Relationships between child general personality characteristics, parenting & psychopathology: evidence for the spectrum idea

Objective: The spectrum hypothesis postulates that differences between normal and clinical samples are confined to mean level differences. This idea is elaborated by exploring whether the covariation between child psychopathology, child personality, and parenting can be generalized across samples of referred and non-referred children. It is further investigated whether the findings can be replicated across time. Method: Mothers of 205 referred and 596 non-referred children completed a personality, parenting and psychopathology questionnaire at two measurement moments (average interval 30 months). Results: Results showed significant mean level differences for all the variables at both measurement times. Both personality and parenting explained problem behavior, with only small differences in strength of the effects across samples. Four parenting by personality interactions were present at both T1 and T2: Benevolence by Negative control, Benevolence by Positive parenting, and Conscientiousness by Negative control predicting externalizing behavior, and Emotional stability by Positive parenting predicting internalizing behavior. Conclusion: This study shows that a) moderators of problem behavior operate similarly in the two samples, thus corroborating the elaborated spectrum idea, and b) both child general personality and parenting are important to consider in the assessment and for the selection of an appropriate treatment for children’s psychopathology