The role of infant temperament, middle childhood moral affect, and parental discipline practices in relation to childhood conduct problems

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To examine the role of difficult temperament, middle childhood moral affect, and parental discipline practices in relation to childhood conduct problems.

DESIGN: Twenty-one boys with conduct problems were compared to 23 "wellbehaved" boys on measures of temperament, moral affect, negative and positive parenting and aggressive and delinquent conduct problems. Data was collected from children, parents and each child's class teacher

RESULTS: Children in the conduct problem group had more difficult temperaments as infants, lower moral affect in middle-childhood, and experienced a higher rate of negative parenting in comparison to the control group. Difficult temperament, moral affect and negative parenting were significantly correlated with conduct problems. However, correlational analyses also showed that temperament was related to low moral affect and negative parenting, and that negative parenting was related to low moral affect. Positive parenting was associated with higher levels of self-reported guilt.

CONCLUSIONS: There is a complex relationship between difficult temperament, low moral affect and negative parenting in relation to childhood conduct problems and it appears that there may be different pathways to conduct problems within the childhood-onset group. The implications of these results are discussed in relation to understanding and treating childhood conduct problems.