Measuring Children's Reward and Punishment Sensitivity: An Initial Psychometric Evaluation of the Contingency Response Rating Scale.

Existing research shows that children's responses to rewards and punishments are essential for understanding attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, and callous-unemotional traits. The present study developed the Contingency Response Rating Scale (CRRS) to fulfill the need for a reliable and valid measure of children's contingency response style that is brief, easy to use in applied settings, and provides additional information to existing clinical measures. We examined the psychometric properties of the CRRS in a sample of 196 children (ages 5-12), most of whom were referred to evaluate attention and behavior problems in an outpatient clinic.

Advancing differential susceptibility research: Development and validation of the temperamental sensitivity Q-scale.

Temperamental sensitivity (TS), which is a correlated suite of traits reflecting a lower threshold of environmental stimulation and heightened responsivity to a range of environmental contexts, is an empirically documented susceptibility factor that increases children's plasticity to supportive and harsh family environments. To expand the limited options for assessing TS, this article tested the psychometric properties of a new Q-set measure (i.e.

Disentangling the relationship between callous-unemotional traits and unsupportive parenting through a developmental lens.

Research suggests that unsupportive parenting practices are consistent but modest risk factors for children's behavioral and social problems, emphasizing the importance in identifying sources of variability in children's vulnerability. To address this research direction, this study examined children's callous-unemotional (CU) traits (i.e.

Why does children's temperamental exuberance increase their vulnerability to externalizing symptoms? A process-oriented approach.

This study examined children's exposure to family adversity, hostile reactivity to parental conflict, and negative family representations as mediators of the prospective relation between their temperamental exuberance and externalizing symptoms. Participants included 243 preschool children ( = 4.60 years; 56% girls) and parents (48% Black; 16% Latinx) in a multi-method and multi-informant study with three annual measurement occasions.

Family-level antecedents of children's patterns of reactivity to interparental conflict: Testing the reformulation of emotional security theory.

Guided by emotional security theory, this study examined the family-level antecedents of children's reaction patterns to interparental conflict in a sample of 243 preschool children ( age = 4.60 years; 48% Black; 16% Latinx; 56% girls) and their parents in the Northeastern United States. Behavioral observations of children's responses to interparental conflict over two annual measurement occasions assessed their tendencies to exhibit four patterns of defending against threat: secure (i.