Title
Cumulative Sociodemographic Risk Indicators for Difficult Child Temperament
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-6-2019
Description
Cumulative risk models provide a convenient, parsimonious way to identify outcomes associated with multiple, highly correlated risk factors. In this paper, we explored linkages between a cumulative sociodemographic risk index, which included rurality status, and aspects of temperamental difficulty in an early school age sample of 53 school-aged children from Southcentral Appalachia. Cumulative risk was significantly predictive of temperamental difficulty, as defined by high negative affectivity and low effortful control, but post-hoc analyses revealed this association to be driven primarily by two of the eight risk indicators: rural status and income-to-needs risk. Although rurality status was highly correlated with income-to-needs risk, rurality predicted negative affectivity over and above income-to-needs risk and income-to-needs risk predicted effortful control over and above rurality status. Future models of cumulative risk may benefit from including rurality status as a risk indicator, despite high collinearity with income-to-needs risk.
Citation Information
Gouge, Natasha; Dixon, Wallace; Driggers-Jones, Lauren P.; and Price, Jaima S.. 2019. Cumulative Sociodemographic Risk Indicators for Difficult Child Temperament. The Journal of Genetic Psychology. Vol.181 32-37. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221325.2019.1699012 ISSN: 0022-1325