Understanding the Etiology of Externalizing Problems in Young Children: The Roles of Callous-Unemotional Traits and Irritability.

Objective: Callous-unemotional traits (CU), characterized as a lack of guilt and empathy; and irritability, a tendency to show anger and frustration; are 2 risk factors for externalizing behavioral problems. Externalizing problems, CU and irritability are all heritable. However, there is a dearth of studies examining the genetic and environmental associations between the 3 domains.

Study Preregistration: Understanding the Etiology of Externalizing Problems in Young Children: The Roles of Callous-Unemotional Traits and Irritability.

Externalizing behavioral problems in young children are associated with later delinquency and crime, which can cause burdens at both personal and socialeconomic levels. The heterogeneity of externalizing problems emphasizes the importance of examining the etiological mechanisms that underlie externalizing problems and related behaviors. The present study focuses on 2 risk factors for externalizing behavioral problems in early childhood: callous-unemotional traits (CU), characterized as a lack of guilt and empathy, and irritability, a tendency to show anger and frustration.

Using the Flanker Task to Examine Genetic and Environmental Contributions in Inhibitory Control Across the Preschool Period.

The limited research exploring genetic and environmental influences on inhibitory control (IC) in preschoolers has relied on parent ratings or simple delay tasks and has produced mixed results. The present study uses a cognitively-challenging Flanker task to examine genetic and environmental contributions to the development of early IC in a longitudinal sample of 310 same-sex twin pairs (123 MZ; 187 DZ; 51% female) assessed at ages 3, 4 and 5 years. IC was significantly heritable at each age (a: age 3 = .

Personal socio-cultural preferences modulate neural correlates of decisions to socialize with powerful persons.

Social power differences fundamentally shape the behavioral interaction dynamics of groups and societies. While it has long been recognized that individual socio-cultural preferences mitigate social interactions involving persons of power, there is limited empirical data on the underlying neural correlates. To bridge this gap, we asked university student participants to decide whether they were willing to engage in social activities involving their teachers (higher power status), classmates (equal power status), or themselves (control) while functional brain images were acquired.

Influence of culture and age on the self-reference effect.

Relating information to oneself can enhance memory for young and older adults. However, most studies investigating self-referencing have focused on Western populations, for whom the self is considered an independent and distinct entity. Whether self-referencing as a mnemonic strategy similarly benefits East Asians, cultures associated with interdependent self-construal, has been investigated little, particularly with age.