Maternal Borderline Personality Disorder and Child Development: An Examination of Risk Transmission and Statistical Approaches to Inference

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness and children whose mothers have BPD are at elevated risk for poor psychosocial outcomes across their lifespans. A growing body of research endeavors to elucidate mechanisms by which this risk is conferred. Because BPD is associated with many other risk contexts, research in this area must contend with multiple confounding variables. The research contained in this dissertation advances knowledge in this field through two empirical contributions. First, a systematic review of covariate adjustment in statistical analyses examining maternal BPD was conducted. Results suggest substantial heterogeneity in covariate practices, including which variables are treated as covariates and how many covariates are included in statistical models. Recommendations for best practices, including increased reliance on substantive theory for covariate selection and use of graphical causal models, are discussed. Second, the cross-sectional correspondence between maternal BPD, children’s Executive Function (EF) and Theory of Mind (ToM), and children’s psychosocial outcomes were examined. Results revealed significant associations between maternal BPD, children’s EF, and children’s social competence and symptoms of psychopathology. These findings indicate children’s disrupted development of EF may be a mechanism by which risk for poor psychosocial outcomes is conferred. Together, these works contribute to the field of maternal BPD by examining potential risk-conferring mechanisms and elucidating methodological and analytic approaches which might improve inferences in this area. To further advance this field, future research should employ longitudinal designs to examine the co-development of transdiagnostic risk processes, consider experimental designs (such as treatment trials) to rigorously test mechanistic models, and ground methodological and analytic choices in well-articulated causal models whenever possible

Maternal Emotion Dysregulation and the Functional Organization of Preschoolers’ Emotional Expressions and Regulatory Behaviors

While psychopathology in mothers is known to be a significant risk factor for child outcomes, less is known about how emotion dysregulation, a transdiagnostic feature that cuts across many diagnoses, shapes emotion-related parenting practices and the development of emotion regulation in offspring. Building upon previous research that examined the functional relations between emotions and regulatory actions in children, we sought to examine the association of maternal emotion dysregulation and emotion socialization with these functional links in an at risk community sample of mother-preschooler (children ages 36-60 months) dyads which over-sampled for mothers with elevated symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder (n = 68). We found that maternal emotion dysregulation was associated with children displaying more sadness and engaging in less problem solving during the Locked Box Task, which is designed to elicit anger. Maternal emotion dysregulation was also associated with children being more distracted and talking less in the context of sadness. Maternal non-supportive emotion socialization responses were associated with children engaging in more defiant behaviors throughout the task and using less problem solving in the context of happiness, while maternal supportive emotion socialization responses were associated with more play throughout the task and less talking in the context of sadness, above and beyond the effect of maternal emotion dysregulation. These findings indicate that maternal emotion dysregulation and non-supportive emotion socialization practices are both meaningfully associated with the development of aberrant patterns of emotional and behavioral responding during the preschool years

Maternal Emotion Dysregulation and the Functional Organization of Preschoolers’ Emotional Expressions and Regulatory Behaviors

While psychopathology in mothers is known to be a significant risk factor for child outcomes, less is known about how emotion dysregulation, a transdiagnostic feature that cuts across many diagnoses, shapes emotion-related parenting practices and the development of emotion regulation in offspring. Building upon previous research that examined the functional relations between emotions and regulatory actions in children, we sought to examine the association of maternal emotion dysregulation and emotion socialization with these functional links in an at risk community sample of mother-preschooler (children ages 36-60 months) dyads which over-sampled for mothers with elevated symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder (n = 68). We found that maternal emotion dysregulation was associated with children displaying more sadness and engaging in less problem solving during the Locked Box Task, which is designed to elicit anger. Maternal emotion dysregulation was also associated with children being more distracted and talking less in the context of sadness. Maternal non-supportive emotion socialization responses were associated with children engaging in more defiant behaviors throughout the task and using less problem solving in the context of happiness, while maternal supportive emotion socialization responses were associated with more play throughout the task and less talking in the context of sadness, above and beyond the effect of maternal emotion dysregulation. These findings indicate that maternal emotion dysregulation and non-supportive emotion socialization practices are both meaningfully associated with the development of aberrant patterns of emotional and behavioral responding during the preschool years

The use of Preregistration Tools in Ongoing, Longitudinal Cohorts

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A Guide to Posting and Managing Preprints

Posting preprints online allows psychological scientists to get feedback, speed dissemination, and ensure public access to their work. This guide is designed to help psychological scientists post preprints and manage them across the publication pipeline. We review terminology, provide a historical and legal overview of preprints, and give guidance on posting and managing preprints before, during, or after the peer-review process to achieve different aims (e.g., get feedback, speed dissemination, achieve open access). We offer concrete recommendations to authors, including: post preprints that are complete and carefully proof-read; post preprints in a dedicated preprint server that assigns DOIs, provides editable metadata, is indexed by GoogleScholar, supports review and endorsements, and supports version control; include a draft date and information about the paper’s status on the cover page; license preprints with CC BY licenses that permit public use with attribution; and keep preprints up to date after major revisions. Although our focus is on preprints (unpublished versions of a work), we also offer information relevant to postprints (author-formatted, post-peer-review versions of a work) and work that will not otherwise be published (e.g., theses and dissertations)

SRCD Workshop: Tools for Improving Transparency & Replicability

Materials, Templates, and Links for the SRCD 2019 Worksho