In view of the theory that the attachment relationship provides a foundation for the development of emotion regulation, here, we evaluated (a) whether change in attachment security from 4 to 6 years predicts change in emotion regulation from 6 to 8 years and (b) whether 5-HTTLPR moderates this relation in a Norwegian community sample (n ϭ 678, 99.7% Caucasian). Attachment was measured with the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task, and teachers completed the Emotion Regulation Checklist. Attachment security was modestly stable, with children becoming more secure over time. Regression analyses revealed that increased attachment security from 4 to 6 forecasted increases in emotion regulation from 6 to 8 and decreased attachment security forecasted decreases in emotion regulation. This effect was strongest among the 5-HTTLPR short-allele homozygotes and, according to competitive model fitting, in a differential-susceptibility manner.

Background: Four explanations for the concurrent and prospective associations between temperament and psychopathology in children have been suggested: predisposition, complication/scar, common cause/continuity, and pathoplasty/exacerbation. Because the confounding effects of common causes have not been ruled out in prior work, the support for the various explanations is uncertain. Methods: Screen-stratified community samples of 4-year olds in Trondheim, Norway (n = 1,042), and 3-year olds in Barcelona, Spain (n = 622), were assessed biennially for symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity (ADHD), oppositional defiant (ODD), conduct (CD), anxiety, and depressive disorders through interviewer-based psychiatric interviews across four waves of data collection. The parents completed child temperament ratings. The data were analyzed with random and fixed effects regression adjusted for all time-invariant unmeasured confounders (e.g., genetics, common methods bias, item overlap). Results: In both Norway and Spain and across ages, negative affect predisposed children to symptoms of all disorders except CD, low effortful control predisposed children to ADHD and ODD-symptoms, and surgency predisposed children to increased ADHD-symptoms. Complication effects were observed in the Spanish children for ADHD-symptoms, which increased surgency and diminished effortful control, and for ODD-symptoms, which decreased surgency. The common cause and pathoplasty/exacerbation explanations were not supported. Conclusions: The present results are consistent with the view that temperament plays a causal role in the development of symptoms of psychiatric disorders in children. Because temperament is malleable, interventions targeting the affective, attentional, and behavioral regulatory components of temperament may reduce psychopathology in children.

Background The term ‘stability’ has different meanings, and its implications for the etiology, prevention, and treatment of depression vary accordingly. Here, we identify five types of stability in childhood depression, many undetermined due to a lack of research or inconsistent findings. Methods Children and parents (n = 1,042) drawn from two birth cohorts in Trondheim, Norway, were followed biennially from ages 4–14 years. Symptoms of major depressive disorder (MDD) and dysthymia were assessed with the Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment (only parents) and the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment (age 8 onwards). Results (a) Stability of form: Most symptoms increased in frequency. The symptoms’ importance (according to factor loadings) was stable across childhood but increased from ages 12–14, indicating that MDD became more coherent. (b) Stability at the group level: The number of symptoms of dysthymia increased slightly until age 12, and the number of symptoms of MDD and dysthymia increased sharply between ages 12–14. (c) Stability relative to the group (i.e., ‘rank‐order’) was modest to moderate and increased from ages 12–14. (d) Stability relative to oneself (i.e., intraclass correlations) was stronger than stability relative to the group and increased from age 12–14. (e) Stability of within‐person changes: At all ages, decreases or increases in the number of symptoms forecasted similar changes two years later, but more strongly so between ages 12–14. Conclusions Across childhood, while most symptoms of MDD and dysthymia become more frequent, they are equally important. The transition to adolescence is a particularly vulnerable period: The depression construct becomes more coherent, stability increases, the level of depression increases, and such an increase predicts further escalation. Even so, intervention at any time during childhood may have lasting effects on reducing child and adolescent depression.

Insecure attachment to parents consistently correlates with adolescent depression. However, the order of cause and effect, the impact of confounding, and gender disparities in this relationship remain unresolved. The present study therefore examined the prospective associations between attachment relationships to mothers and fathers and depressive symptoms in a community sample of Spanish children (n=904; 49.4% females) assessed biennially from age 10-16 years, net of all unmeasured time-invariant confounding. Insecure relationships predicted depressive symptoms, and more so among girls, but depressive symptoms also forecasted worsened attachment relationships.At ages 12-14, mother-child attachment proved to be more important for the development of depressive symptoms than father-child attachment. These findings reveal a pattern of reciprocal influence between attachment relationships and depressive symptoms that appears to vary as a function of the parental and child's gender and developmental period. Thus, efforts aimed at strengthening the parent-child attachment relationship -across the transition from middle childhood to adolescence -may prevent or reduce depressive symptoms, especially by targeting mothers and female adolescents.

Although effortful control (EC), a regulatory aspect of temperament, is associated with a wide range of developmental outcomes, knowledge about EC promoters is scarce. This study explored whether secure attachment promoted the development of EC from preschool to school age in a community sample of 903 Norwegian children. EC was measured using the parent-reported Children's Behavior Questionnaire at four (T1) and six (T2) years of age, and attachment was measured using the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task at T1. Previous research has indicated that a child's gender and socioeconomic status are possible covariates of EC; hence, these factors were included in the analyses. Despite considerable rank-order stability in EC, secure attachment contributed to an increase in EC. Furthermore, gender moderated the effect of attachment: secure attachment promoted EC in boys only. These findings emphasize preschool boys' need for emotional security to facilitate effortful capacities in their transition to school.