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This meta-analytic review examines the association between attachment and internalizing symptomatology during childhood, and compares the strength of this association with that for externalizing symptomatology. Based on 42 independent samples (N = 4,614), the association between insecurity and internalizing symptoms was small, yet significant (d = 0.15, CI 0.06~0.25) and not moderated by assessment age of internalizing problems. Avoidance, but not resistance (d = 0.03, CI - 0.11~0.17) or disorganization (d = 0.08, CI - 0.06~0.22), was significantly associated with internalizing symptoms (d = 0.17, CI 0.03~0.31). Insecurity and disorganization were more strongly associated with externalizing than internalizing symptoms. Discussion focuses on the significance of attachment for the development of internalizing versus externalizing symptomatology.

This study addresses the extent to which insecure and disorganized attachments increase risk for externalizing problems using meta-analysis. From 69 samples (N -5,947), the association between insecurity and externalizing problems was significant, d = 0.31 (95% CI: 0.23, 0.40). Larger effects were found for boys (d = 0.35), clinical samples (d = 0.49), and from observation-based outcome assessments (d = 0.58). Larger effects were found for attachment assessments other than the Strange Situation. Overall, disorganized children appeared at elevated risk (d = 0.34, 95% CI: 0.18, 0.50), with weaker effects for avoidance (d = 0.12, 95% CI: 0.03, 0.21) and resistance (d = 0.11, 95% CI: -0.04, 0.26). The results are discussed in terms of the potential significance of attachment for mental health.

This meta-analytic review examines the association between early attachment (assessed at 1-5 years) and child temperament (assessed at birth-12 years), and compares the strength of this association with recently documented meta-analytic associations between early attachment and social competence, externalizing behavior, and internalizing symptoms. Based on 109 independent samples (N = 11,440) of diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, temperament was weakly associated with attachment (in) security (d = .14, CI [0.08, 0.19]) but modestly associated with resistant attachment (d = .30, CI [0.21, 0.40]). Temperament was not significantly associated with avoidant (d = .10, CI [-0.02, 0.19]) or disorganized (d = .11, CI [-0.03, 0.25]) attachment. Across developmental domains, early attachment security was more strongly associated with social competence and externalizing behaviors than internalizing symptoms and temperament.

Background Participant and Public Involvement in youth mental health research aims at making research more responsive to the needs of youth struggling with mental health issues, their parents, and mental health professionals and other stakeholders. Do characteristics of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in youth mental health research align with transparency and replication prerequisites as necessary conditions for translation? Relatedly, the question is addressed whether co‐authorship should be assigned to youth involved in the study. Methods Here we address these questions re‐visiting 50 PPI studies included in two recent systematic reviews of PPI on characteristics that are pertinent to questions about transparency, replicability, translatability, and co‐authorship in PPI research. Results Almost two‐third of the studies on youth mental health incorporating PPI translate their results to policy or practice, mostly as recommendations but sometimes also by dissemination of (online) interventions. At the same time the authors of a substantial majority of the studies (70%) also suggest the need for further work on their results, for example, in randomized controlled trials to validate the outcome of their exploratory inquiry. Only a quarter of the studies using PPI met the conditions for replicability, thus a majority of the PPI studies suggest premature translation of results. Authorship to involved participants was assigned in 24% of the studies. Conclusions “Anything goes” for PPI in an exploratory stage to generate fruitful hypotheses. Translation of the findings of PPI studies however require a firm evidence base of replicated results. Radical merging of research and action in participatory action research seems incompatible with replicable and therefore translatable inquiry. Assigning co‐authorship to PPI representatives is often at odds with current guidelines for authorship. More evidence from randomized trials on the translational impact of PPI is needed before grant foundations should require PPI in grant proposals. In the paper we argue that “Anything goes” (Feyerabend) when using PPI in an exploratory way to generate fruitful hypotheses. Translation of the findings of PPI studies however require a firm evidence base of replicated results. Radical merging of research and action in participatory action research seems incompatible with replicable and therefore translatable inquiry. Assigning co‐authorship to PPI representatives is often at odds with current guidelines for authorship. More evidence from randomized trials on translational impact of PPI is needed before grant foundations should expect or even require PPI in grant proposals.

Although various theories describe mechanisms leading to differential parenting of boys and girls, there is no consensus about the extent to which parents do treat their sons and daughters differently. The last meta-analyses on the subject were conducted more than fifteen years ago, and changes in gender-specific child rearing in the past decade are quite plausible. In the current set of meta-analyses, based on 126 observational studies (15,034 families), we examined mothers' and fathers' differential use of autonomy-supportive and controlling strategies with boys and girls, and the role of moderators related to the decade in which the study was conducted, the observational context, and sample characteristics. Databases of Web of Science, ERIC, PsychInfo, Online Contents, Picarta, and Proquest were searched for studies examining differences in observed parental control of boys and girls between the ages of 0 and 18 years. Few differences were found in parents' use of control with boys and girls. Parents were slightly more controlling with boys than with girls, but the effect size was negligible (d = 0.08). The effect was larger, but still small, in normative groups and in samples with younger children. No overall effect for gender-differentiated autonomy-supportive strategies was found (d = 0.03). A significant effect of time emerged: studies published in the 1970s and 1980s reported more autonomy-supportive strategies with boys than toward girls, but from 1990 onwards parents showed somewhat more autonomy-supportive strategies with girls than toward boys. Taking into account parents' gender stereotypes might uncover subgroups of families where gender-differentiated control is salient, but based on our systematic review of the currently available large data base we conclude that in general the differences between parenting of boys versus girls are minimal.

The evidence for negative influences of maternal stress during pregnancy on child cognition remains inconclusive. This study tested the association between maternal prenatal stress and child intelligence in 4,251 mother-child dyads from a multiethnic population-based cohort in the Netherlands. A latent factor of prenatal stress was constructed, and child IQ was tested at age 6 years. In Ehitch and Caribbean participants, prenatal stress was not associated with child IQ after adjustment for maternal IQ and socioeconomic status. In other ethnicities no association was found; only in the Moroccan/Turkish group a small negative association between prenatal stress and child IQ was observed. These results suggest that prenatal stress does not predict child IQ, except in children from less acculturated minority groups.

Introduction The infant–parent relationship is theorized to be related to the origins of psychotic experiences, given the key role of infant–parent attachment and early‐life caregiving in children's neurodevelopmental trajectories. Yet, the magnitude of this association is not well understood, and research is often based on self‐reports. We examined the relationship of disconnected and extremely insensitive parenting and disorganized infant attachment with the occurrence of psychotic experiences in childhood and adolescence. We additionally examined the role of maternal experiences of loss, a hypothesized antecedent of disconnected parenting, disorganized attachment, and psychotic experiences. Methods This prospective study (N = 627) is embedded in the Generation R Study. Maternal experiences of loss within 2 years of the child's birth were self‐reported. Parenting behaviors (based on continuous scores) and the infant–parent attachment were observed when infants were 14 months old. Psychotic experiences were self‐reported via questionnaires at ages 10 and 14 years. We used a structural equation model adjusted for covariates to assess the association between maternal loss experiences, parenting behaviors, infant disorganized attachment, and psychotic experiences. Results Extreme insensitive parenting was associated with more hallucinations and delusions at age 14 years (hallucinations OR = 1.34, 95% CI = 1.07–1.66; delusions OR = 1.31, 95% CI = 1.02–1.68). Disorganized infant attachment and disconnected parenting were not related to psychotic experiences. Maternal experiences of loss were not associated with psychotic experiences, and we found no evidence for a pathway between maternal experiences of loss, parenting behaviors, or disorganized attachment, and subsequent psychotic experiences. Conclusion This study suggests that the role of disorganized infant–parent attachment in the risk of psychotic experiences of children from the general population might be smaller than expected. Instead, our results suggest that adverse caregiving behaviors related to harsh and maltreating parenting very early in development may predict psychotic experiences in adolescence. This study suggests that the role of disorganized infant–parent attachment in the risk of psychotic experiences of children from the general population might be smaller than expected. Instead, results suggest that adverse caregiving behaviors related to harsh and maltreating parenting very early in development may predict psychotic experiences in adolescence.

In Wertz et al. (2019), parents' polygenic scores of educational attainment (PGS‐EA) predicted parental sensitive responses to the child's needs for support, as observed in a dyadic task (i.e., observed sensitivity). We aimed to replicate and expand these findings by combining longitudinal data, child genotype data and several polygenic scores in the Generation R Study. Mother–child dyads participated in two developmental periods, toddlerhood (14 months old; n = 648) and early childhood (3–4 years old, n = 613). Higher maternal PGS‐EA scores predicted higher observed sensitivity in toddlerhood (b = 0.12, 95% CI 0.03, 0.20) and early childhood (b = 0.16, 95% CI 0.08, 0.24). Child PGS‐EA was significantly associated with maternal sensitivity in early childhood (b = 0.11, 95% CI 0.02, 0.21), and the effect of maternal PGS‐EA was no longer significant when correcting for child PGS‐EA. A latent factor of PGSs based on educational attainment, intelligence (IQ) and income showed similar results. These polygenic scores might be associated with maternal cognitive and behavioral skills that help shape parenting. Maternal PGSs predicted observed sensitivity over and above the maternal phenotypes, showing an additional role for PGSs in parenting research. In conclusion, we replicated the central finding of Wertz et al. (2019) that parental PGS‐EA partially explains parental sensitivity. Our findings may be consistent with evocative gene–environment correlation (rGE), emphasizing the dynamic nature of parenting behavior across time, although further research using family trios is needed to adequately test this hypothesis. We replicated the Dunedin study on the relation between the polygenic score for educational attainment and observed sensitivity but also showed that the children's genotypic make‐up has to be taken into account. Our results point to the role of evocative gene–environment correlation in the dynamic interactions between parents and children.

Generations of researchers have tested and used attachment theory to understand children’s development. To bring coherence to the expansive set of findings from small-sample studies, the field early on adopted meta-analysis. Nevertheless, gaps in understanding intergenerational transmission of individual differences in attachment continue to exist. We discuss how attachment research has been addressing these challenges by collaborating in formulating questions and pooling data and resources for individual-participant-data meta-analyses. The collaborative model means that sharing hard-won and valuable data goes hand in hand with directly and intensively interacting with a large community of researchers in the initiation phase of research, deliberating on and critically reviewing new hypotheses, and providing access to a large, carefully curated pool of data for testing these hypotheses. Challenges in pooling data are also discussed.

Purpose The aim of the current meta-analysis was to provide an estimate of the prevalence of physical and emotional neglect by integrating prevalence figures from the body of research reporting on neglect. An attempt was also made to unravel the substantial variation in prevalence figures reported in primary studies by analyzing the effects of procedural factors and sample characteristics on combined prevalence rates. Methods Studies providing prevalence rates of child neglect were searched using electronic databases, exploring specialized journals, and by searching references of publications for other relevant studies. Data were extracted using a coding system. Intercoder reliability was satisfactory. A comprehensive meta-analysis was conducted. Results Child physical neglect prevalence rates were found for 13 independent samples with a total of 59,406 participants, and child emotional neglect prevalence rates were found for 16 independent samples with a total of 59,655 participants. The overall estimated prevalence was 163/1,000 for physical neglect, and 184/1,000 for emotional neglect, with no apparent gender differences. The influence of research design factors on the prevalence of physical neglect was more pronounced than on the prevalence of emotional neglect. Studies on physical neglect in ‘low-resource’ countries were conspicuously absent. Conclusions Child neglect is a problem of considerable extent, but seems to be a neglected type of maltreatment in scientific research. This is illustrated by the deplorable dearth of studies on child neglect, especially in low-resource countries. Recommendations for the design of future prevalence studies are proposed.