Citation

Hoyniak CP, Donohue MR, Quiñones-Camacho LE, Vogel AC, Perino MT, Hennefield L, Tillman R, Barch DM, Luby JL. Dev. Psychopathol. 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Cambridge University Press)

DOI

10.1017/S0954579422000359

PMID

35440360

Abstract

Temper tantrums are sudden, overt negative emotional displays that are disproportionate to the eliciting event. Research supports that severe temper tantrums during the preschool period are associated with preschool psychopathology, but few studies have identified which characteristics of preschool tantrums are predictive of distal psychopathological outcomes in later childhood and adolescence. To examine this question, we used a prospective, longitudinal dataset enriched for early psychopathology. Participants (N = 299) included 3-to 6-year-old children (47.8% female) assessed for tantrums and early childhood psychopathology using diagnostic interviews and then continually assessed using diagnostic interviews over 10 subsequent time points throughout childhood and adolescence. We identified two unique groupings of tantrum behaviors: aggression towards others/objects (e.g., hitting others) and aggression towards self (e.g., hitting self). While both types of tantrum behaviors were associated with early childhood psychopathology severity, tantrum behaviors characterized by aggression towards self were more predictive of later psychopathology. Children displaying high levels of both types of tantrum behaviors had more severe externalizing problems during early childhood and more severe depression and oppositional defiant disorder across childhood and adolescence.

FINDINGS suggest that tantrum behaviors characterized by aggression towards self are particularly predictive of later psychopathology.

Language: en

Keywords

aggression; early childhood; longitudinal course; self-injurious behaviors; temper tantrums