Richard W. Robins

Youth substance use is a considerable public health concern, with far-reaching implications for physical health, mental well-being, and social functioning across the lifespan.1,2 This issue is part...

Adolescence is a sensitive period during which socioeconomic conditions can shape brain development and mental health. To further clarify such pathways, the present study examined how trajectories of different poverty indices across adolescence relate to brain structure and depressive symptomatology. In a sample of 206 Mexican‐origin youth, latent growth curve modeling was used to assess parent‐reported income‐to‐needs and economic hardship measured from ages 10 to 16 as predictors of self‐reported depressive symptomatology at age 18. Youths also reported on perceived economic hardship at 14 and 16 years. Amygdala, hippocampus, anterior cingulate cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex volumes assessed using structural magnetic resonance imaging at age 17 were examined as mediators within the models. Lower average income‐to‐needs across adolescence was associated with larger amygdala and hippocampal volumes, whereas youth‐reported economic hardship predicted smaller anterior cingulate cortex volumes. Youth‐reported economic hardship, but neither parent‐reported economic hardship nor brain volumes, significantly predicted depression symptoms. Parent‐reported economic hardship across adolescence was unrelated to both brain volume and depression symptoms. Results highlight that objective poverty and adolescents' own perceptions of hardship may each relate to neurodevelopment, and that youth‐reported hardship may be more proximally linked to depressive symptomatology in late adolescence than parent‐reported hardship or brain volume.

Individual differences in temperament and personality traits may shed light on the presentation and development of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) across adolescence. The present study used multi-method, longitudinal data from a large sample of Mexican-origin youth (N = 674; 50% girls) to examine associations between ADHD symptoms (including combined, hyperactive-impulsive, and inattentive subtypes) and a wide range of temperament and personality traits assessed via self-, mother-, and father-reports and coded observational data. First, we found moderate one-year rank-order stabilities of combined, hyperactive-impulsive, and inattentive ADHD symptoms (r’s ranging from .27 to .51), but relatively low eight-year rank-order stability from age 10 to 17 (r = .19 for combined); eight-year stability was higher for boys than girls. Second, hyperactive-impulsive and inattentive symptoms were both negatively correlated with concurrent effortful control and conscientiousness, and positively correlated with impulsivity, negative emotionality, and neuroticism; in addition, hyperactive-impulsive symptoms were positively associated with surgency and extraversion. Third, bivariate latent growth curve models showed that the levels and slopes of effortful control (and its facets) and negative emotionality (particularly the frustration, aggression, and depressed mood facets) were significantly related to the levels and slopes of ADHD symptom trajectories. Findings from random-intercept cross-lagged panel models showed that temperament domains and ADHD symptoms had meaningful between- and within-person associations, but no significant cross-lagged associations. Associations were stronger for adolescent self-reports of temperament/personality than for mother reports. Overall, findings highlight connections between temperament and personality traits with ADHD symptoms across adolescence.

Temperament and personality traits both refer to relatively stable individual differences in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, but they are often studied in isolation from each other. Consequently, there are vast bodies of research exploring the nature, development, and consequences of temperament and personality traits, with little integration between areas. The present study examines the overlap vs. distinctness of temperament and personality traits, with the goal of promoting greater integration. First, we review past theory and research on their connections. Then, we apply 10 criteria from Lawson and Robins’ (2021) sibling constructs framework, supplemented by recently developed methods from large language models, to understand associations at the construct and measurement levels — aiming to orient researchers away from black-or-white thinking that has divided the two fields and toward embracing the complex overlap that characterizes the relationship between these domains. Based on our analyses, we argue that temperament and personality traits show substantial overlap at the construct level, differing mainly in how they are measured. We provide recommendations to unify these unnecessarily disparate literatures, paving the way toward a genuine, integrated science of personality development across the lifespan.

Researchers have long debated whether self-esteem is associated with aggression. In this preregistered research, we tested the effects of self-esteem on aggression by using statistical models that control for unmeasured time-invariant confounders. Data came from a multi-wave longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin families, including multi-informant assessments of children, mothers, and fathers at 1- or 2-year intervals. There was no evidence of systematic self-esteem effects on aggression, and the results held when we controlled for narcissism and when the influence of shared-method variance could be ruled out. Also, there was little evidence for effects in the reverse direction, that is, from engaging in aggression on self-esteem. One limitation was that in most cases it was not possible to test whether the self-esteem effects were curvilinear because of the nonconvergence of these models. Overall, the findings do not support either low or high self-esteem as a risk factor for aggression.

INTRODUCTION: Prior research has established that dementia risk factors and personality traits separately predict cognition in mid-to-late life. The present research tests whether Lancet Commission dementia risk factors mediate the link between personality and midlife cognitive function. METHODS: We examined whether the latent levels and slopes of Big Five personality trajectories were associated with midlife cognitive function and ten modifiable dementia risk factors (e.g., hypertension, depression symptoms, sleep problems), using data from a 17-year longitudinal study of 1,106 Mexican-origin adults in the United States.RESULTS: All Big Five domains had prospective associations with multiple dementia risk factors and with cognitive impairment, cognitive function, and self-reported memory. Individuals higher in Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness had lower levels of dementia risk factors, lower likelihood of cognitive impairment, and better cognitive function. Individuals higher in Neuroticism generally showed the opposite pattern. Specific risk factors (depression, hearing loss, and hypertension) mediated the association between personality and some cognitive outcomes.DISCUSSION: By examining how dementia risk factors relate to personality traits and cognitive health outcomes, we clarify whether modifiable risk factors account for the personality–cognition link in Mexican-origin adults, an underrepresented population at greater risk of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.

How long-term changes in parent personality are associated with long-term changes in child temperament is a fundamental yet largely unaddressed question about child development. Several developmental processes (including socialization, modeling, and evocation) suggest that parent personality might have transactional and thus co-developmental associations with child temperament. The present study used data from a longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin families to investigate the extent to which changes in parent Big Five personality traits co-develop with changes in child temperament from age 10 to 16. Using second-order bivariate growth curve models, we found that mother (but not father) personality co-develops with child temperament for most conceptually related pairs of personality and temperament traits; for example, when mothers increased in conscientiousness, their child tended to increase in effortful control. However, these results largely held only for parent reports of child temperament (or a composite of parent- and child self-reports), and not when using only child self-reports of temperament. Child nativity status moderated some of the co-developmental associations, where families with children born in Mexico (as opposed to being born in the U.S.) tended to exhibit stronger mother-child co-development. We discuss these findings and what they mean for the study of child development.

The present study addresses a fundamental yet largely neglected question about personality development: To what extent are changes in parent personality traits associated with changes in their child's personality traits? Numerous developmental processes suggest that parent and child personality might have transactional associations over time, contributing to their codevelopment. This codevelopment may be homotypic (e.g., associations between changes in parent and child conscientiousness) and heterotypic (e.g., associations between changes in parent conscientiousness and changes in child extraversion). In addition to investigating the extent to which parent and child personality codevelops, we also investigated the extent to which parental (mother and father) personality codevelops. We tested these ideas using bivariate growth curve models of personality trait assessments from a 17-year longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin families. Intercepts of parent and child trait trajectories were generally correlated, but we did not find significant correlations between the slopes, contrary to our expectation of parent-child codevelopment. We found stronger evidence for codevelopment in mom-dad dyads, with significant slope-slope correlations for extraversion, agreeableness, and openness. In almost all cases, the results generalized across child gender, child nativity, and parental age. We discuss the implications of the findings for adolescent personality development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).