ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN EARLY MATERIAL HARDSHIP AND BEHAVIORAL SELF-REGULATION DEVELOPMENT ACROSS CHILDHOOD: A PERSON-CENTERED APPROACH

Abstract

We identified early material hardship profiles in infancy and their associations with the heterogeneity of behavioral self-regulation from early to middle childhood, using the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N=4,614). Four material hardship classes and three behavioral self-regulation trajectories were identified. Children experiencing diverse material hardship (e.g. food, bill, utility hardship) in year 1 demonstrated a higher probability of membership in the low-increasing and medium-stable behavioral self-regulation trajectories and a lower probability in the high-increasing trajectory from ages 3 to 9. Implications for addressing families’ financial material difficulties and supporting self-regulation for children at greater risk are discussed.

Author Contribution

Qingyang Liu: designed and executed the study, conducted data analyses, and wrote most part of the manuscript. Rachel A. Razza: collaborated with the design, wrote, and edited the manuscript. Sara A. Vasilenko: collaborated with the design and statistical consultation and editing of the manuscript. Gabriel J. Merrin: collaborated with the design and statistical consultation and editing of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the revisions and approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

Disclosure statement

We have no known conflicts of interest to disclose.

Presentation

Earlier findings based on this manuscript were first presented as a symposium talk at the American Psychological Science 2023 Conference in Washington, DC.

Data

The scripts to reproduce all study findings are available upon request. The current manuscript uses the publicly-used data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which can be downloaded at https://ffcws.princeton.edu/documentation