Allen, NickSun, Xiaoning2020-12-082020-12-082020-12-08https://hdl.handle.net/1794/25871Young children’s capacities for emotional, biological, and behavioral self-regulation are key indicators for their optimal developmental outcomes. Early in their lives, infants display limited regulatory capacity and largely rely on their caregivers to observe, learn, and practice regulation strategies. However, caregivers who suffer from mental disorders, especially those characterized by affective and behavioral dysregulation, tend to be compromised in their abilities to provide these essential learning opportunities, often leading to compromised self-regulation skills in their offspring. The current dissertation examined the impact of family history of mental illness on the development of self-regulation during infants’ first two years of life. This dissertation also explored the role that parental behaviors during parent-child interactions might play as mechanisms that explain this association. Operationalizing infants’ self-regulation by behavioral orientation, the results revealed that infants demonstrated overall increasing regulatory capacities from 3- to 24-months, with, however, a short-term decrease from 3- to 12-months. Moreover, there was significant within-sample individual differences in these trajectories. Further, those who demonstrated self-regulation intercept subsequently experienced slower development of self-regulation. Analyzing the impact of parental lifetime psychopathology on such development, maternal psychopathology was associated with self-regulation intercept, whereas fathers’ internalizing disorder predicted infants’ faster self-regulation growth rate. Regarding the association between parental history of psychopathology and infant self-regulation development, parental behaviors including both positive and negative behaviors demonstrated moderating effects. Finally, the three-generation analyses revealed that lifetime psychopathology in G1 maternal grandmothers showed an overarching influence on their grandchildren’s self-regulation, and lifetime psychopathology in G1 paternal grandparents demonstrated moderating effects on the association between G2 fathers’ psychopathology and G3 self-regulation development. This dissertation advances the current literature on the development of self-regulation during infancy and early childhood by addressing (a) its development trajectory, (b) maternal, paternal influences, as well as grandparental influences, and (c) the potential mechanisms through which family history of mental illness may impact the development of children’s self-regulation. Finally, the results of this dissertation can inform the development of interventions, including early identification of those who are at risk for self-regulation development difficulties, and early intervention strategies.en-USAll Rights Reserved.Developmental TrajectoryFamily History of Mental IllnessInfancyParental BehaviorsSelf-RegulationThree-GenerationElectronic Thesis or Dissertation