Developmental pathways from preschool temper tantrums to later psychopathology
Open accessAbstract
Temper tantrums are sudden, overt negative emotional displays that are disproportionate to the eliciting event. Research supports that severe temper tantrums during the preschool period are associated with preschool psychopathology, but few studies have identified which characteristics of preschool tantrums are predictive of distal psychopathological outcomes in later childhood and adolescence. To examine this question, we used a prospective, longitudinal dataset enriched for early psychopathology. Participants (N = 299) included 3-to 6-year-old children (47.8% female) assessed for tantrums and early childhood psychopathology using diagnostic interviews and then continually assessed using diagnostic interviews over 10 subsequent time points throughout childhood and adolescence. We identified two unique groupings of tantrum behaviors: aggression towards others/objects (e.g., hitting others) and aggression towards self (e.g., hitting self). While both types of tantrum behaviors were associated with early childhood psychopathology severity, tantrum behaviors characterized by aggression towards self were more predictive of later psychopathology. Children displaying high levels of both types of tantrum behaviors had more severe externalizing problems during early childhood and more severe depression and oppositional defiant disorder across childhood and adolescence. Findings suggest that tantrum behaviors characterized by aggression towards self are particularly predictive of later psychopathology.
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For a small proportion of children, early behavioral difficulties persist and represent the start of a pathway to mental health challenges.
“While such difficulties usually resolve naturally across the transition into the pre-school years [86], for a small proportion of children, difficulties persist and represent the start of a pathway to mental health challenges [4, 11, 15, 16, 24, 44, 71].”
From Optimizing parenting and child outcomes following parent–child interaction therapy – toddler: a randomized controlled trial (2024) · cites this paper as [44]
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- Authors
- Hoyniak, C. P., Donohue, M. R., Quiñones-Camacho, L. E., Vogel, A. C., Perino, M. T., Hennefield, L., Tillman, R., Barch, D. M., & Luby, J. L.
- Affiliations
- Washington University in St. Louis (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hoyniak, Caroline P.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Development and Psychopathology
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2022-04-20
- Volume
- 35
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1643-1655
- ISSN
- 0954-5794 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-2198
- PMC
- PMC10863336
- OpenAlex
- W4224212564
- Cited by
- 12
- References
- 46
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2
- FWCI
- 2.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Development and Psychopathology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH064769, K23MH127305, K23MH125023, T32MH100019, K01MH127412)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (K99HD105002, R00HD105002)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Mental Health Research Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Disorders and Psychopathology
- Keywords
- tantrums, preschool children, early childhood psychopathology, externalizing problems, depression, oppositional defiant disorder, developmental pathways
- MeSH terms
- Problem Behavior, Adolescent, Aggression, Child, Child, Preschool, Emotions, Female, Humans, Male, Prospective Studies, Psychopathology, Attention Deficit and Disruptive Behavior Disorders
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