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Parental personality and early life ecology: a prospective cohort study from preconception to postpartum

Version 3 2024-06-19, 17:48
Version 2 2024-06-02, 15:09
Version 1 2024-01-08, 04:49
journal contribution
posted on 2024-06-19, 17:48 authored by Liz SpryLiz Spry, Craig OlssonCraig Olsson, Stephanie AarsmanStephanie Aarsman, H Mohamad Husin, Jacqui MacdonaldJacqui Macdonald, SG Dashti, M Moreno-Betancur, Primrose LetcherPrimrose Letcher, Ebony BidenEbony Biden, KC Thomson, H McAnally, Christopher GreenwoodChristopher Greenwood, M Middleton, Delyse HutchinsonDelyse Hutchinson, JB Carlin, GC Patton
AbstractPersonality reliably predicts life outcomes ranging from social and material resources to mental health and interpersonal capacities. However, little is known about the potential intergenerational impact of parent personality prior to offspring conception on family resources and child development across the first thousand days of life. We analysed data from the Victorian Intergenerational Health Cohort Study (665 parents, 1030 infants; est. 1992), a two-generation study with prospective assessment of preconception background factors in parental adolescence, preconception personality traits in young adulthood (agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion, and openness), and multiple parental resources and infant characteristics in pregnancy and after the birth of their child. After adjusting for pre-exposure confounders, both maternal and paternal preconception personality traits were associated with numerous parental resources and attributes in pregnancy and postpartum, as well as with infant biobehavioural characteristics. Effect sizes ranged from small to moderate when considering parent personality traits as continuous exposures, and from small to large when considering personality traits as binary exposures. Young adult personality, well before offspring conception, is associated with the perinatal household social and financial context, parental mental health, parenting style and self-efficacy, and temperamental characteristics of offspring. These are pivotal aspects of early life development that ultimately predict a child’s long-term health and development.

History

Journal

Scientific Reports

Volume

13

Article number

3332

Pagination

1-11

Location

London, Eng.

ISSN

2045-2322

eISSN

2045-2322

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Issue

1

Publisher

Springer Nature