The capacity to manage emotion is based on the growth of self-regulatory capacities in the early years, but is also affected by situational demands, influences from other people, and the child's goals for regulating emotion in a particular setting. For most children growing up in supportive contexts, the growth of emotional regulation is associated with enhanced psychosocial well-being and socioemotional competence. But for children who are at risk for the development of psychopathology owing to environmental stresses or intrinsic vulnerability (or their interaction), emotional regulation often entails inherent trade-offs that make nonoptimal strategics of managing emotion expectable, perhaps inevitable, in a context of difficult environmental demands and conflicting emotional goals. This analysis discusses how emotional regulation in children at risk may simultaneously foster both resiliency and vulnerability by considering how emotion is managed when children (a) are living with a parent who is depressed, (b) witness or experience domestic violence, or (c) are temperamentally inhibited when encountering novel challenges. In each case, the child's efforts to manage emotion may simultaneously buffer against certain stresses while also enhancing the child's vulnerability to other risks and demands. This double-edged sword of emotional regulation in conditions of risk for children cautions against using “optimal” emotional regulation as an evaluative standard for such children or assuming that emotional regulation necessarily improves psychosocial well-being. It also suggests how the study of emotional regulation must consider the goals for regulating emotion and the contexts in which those goals are sought.

This study built upon earlier work documenting a theoretically derived model of four antecedents of depression, defined by a composite of global self-worth, affect (cheerful to depressed, and hope (hopefulness or hopelessness), among normative samples of adolescents. The four antecedents were: (a) perceived competence/adequacy in peer-salient domains (perceived appearance, peer likability, and athletic competence); (b) peer support; (c) perceived competence/adequacy in parent-salient domains (scholastic competence and behavioral conduct); and (d) parent support. However, not all components are observed in the profiles of individual adolescents. Thus, in this study, we examined the multiple pathways among those reporting depressive reactions (defined by the composite) as well as the different routes to positive adjustment, among those with high scores on the composite. Six profiles were identified among each group. For those reporting depressive reactions, perceived deficiencies in both peer- and parent-salient domains were particularly critical predictors. In contrast, for those reporting positive adjustment, peer and parent support were central components. The discussion emphasized the need to consider individual profile differences in planning interventions for adolescents at risk.

Norepinephrine (NE), dopamine (DA), and serotonin (5HT) are three of the more than thirty neurotransmitters (NTs) in the brain. Axons from a relatively small number of cell bodies located in the midbrain and brainstem branch out to connect with virtually all areas of the brain. Via these connections, these three NTs participate in the regulation of several behavioral systems that help modulate the interaction of the individual with his/her environment. Because the NT systems continue to develop after birth, interactions between the individual and his/her environment after birth may affect the development of these systems and have long-term effects on the individual's behavior. Animal studies indicate that early experience affects behavior and biogenic amine systems in the adult. For instance, one study showed that maternal deprivation, which is analogous to human neglect, affects the NE system in monkeys and may have a long-lasting effect on its development and function. In a previous study, similar relationships between early neglect and the NE system in humans were examined. Our results show that emotionally disturbed children with a history of neglect have lower dopamine-β-hydroxylase (DβH) activity, an enzyme involved in the synthesis of NE, than do children with no history of neglect. Additionally, the children with a history of neglect have lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure, both of which are functions mediated by the NE system, than the other children studied. These results support findings in animal studies that neglect affects the development of the NE system in a long-lasting, if not permanent way.

During the transition from early to middle adolescence there are numerous changes internal to the adolescent, such as the onset of puberty and changes in cognitive functioning, and external to the adolescent in terms of social reactions to the adolescent and changes in expectations. These changes may also be explained in terms of genetic and environmental influences on change and stability. This study employs the longitudinal sample from both waves of the Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development (NEAD) project (395 families). The NEAD project includes adolescent siblings residing in never-divorced families (MZ and DZ twins and full siblings) and in stepfamilies (full, half, and unrelated siblings). The sample was assessed on two measurement occasions, 3 years apart. On average, the first measurement occasion assessed the families during early adolescence and the second measurement occasion occurred during middle adolescence. Composite measures of parent reports, adolescent self-reports and observer ratings of three constructs of adolescent adjustment (antisocial behavior, autonomy, and social responsibility) were examined in this analysis. Each construct showed a different pattern of genetic and environmental contributions to stability and change, suggesting different developmental pathways for each domain of adolescent adjustment. For example, genetic influences were important for both change and stability in antisocial behavior. Stability in social responsibility, on the other hand, was influenced by primarily genetic factors, while nonshared environmental factors were predominantly responsible for change. Finally, genetic and shared environmental influences contributed nearly equally to stability and change in autonomous functioning. These findings emphasize the importance of considering genetic as well as environmental factors when change in development is examined. Additionally, these data provide an armature for a comprehensive developmental theory for each of these domains of adolescent adjustment.

This study examined the extent to which the diverging pathways taken by adolescents and their parents in establishing autonomy and relatedness in their interactions at age 14 served as stage-specific markers of underlying attachment processes that could help predict states of mind regarding attachment of the adolescents 11 years later as young adults. Adolescents in two-parent families (N=73) and their parents, originally selected from either a high school sample or a psychiatrically hospitalized sample, participated in a revealed differences family interaction task when adolescents were 14 years of age. At age 25, subjects were reinterviewed using the Adult Attachment Interview, which yielded ratings of specific states of mind and overall organization of models of attachment relationships. After accounting for the prior psychiatric history of the sample (which was highly related to attachment insecurity) and global indices of functioning in both adolescence and young adulthood, coherence/ security in adults' states of mind regarding attachment was predicted from maternal behaviors promoting adolescent autonomy and relatedness 11 years earlier. One indicator of adult preoccupation with attachment relationships, passivity of thought processes, was predicted from adolescents' autonomy-inhibiting behaviors, specifically from the presence of enmeshing behaviors and the absence of distancing behaviors. Results are interpreted as suggesting that establishing autonomy and relatedness with parents may be an attachment-related, developmental task for both normal and at-risk adolescents, and that serious psychopathology and difficulties establishing autonomy and relatedness in adolescence may represent two independent pathways to insecure attachment models in young adulthood.

This study examined the effects of stressful environments on physiological and affective functioning among 131 maltreated school-aged children attending a summer day camp. Sixty-six nonmaltreated children also attending the camp served as a comparison group. Salivary Cortisol measures were obtained daily at 10:00 a.m. and at 4:00 p.m. Depression was measured using the Child Depression Inventory. Children with scores of 19 or higher were classified as depressed. Internalizing and externalizing behavior problems were determined from the Teacher Report Form of the Child Behavior Checklist. Children with t scores of 70 or higher were classified as having clinical levels of these problems. Maltreated children had slightly elevated afternoon Cortisol concentrations, but their morning concentrations did not differ significantly from those of nonmaltreated children. Neither clinical levels of depression, internalizing, or externalizing problems were predictive of the elevated afternoon values. Depression among maltreated children was, however, associated with altered activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis. Depressed maltreated children had lower morning Cortisol concentrations compared to nondepressed maltreated children and were more likely to show a rise rather than the expected decrease in Cortisol from morning to afternoon. These data replicated earlier findings. There was no evidence that depressed, nonmaltreated children exhibited this change in diurnal Cortisol activity.

Follow-up studies of adolescent depression and conduct disorder have pointed to homotypic continuity, but less information exists about outcomes beyond mental disorders and about the extent to which adolescents with different disorders experience different versus similar difficulties during the transition to adulthood. We assessed the continuity of adolescent disorder by following girls in a complete birth cohort who at age 15 were depressed (n = 27), conduct disordered (n = 37), or without a mental health disorder (n = 341) into young adulthood (age 21) to identify their outcomes in three domains: mental health and illegal behavior, human capital, and relationship and family formation. We found homotypic continuity; in general, depressed girls became depressed women and conduct disordered girls developed antisocial personality disorder symptoms by age 21. Conduct disorder exclusively predicted at age 21: antisocial personality disorder, substance dependence, illegal behavior, dependence on multiple welfare sources, early home leaving, multiple cohabitation partners, and physical partner violence. Depression exclusively predicted depression at age 21. Examples of equifinality (where alternate pathways lead to the same outcome) surfaced, as both adolescent disorders predicted at age 21: anxiety disorder, multiple drug use, early school leaving, low school attainment, any cohabitation, pregnancy, and early child bearing.

Although the construct of regulation is usually applied to ongoing behavior, it also has implications for ongoing cognition and the development of cognitive representations. We propose that subcortical motivational systems influence cortical representations in two general ways. First, they regulate response processes, promoting a general selection of information to which the child is exposed. Second, motivational systems regulate attention, promoting a more selective stabilization of representations for motivationally relevant sources of information. Together with the environment, these regulatory processes shape the child's developing representations. Individual differences in these processes result in cortical representational systems that enhance the motivational systems* ability to detect relevant inputs and to guide behavior in light of them. Examples are provided that focus on fearful children, discussing how their self-representation may contribute to anxious psychopathology.

An important regulatory process in the development of behavior is cognition. However, cognition as a blanket term is far too broad to be useful. Rather, specific types of cognition need to be examined separately. One proposal is that one type of human reasoning evolved in a social context, to solve social problems. Here, we report two experiments that use autism to test a prediction from that theory: that social intelligence should be independent of nonsocial intelligence. Autism was chosen because deficits in social reasoning (“theory of mind”) are well known. The question we tested was whether their theory of mind deficit was dissociable from abstract and relational reasoning ability. In particular, we expected that the abnormalities in the behavioral development of children with autism would be regulated by abnormalities in theory of mind reasoning rather than other forms of reasoning. Children with autism and matched controls were given tests of abstracting reasoning, which did not involve mental state understanding. Results showed that children with autism performed comparably to the control groups, both on a test of transitive inferential reasoning and on a test of analogical reasoning. These results lend support to the specificity of the theory of mind hypothesis for autism and to Cosmides' theory of the evolution of social intelligence. They also show that cognition as a regulatory process in development needs to be examined in highly specific ways.

Within the framework of a cumulation/nesting theory for the emergence of adult psychopathology, a typing structure for alcoholism based upon variations in life course continuity of antisocial behavior over childhood and adulthood was examined for its ability to differentiate symptomatic and life history variations among alcoholic and nonalcoholic men accessed by way of a population-based recruitment strategy. Results supported the theory and identified two alcoholic types, one high on lifetime antisociality (antisocial alcoholic = AAL), the other low (nonantisocial alcoholic = NAAL), and a third nonalcoholic type with low lifetime antisociality. Types differed in age of onset, severity, number, and life course of alcohol problems, measures of social adaptation, amount and severity of other psychopathology, and salience of family history load of alcoholism. Antisociality and alcoholism tended to be nested characteristics.

Problem alcohol use among women is increasingly recognized as an important public health and mental health issue. Younger women appear to be at increased risk for heavy drinking and alcohol-related problems compared to women from earlier cohorts. Understanding the sources for inter- and intra-individual differences in alcohol consumption is an important first step in addressing these trends. We studied the sources underlying variation in alcohol consumption in a sample of 2,163 female twins born in Virginia between 1934 and 1970. Measures of past-year alcohol consumption quantity and frequency were obtained on two occasions across a 5-year interval. Quantity and frequency of consumption declined over age, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Intra-individual correlations over the interval were substantial for frequency of drinking (r = .62) and quantity consumed per drinking occasion (r = .56) but lower for quantity consumed weekly (r = .22). There was significant intrapair resemblance for all measures, with the drinking behavior of identical twin pairs being more similar than that of fraternal pairs. Twin analyses of patterns of change in consumption over a 5-year interval revealed little within-pair similarity in rate of change, with correlations ranging from .06 to .18, suggesting that among young adult to middle-aged women, determinants of changing alcohol consumption are largely individual-specific. There was some evidence for significant age interactions, with the role of individual-specific sources increasing over age.

A general theory of personality and its development is described in terms of four quantitative dimensions of temperament and three quantitative dimensions of character. The four temperament dimensions (harm avoidance, novelty seeking, reward dependence, and persistence) are moderately heritable, moderately stable throughout life, and invariant despite sociocultural influences. The three character dimensions (self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence) mature in a stepwise manner from early childhood throughout adulthood. Transitions between levels of maturity are nonlinear functions of temperament, specific genetic influences, social learning, and random life events. Personality development is quantitatively formulated in terms of nonlinear dynamics of a complex adaptive system. The psychosocial interpretation of personality as a fitness-optimizing process is described and illustrated in terms of available data about the development of different personality configurations. Several quantitative predictions of this theory of personality development are tested, including the sequence of emergence of the different character dimensions, individual differences in the development of stable temperament configurations, and the effects of sociocultural influences. The theoretical predictions agree with available empirical data and suggest many hypotheses for future developmental research, including etiological, dynamic, and therapeutic studies.

Characteristics and processes linked to self and personality functioning are considered as illustrations of resilience in old and very old age. Two self-related processes—coping styles and personal life investment—are investigated as examples of internal resources that the aging person may bring to bear when dealing with the risks of old age. Beyond chronological age as a rough approximation of such risks, this article specifically explores the relationship between physical risks, self-related processes, and level of adaptation in a representative sample of 70- to 103-year-olds. The central hypothesis is that self-related processes may buffer age-related risks, and may to a certain degree preserve or avoid large drops in levels of adaptation. Working on a correlational level of analysis, results indicated that well into old age, the self is able to maintain a relatively high level of adaptation. Also, under conditions of a high degree of physical constraints: (a) both coping styles and personal life investment were associated with resilience; (b) beyond particular coping styles, a selective flexibility in coping was associated with resilience. The degree of physical constraints moderated (c) the adaptiveness of several coping styles and of personal life investment; and (d) extreme physical constraints appeared to limit the possibilities of resilience. The effect of physical constraints on level of adaptation in turn was moderated by age. Consistent with a life-span theory of development, results are interpreted as an example of evidence for the resilience of the aging self and its limits.

The recurrent affective disorders are discussed from the perspective of accumulating inherited and experiential effects on gene expression. Stress and episodes of affective illness are viewed as leaving biochemical and microstructural residues in the central nervous system (CNS) in relation to their patterning, severity, and recurrence. Comorbid factors such as substance abuse and developmental disturbances may also interact with these illness-related variables. In addition to the primary pathological processes, secondary adaptive changes can also be induced, which, in concert with pharmacological interventions, may be sufficient to counter episode occurrences and illness progression. We postulate that the balance of primary pathological and secondary adaptive changes at multiple levels of CNS regulation accounts for recurrence and cyclicity in the affective disorders. The importance of early, effective, long-term interventions in the recurrent affective disorders and the therapeutic potential of several new treatment modalities including repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) are discussed.