About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 9. Family Context & Processes

Abstract

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Introduction:
Children who have been adopted into the United States from international countries have often experienced a range of early stressors, including placement in orphanages. Compared with children who were not internationally adopted, these children display higher levels of indiscriminately friendly behavior, or the lack of differentiation between strangers and familiar people (Smyke, Dumitrescu, & Zeanah, 2002). Indiscriminately friendly behavior has been shown to be associated with later difficulties with social relationships but the developmental underpinnings of this behavior are not well understood (Zeytinoglu, et al., 2023). Inhibitory control refers to a child’s ability to resist temptation/impulses and hinder prohibited actions. This study examines whether problems with inhibitory control during early childhood is associated with the later development of indiscriminate friendliness in children adopted internationally.

Methods:
Participants were 109 children adopted from international countries into the United States during early childhood. Children were adopted from a range of international countries (China=41%, South Korea=16%, Russia=15%, Ethiopia=12%). Children were assessed for problems with inhibitory control with an observational task when they were approximately 24 months old (M=27.4, SD=6.1) and 48 months old (M=48.3, SD=5.6). Children were given crayons and paper and told to refrain from touching the crayons while the researcher left the room. Recordings were coded for the number of seconds the child touched the crayons. Indiscriminate friendliness was measured at 48 months old with a semi-structured parent interview, which was later coded for levels of indiscriminate friendliness on a scale of 1 to 5 (Chisholm, 1998).

Results:
Given the skewness of the outcome variable (skewness=1.18 kurtosis=.29), a Poisson regression model was run. Higher levels of problems with inhibitory control at 24 months significantly predicted higher levels of indiscriminate friendliness at 48 months, controlling for problems with inhibitory control at 48 months (B=.01, p=.02). These results held when controlling for child gender, age, and race/ethnicity.

Conclusion:
These results suggest that early problems with inhibitory control in children adopted internationally may be associated with later indiscriminately friendly behavior, and help highlight possible developmental underpinnings of these indiscriminately friendly behaviors. In addition, these results point to possible intervention targets of inhibitory control to reduce indiscriminately friendly behavior, improve parent and child relationships, and improve children’s later development.

Author information

Author	Role
Elvan Guzman, SDSU	Presenting author
Nikki Lane, SDSU	Non-presenting author
Lucyann Atkins, SDSU	Non-presenting author
Monica Negrete, SDSU	Non-presenting author
Mary Dozier, University of Delaware	Non-presenting author
Teresa Lind, SDSU	Non-presenting author

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