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This research was supported by Grants 50907 and 01666 from the National Institutes of Health and Grant 25630 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (to D.S.S). We thank the staff of the Pitt Mother & Child Project and the study families for making this research possible.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Rochelle F. Hentges, Owerko Centre, Third Floor CDC Building, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada ; E-mail: [email protected].Impulsivity has been identified as a risk factor for a wide array of maladaptive outcomes in adolescence and early adulthood, including heightened aggression, substance use, and risky sexual behavior (Colder & Chassin, 1997; Fergusson, Boden, & Horwood, 2013; Kahn, Kaplowitz, Goodman, & Emans, 2002; Nagin & Tremblay, 2001). In particular, previous research with the New Zealand birth cohort has found that low self-control in the toddler years is associated with greater externalizing problems much later in life, including heightened criminal behavior (e.g., Caspi, Moffitt, Newman, & Silva, 1996; Moffitt et al., 2011; Moffitt, Poulton, & Caspi, 2013). While impulsivity has also been associated with greater substance use and risky sexual behavior (Colder & Chassin, 1997; Cooper, Agocha, & Sheldon, 2000; Oldehinkel, Hartman, De Winter, Veenstra, & Ormel, 2004), much of this research is limited to studying impulsivity in adolescence or adulthood (for notable exceptions, see Caspi et al., 1996; Dodge et al., 2009; Sitnick, Shaw, & Hyde, 2014). Identifying early risk factors is an important first step in designing effective prevention and intervention programs, as early preventative programs can disrupt the developmental processes related to the emergence of later problem behaviors (Connell et al., 2008). Thus, the first aim of this study is to build on previous work and examine how impulsivity at age 2 predicts aggression, substance use, and risk sexual behavior during adolescence and early adulthood.
In addition, developmental psychopathology frameworks emphasize the importance of the interplay between social contexts and individual child attributes in predicting adjustment (Cicchetti & Rogosch, 1996). Because of children's greater physical and psychological dependence during the toddler years, parenting behaviors are particularly salient aspects of the environmental context (Maccoby, 1992). However, longitudinal research examining the mutual interplay of parenting and impulsivity during toddlerhood has generally been constrained to examining developmental consequences in early childhood,...