding and prosocial behavior generally have been inversely related to EPs, although findings are sometimes reversed for young children and, for empathy, weak for reactive aggression. Some research indicates that children’s empathy (often measured as emotional contagion) and personal distress are positively related to IPs, suggesting that strong sensitivity to others’ emotions is harmful to some children. In contrast, prosocial behaviors are more consistently negatively related to IPs, although findings likely vary depending on the motivation for prosocial behavior and the recipient. Children with ASD are capable of prosocially and empathy-related responding, although parents report somewhat lower levels of these characteristics for ASD children compared to neurotypical peers. Issues in regard to measurement, motivation for prosociality, causal relations, and moderating and mediating factors are discussed.

Two perspectives on the nature of nurture are reviewed, one Mendelian and the other Darwinian, in an effort to draw links between the two and, thereby, integrate them in a developmental modern synthesis, mirroring the one that took place in biology early in the last century. Thus, the heritability of environmental measures and gene-X-environment interaction are discussed with respect to Mendelian nature before turning attention to Darwinian nature and thus the development of reproductive strategies and differential susceptibility to environmental influences. Conclusions are drawn with respect to both frameworks indicating that it is time to abandon the biology-is-destiny resistance to both approaches to studying and thinking about development, especially when it comes to the nature of nurture. Implications for the future development of the field of developmental psychopathology are highlighted.

The integrative nature of developmental psychopathology is its defining and most remarkable feature. Since its inception, often identified with the special issue of Child Development (Cichetti, 1984), this new discipline has shattered barriers and divisions that until then had artificially compartmentalized the study of human development, and perhaps even psychology in general, and it has proposed new ways of integrative thinking about development. One, developmental psychopathology has programmatically integrated research on typical or adaptive and atypical or maladaptive developmental processes and demonstrated how those inform each other. Two, developmental psychopathology has promoted bridges between developmental research and other disciplines. Three, less explicitly but equally importantly, developmental psychopathology has abolished conceptual and empirical barriers that had existed among various theories and perspectives within developmental psychology by creating a welcoming niche for research inspired by theories often historically seen as contradictory or incompatible. Ideas originating in psychoanalytic, learning, cognitive, ethological, and sociocultural theories all find a welcoming home and seamlessly coexist in heuristically productive harmony within developmental psychopathology, inform each other, and generate exciting questions and insights. This eclectic and conceptually inclusive nature is one reason for developmental psychopathology’s lasting appeal and inspirational power.

Researchers have suggested that psychopathic traits among adults may be, at least in part, an adaptive and/or a learned response for securing socially adaptive outcomes in adverse environments, but there is a lack of developmental evidence supporting this hypothesis among adolescents. Therefore, we examined the indirect links from self-perceived adverse environments (parental neglect, socioeconomic status, school competition, neighborhood violence) to evolutionarily relevant social outcomes (social power, dating behavior) through psychopathic traits. A community sample of 396 adolescents completed measures for the study (Mage = 14.64, SD = 1.52). As predicted, there were significant indirect effects from higher levels of parental neglect, school competition, and neighborhood violence to both forms of socially adaptive outcomes through psychopathic traits, but unexpectedly, there were no indirect effects with socioeconomic status. There were also direct effects between environment and socially adaptive outcomes. Results support the hypothesis that psychopathic traits may be, in part, an adaptive and/or learned response to cues from adverse social environments as a means to acquire evolutionarily relevant social outcomes. Interventions could be designed to target the adverse social issues that might be facilitating the development of psychopathy and should be sensitive to the social outcomes adolescents may acquire from these traits.

Youth with different developmental disorders might experience challenges when dealing with facial emotion recognition (FER). By comparing FER and related emotional and cognitive factors across developmental disorders, researchers can gain a better understanding of challenges and strengths associated with each condition. The aim of the present study was to investigate how social anxiety and executive functioning might underlie FER in youth with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and specific learning disorders (SLD). The study involved 263 children and adolescents between 8 and 16 years old divided into three groups matched for age, sex, and IQ: 60 (52 M) with ASD without intellectual disability, 63 (44 M) with SLD, and 140 (105 M) non-diagnosed. Participants completed an FER test, three executive functions’ tasks (inhibition, updating, and set-shifting), and parents filled in a questionnaire reporting their children’s social anxiety. Our results suggest that better FER was consistent with higher social anxiety and better updating skills in ASD, while with lower social anxiety in SLD. Clinical practice should focus on coping strategies in autistic youth who could feel anxiety when facing social cues, and on self-efficacy and social worries in SLD. Executive functioning should also be addressed to support social learning in autism.

Adverse environments are linked to elevated youth antisocial behavior. However, this relation is thought to depend, in part, on genetic susceptibility. The present study investigated whether polygenic risk for antisociality moderates relations between hostile environments and stable as well as dynamic antisocial behaviors across adolescence. We derived two antisocial-linked polygenic risk scores (PRS) (N = 721) based on previous genome-wide association studies. Forms of antisocial behavior (nonaggressive conduct problems, physical aggression, social aggression) and environmental hostility (harsh parenting and school violence) were assessed at age 13, 15, and 17 years. Relations to individual differences stable across adolescence (latent stability) vs. time-specific states (timepoint residual variance) of antisocial behavior were assessed via structural equation models. Higher antisocial PRS, harsh parenting, and school violence were linked to stable elevations in antisocial behaviors across adolescence. We identified a consistent polygenic-environment interaction suggestive of differential susceptibility in late adolescence. At age 17, harsher parenting was linked to higher social aggression in those with higher antisocial PRS, and lower social aggression in those with lower antisocial PRS. This suggests that genetics and environmental hostility relate to stable youth antisocial behaviors, and that genetic susceptibility moderates home environment-antisocial associations specifically in late adolescence.

This study examined the severity of unresolved attachment underlying adolescent identity diffusion. Our sample consisted of 180 inpatient adolescents aged 14 to 18 years (77% female, Mage = 15.13, SD = 1.35; 23% male, Mage = 14.85, SD = 1.41) and 84 age-matched non-clinical adolescents (52% female, Mage = 16.14, SD = 1.21; 48% males, Mage = 15.98, SD = 1.07). We used the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP) interview to assess attachment representations and the Assessment of Identity Development in Adolescence (AIDA) questionnaire to evaluate the severity of identity diffusion. Our results demonstrate a higher amount of unresolved attachment and identity diffusion in the patient sample than in the control sample. Furthermore, patients with an unresolved attachment status scored higher on identity diffusion than those with no unresolved attachment pattern. Interestingly, this was not found in the control group. Furthermore, patients with a greater severity of unresolved attachment showed the highest maladaptive identity development scores. Psychotherapeutic interventions integrating attachment-related aspects might be useful to treat young people with identity diffusion.

This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the role of maternal cognitive functioning and psychopathology in parent-child relationship quality during residential treatment for mothers with Substance Use Disorder (SUD), in order to identify factors that may enhance or limit intervention effects.

We assessed cognitive functioning (Esame Neuropsicologico Breve-2 [ENB-2]) and psychopathology (Symptom Checklist-90 Revised [SCL-90-R]) in 60 mothers diagnosed with SUD (Mage = 30.13 yrs; SD = 6.79) at treatment admission. Parent-child relationship quality was measured during free-play interactions using the Emotional Availability Scales every three months from admission (Child Mage = 17.17m; SD = 23.60) to the 15th month of the residential treatment.

A main effect of maternal psychopathology and an interaction effect of time and cognitive functioning were found. More maternal psychopathology predicted lower mother-child relationship quality. Mothers with higher cognitive functioning presented a better treatment trajectory, with an increase in mother-child relationship quality, whereas mothers with lower cognitive functioning showed a decrease in relationship quality after initial improvement.

These findings suggest that maternal psychopathology and cognitive functioning may influence the treatment of parent-child relationships in the context of SUD, although causality is not yet established. Implications for assessment and intervention are discussed.

Exposure to stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic contributes to psychopathology risk, yet not all children are negatively impacted. The current study examined a parasympathetic biomarker of stress sensitivity, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), as a moderator of the effects of exposure to pandemic stress on child internalizing and externalizing behaviors in a sample of children experiencing economic marginalization. Three to five years pre-pandemic, when children were preschool-aged, RSA during baseline and a challenging parent-child interaction were collected. Mid-pandemic, between November 2020 and March 2021, children’s exposure to pandemic stress and internalizing and externalizing behaviors were collected. Results demonstrated that children who, pre-pandemic, demonstrated blunted parasympathetic reactivity (i.e., no change in RSA relative to baseline) during the dyadic challenge exhibited elevated risk for externalizing behaviors mid-pandemic. Further, this risk was greatest for children exposed to high and moderate levels of pandemic stress. Consistent with diathesis stress and polyvagal frameworks, these conditional effects suggest that blunted parasympathetic reactivity in response to stress in early childhood may escalate the development of externalizing behaviors following stress exposure at school age.

It is unclear how much adolescents’ lives were disrupted throughout the COVID-19 pandemic or what risk factors predicted such disruption. To answer these questions, 1,080 adolescents in 9 nations were surveyed 5 times from March 2020 to July 2022. Rates of adolescent COVID-19 life disruption were stable and high. Adolescents who, compared to their peers, lived in nations with higher national COVID-19 death rates, lived in nations with less stringent COVID-19 mitigation strategies, had less confidence in their government’s response to COVID-19, complied at higher rates with COVID-19 control measures, experienced the death of someone they knew due to COVID-19, or experienced more internalizing, externalizing, and smoking problems reported more life disruption due to COVID-19 during part or all of the pandemic. Additionally, when, compared to their typical levels of functioning, adolescents experienced spikes in national death rates, experienced less stringent COVID-19 mitigation measures, experienced less confidence in government response to the COVID-19 pandemic, complied at higher rates with COVID-19 control measures, experienced more internalizing problems, or smoked more at various periods during the pandemic, they also experienced more COVID-19 life disruption. Collectively, these findings provide new insights that policymakers can use to prevent the disruption of adolescents’ lives in future pandemics.

This 20-year prospective study examined verbal aggression and intense conflict within the family of origin and between adolescents and their close friends as predictors of future verbal aggression in adult romantic relationships. A diverse community sample of 154 individuals was assessed repeatedly from age 13 to 34 years using self-, parent, peer, and romantic partner reports. As hypothesized, verbal aggression in adult romantic relationships was best predicted by both paternal verbal aggression toward mothers and by intense conflict within adolescent close friendships, with each factor contributing unique variance to explaining adult romantic verbal aggression. These factors also interacted, such that paternal verbal aggression was predictive of future romantic verbal aggression only in the context of co-occurring intense conflict between an adolescent and their closest friend. Predictions remained robust even after accounting for levels of parental abusive behavior toward the adolescent, levels of physical violence between parents, and the overall quality of the adolescent’s close friendship. Results indicate the critical importance of exposure to aggression and conflict within key horizontal relationships in adolescence. Implications for early identification of risk as well as for potential preventive interventions are discussed.

The Cognitive Bias (CogBIAS) hypothesis proposes that cognitive biases develop as a function of environmental influences (which determine the valence of biases) and the genetic susceptibility to those influences (which determines the potency of biases). The current study employed a longitudinal, polygenic-by-environment approach to examine the CogBIAS hypothesis. To this end, measures of life experiences and polygenic scores for depression were used to assess the development of memory and interpretation biases in a three-wave sample of adolescents (12–16 years) (N = 337). Using mixed effects modeling, three patterns were revealed. First, positive life experiences (PLEs) were found to diminish negative and enhance positive forms of memory and social interpretation biases. Second, and against expectation, negative life experiences and depression polygenic scores were not associated with any cognitive outcomes, upon adjusting for psychopathology. Finally, and most importantly, the interaction between high polygenic risk and greater PLEs was associated with a stronger positive interpretation bias for social situations. These results provide the first line of polygenic evidence in support of the CogBIAS hypothesis, but also extend this hypothesis by highlighting positive genetic and nuanced environmental influences on the development of cognitive biases across adolescence.

Evidence suggests bidirectional relations between stress, sleep, and depressive symptoms in adolescence and young adulthood. Less research has disaggregated within- and between-person variance in these associations over time or within Latino/a college students. This study examined longitudinal, within-person reciprocal relations between stress, sleep, and depressive symptoms among 181 Latino/a adolescents (Mage = 18.10; SD = 0.41, 35% male) transitioning to college. Participants were assessed in their senior year of high school and annually until their fourth year of college. A random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) was used to parse out within- and between-person sources of variance. Results indicated overall (between-person) relations among depressive symptoms and school/college stress and sleep problems. There were reciprocal within-person links between stress and sleep problems across the first two years of college. Within-person increases in depressive symptoms during the second year of college predicted more stress than usual in the third year, which predicted increased depressive symptoms in the fourth year. More sleep problems than usual in the third year of college predicted higher stress in the fourth year. Findings provide evidence for within-person cross-lagged relations among various domains of adjustment during college and may inform future prevention efforts for incoming Latino/a college students targeting mental health and sleep problems.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms are associated with myriad adverse outcomes, including interpersonal difficulties, but factors that moderate the developmental course and functional impact of ADHD over time are not well understood. The present study evaluated developmental contributions of the triarchic neurobehavioral traits (boldness, meanness, and disinhibition) to ADHD symptomatology and its subdimensions from adolescence to young adulthood. Participants were twins and triplets assessed at ages 14, 17, and 19 (initial N = 1,185, 51.2% female). Path analyses using negative binomial regression revealed that boldness at age 14 was associated with more ADHD symptoms cross-sectionally (especially hyperactivity/impulsivity), but fewer symptoms (especially inattention) at age 19 in the prospective analysis. Notably, inclusion of interpersonal problems at ages 14 and 17 as covariates reduced the latter effect to nonsignificant. Disinhibition concurrently and prospectively predicted higher levels of ADHD symptoms, including both subdimensions, and the prospective effects were partially mediated by greater social impairment at age 17. Meanness prospectively (but not concurrently) predicted higher levels of hyperactivity/impulsivity symptoms. Sex moderated certain associations of meanness and disinhibition with ADHD symptoms. These findings highlight how fundamental neurobehavioral traits shape both psychopathology and adaptive outcomes in the developmental course of ADHD.

Relatively little is known regarding factors that may mitigate the strength of the associations between forms of aggressive behavior and peer victimization. The goal of the current study was to investigate prosocial behavior as a moderator of these links over a 2-year period during middle childhood. Participants included 410 third-grade students (53% boys) and their homeroom teachers. Results indicated that prosocial behavior was associated with lower initial levels of victimization, whereas relational aggression was associated with higher initial levels of victimization. Physical aggression predicted more stable patterns of victimization over time, and prosocial behavior moderated the prospective link from relational aggression to peer victimization; specifically, relational aggression predicted decreases in victimization at higher levels of prosocial behavior and more stable patterns over time when levels of prosocial behavior were low. Further, gender differences were observed in the moderating effect of prosocial behavior on the prospective link from physical aggression to peer victimization, such that it served as a risk factor for boys and a protective factor for girls.

We examined the long-term causal effects of an evidence-based parenting program delivered in infancy on children’s emotion regulation and resting-state functional connectivity (rs-fc) during middle childhood. Families were referred to the study by Child Protective Services (CPS) as part of a diversion from a foster care program. A low-risk group of families was also recruited. CPS-involved families were randomly assigned to receive the target (Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up, ABC) or a control intervention (Developmental Education for Families, DEF) before infants turned 2. Both interventions were home-based, manualized, and 10-sessions long. During middle childhood, children underwent a 6-min resting-state functional MRI scan. Amygdala seed-based rs-fc analysis was completed with intervention group as the group-level predictor of interest. Fifty-seven children (NABC = 21; NDEF = 17; NCOMP = 19; Mage = 10.02 years, range = 8.08–12.14) were scanned successfully. The DEF group evidenced negative left amygdala↔OFC connectivity, whereas connectivity was near zero in the ABC and comparison groups (ABCvsDEF: Cohen’s d = 1.17). ABC may enhance high-risk children’s regulatory neurobiology outcomes ∼8 years after the intervention was completed.

Childhood maltreatment (CM) is experienced by ∼40% of all children at major personal and societal costs. The divergent associations between emotional, physical, and sexual abuse or neglect in childhood and differences in adult emotional functioning and regulation were examined in terms of daily emotion intensity, variability, instability, inertia, and diversity, reported over 30 days by 290 Dutch aged 19-73. Participants described their abuse/neglect experiences retrospectively using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). Dissecting CM effects on adult emotion dynamics may inform theories on the ontogenesis and functioning of emotions, on effects of abuse and neglect, to better understand (dys)functional emotional development, and to prevent their adverse sequelae. Structural equation models (SEM) showed that most types of CM were associated with specific patterns of emotion dynamics, and only emotional abuse had no unique effects on the emotional dynamic indices. Emotional neglect was associated with most measures of emotion dynamics (i.e., less intense, variable, unstable, and diverse emotions). Sexual abuse associated with increases and physical neglect decreases in negative affect variability and instability. Physical abuse was associated with inertia but with a small effect size. Social contact frequency did not mediate much of the relationship between CM types and emotion dynamics.

Emerging adulthood is the time when identity questions are addressed. It is also a time of excessive stress and risk for mental health problems. Different identity statuses relate to different mental health outcomes. Yet, little research has addressed how identity status is interlinked with trauma exposure and post-traumatic stress reactions, especially in multicultural contexts. The current study aimed to explore whether different traumatic experiences are related to the current identity status of university students aged between 18 and 29 years and investigate to what extent trauma-exposed emerging adults of different identity statuses report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD (CPTSD). In total, 2237 university students from Lithuania (n = 791) and Japan (n = 1345) participated in the current study. Identity profiles were revealed by using the Latent Class Analysis approach. Lithuania and Japan were comparable in terms of identity profiles and structure of PTSD/CPTSD. Trauma-exposed emerging adults reported a higher probability of being in troubled diffusion identity status; students in achievement identity status had a lower probability of CPTSD and lower rates of symptoms of disturbances in self-organization. The diffused identity of emerging adults from Lithuania and Japan is associated with trauma exposure, and positive identity is linked with fewer CPTSD reactions.

This study evaluated the role of bidirectional micro- and macro- level positive affect-related processes in the longitudinal coupling of depressive symptoms in parent-adolescent dyads. Using a measurement-burst design, including dyadic experience sampling methods (ESM) and monthly follow-ups over one year, this work investigated associations between (1) parental depressive symptoms and anhedonia and parental daily-life enhancing and dampening responses to youth positive affect; (2) parental daily-life enhancing and dampening and trajectories of youth positive affect, negative affect, and depressive symptoms across one year; and (3) youth developmental trajectories and prospective parental daily-life enhancing and dampening, and parental depressive symptoms and anhedonia at one-year follow-up. Participants included 146 early adolescents (52.1% girls, 47.9% boys; Mage[SD] = 12.71[.86]) and 139 parents (78.7% mothers; Mage[SD] = 44.11[5.08]). Parental enhancing and dampening were measured using a dyadic ESM procedure at baseline and 12-months. Youth completed monthtly questionnaires assessing depressive symptoms and trait positive and negative affect across 12 months. Parents reported on depressive symptoms and anhedonia at baseline and 12-months. Results showed that parental anhedonia negatively related to parental daily-life enhancing, and youths’ perceptions of their parents’ enhancing and dampening reciprocally related to youth emotional development across one year, with downstream implications for parents’ own symptoms of depression.