Parenting influences many aspects of child development, including socio-emotional, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes. Yet most studies report only modest effect sizes. An increasingly likely... Show moreParenting influences many aspects of child development, including socio-emotional, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes. Yet most studies report only modest effect sizes. An increasingly likely explanation is that not all children are equally affected by environmental factors, including parenting. The differential susceptibility theory proposes that some children might be more susceptible to both positive and negative environmental influences, compared to other children. Such differences in susceptibility are thought to be due to genetic, temperamental, or physiological susceptibility factors. In the current thesis, we tested the theory of differential susceptibility of children to the effects of parenting in a large population-based cohort, the Generation R Study. Doing so, we went beyond common methods. First, we investigated differential susceptibility from a developmental perspective by including multiple measures over time. Second, we went beyond single-gene/polymorphisms in the investigation of gene-environment interplay by aggregating genetic variation in a set of dopamine genes. Third, we extended previous research on mild perinatal adversity as a susceptibility factor by examining its moderating role in the association between harsh parenting and hair cortisol levels, taking into account background factors that we demonstrated to be of influence on hair cortisol levels. Show less
Decuyper, M.; Colins, O.F.; Clercq, B. de; Vermeiren, R.; Broekaert, E.; Bijttebier, P.; ... ; Fruyt, F. de 2013
The present study constructed empirically derived subtypes of adolescent offenders based on general traits and examined their associations with psychopathology and psychopathic traits. The sample... Show moreThe present study constructed empirically derived subtypes of adolescent offenders based on general traits and examined their associations with psychopathology and psychopathic traits. The sample included 342 detained minors (172 boys and 170 girls; mean age 15.85 years, SD = 1.07) recruited in various Youth Detention Centers across the Flemish part of Belgium. All adolescents provided self-reports on the quick big five, the youth self report, and the youth psychopathic traits inventory to assess general traits, psychopathology, and psychopathic traits respectively. Latent class analyses based on general personality traits were performed and suggested three personality types, consisting of an emotionally labile, close-minded and goal-oriented class, an undercontrolled class, and an emotionally labile-careless class. These three personality types within detained minors showed particular constellations of general traits and differed meaningfully in terms of their mean-scores on externalizing psychopathology and psychopathy measures. Show less
During early adolescence, there is no association between internalizing behaviour and cannabis use. There is an association between externalizing behaviour and cannabis use, where externalizing... Show moreDuring early adolescence, there is no association between internalizing behaviour and cannabis use. There is an association between externalizing behaviour and cannabis use, where externalizing behaviour precedes cannabis use rather than the other way around. Secondly, during adolescence, there is an association between psychosis vulnerability and cannabis use, where cannabis use predicts psychosis vulnerability and vice versa, suggesting a bi-directional cascading association. Thirdly, during early adolescence, the social skill “self-control” was (unexpectedly) unrelated to cannabis use. Cooperation and assertiveness are associated with cannabis use during this life phase, where higher levels of cooperation decrease the chance of using cannabis and higher levels of assertiveness increase the chance of using cannabis during early adolescence. Cooperation and assertiveness did not differentiate between early and late onset of cannabis use or predict frequency of use. In addition, compared to non-users, cannabis users experience problems only in motivational inhibitory control, not in cognitive inhibitory control. Also, cannabis users experience problems in behavioural impulsivity, which is related to motivational inhibitory control. Lastly, cannabis users have problems with social perception in comparison to non-using controls, particularly when these social perception skills involve emotion recognition. Also, heavy cannabis users experience significantly more psychological problems when they have relatively poor social perception skills. Future research must determine whether the behavioural and cognitive concepts and constructs examined in this thesis in relation to cannabis use should be incorporated in prevention and intervention programs. Show less
