Early adolescents’ temperament and the development of internalizing problems in three countries

Among the potential mechanisms proposed to examine the association between temperament and psychopathology, this study focuses on the risk model (Rothbart, 2004), namely the view that certain temperament dimensions increase the likelihood of developing specific psychopathological symptoms. Previous researchers found an association between temperament factors (e.g., negative and positive affectivity, effortful control) and adolescents’ internalizing problems (Caspi et al., 1995; Chorpita et al., 2000; Eisenberg et al., 2010). However, the relation between temperament and internalizing is not straightforward, and merits further exploration, especially in countries that are less represented in the scientific literature (Henrich et al., 2010). Participants were recruited from the Parenting Across Cultures Study (Lansford et al., 2014). Participants were 541 (T1: Mage = 12.62, SD = .69), their mothers (n = 532), and their fathers (n = 384). Families were drawn from Colombia, Italy, and three ethnic groups in USA. At T1, early adolescents’ frustration, depressive mood, positive affect, and effortful control were assessed via mothers’ and youths’ reports (EATQ; Capaldi & Rothbart, 1992). Early adolescents’ internalizing problems from age 13 (T2) to 15 (T4) were assessed via mothers’ and fathers’ reports (Achenbach, 1991). Latent Growth Curve (LGC) models of internalizing problems were examined. Within the overall sample, the 2 test comparing the linear and the no-growth models supported the need for the slope factor. Multiple-group models were tested across the cultural groups. The mean of the slope was negative (the internalizing problems LGC had an overall decreasing trend) in all cultural groups except in the Hispanic-American and in the Colombian group (in which the slope was not significant). Higher negative emotions and lower effortful control were associated with the intercept; temperamental factors were not significantly related with the slope. These results held across the different cultural groups. This study provides evidence to support a tendency for internalizing problems to decline in a linear fashion from age 13 to 15 years old in Italy and in two ethnic groups in the USA (European Americans and African Americans), whereas it emerged a stable trajectory of such symptoms in Hispanic Americans and in Colombians. In addition, similarly across cultural groups, temperament factors such as high frustration, high sadness, and low effortful control when youths were 12 years old were associated with higher internalizing problems one year later.