A longitudinal, multimethod study of children’s early emerging maladaptive personality traits: Stress sensitivity as a protective factor

Children of fathers with alcohol use problems and mothers with depression are considered to be at high risk for the development of antisocial behavior, which may be at least partially mediated by early emerging externalizing personality traits (e.g., aggression, manipulativeness). However, not all high-risk youth develop externalizing personality traits. We examined whether associations between fathers’ lifetime history of alcohol use disorder (AUD) and mothers’ lifetime history of major depressive disorder (MDD) with children’s externalizing personality traits were moderated by a psychophysiological marker of children’s stress reactivity and fearfulness/anxiousness, namely, cortisol output during a standardized stress task. Participants were a community sample of 205 children and their caregivers assessed at three time points. Paternal lifetime history of AUD and maternal lifetime history of MDD, combined with lower child cortisol output, were related to youth self-reported aggression. Further, girls lower in cortisol output were higher in manipulativeness in the context of paternal lifetime history of AUD.