PhD defence P.E. (Patricia) Bravo Tapia

Below is a brief summary of the dissertation:

Grounded in Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological framework, this thesis examines how parental characteristics, family dynamics, and cultural contexts interact across time to shape child socio-emotional and physical outcomes from middle childhood through adolescence. Utilizing prospective longitudinal data from the Generation R Study (Netherlands), the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (Chile), and the Panel Study on Korean Children (South Korea), six empirical studies investigate these multi-systemic pathways.

Initial observational findings in early childhood revealed an overall decline in maternal sensitivity over a 10-year period, though trajectory shifts were unlinked to specific individual or contextual predictors. In examining intergenerational adversity, early relational mechanisms (infant attachment and maternal sensitivity) did not directly mediate the effect of maternal childhood maltreatment on child mental health at age 10; rather, this transgenerational transmission operated indirectly through persistent maternal psychopathology. In middle childhood, higher maternal sensitivity promoted enhanced child self-regulation, indirectly leading to lower Body Mass Index at age 10. By age 13, structural equation modeling demonstrated that maternal childhood maltreatment directly predicted adolescent emotional and behavioral problems, with family dysfunction and harsh parenting serving as key mediating mechanisms. Cross-cultural analyses highlighted distinct environmental nuances: Dutch children exhibited stable, lower-problem trajectories compared to Chilean children, whose initially higher problem levels decreased over time. Finally, while paternal warmth universally protected against child self-control deficits in both the Netherlands and South Korea, high paternal control predicted increased self-control problems exclusively in Dutch children.

Taken together, the work in this thesis demonstrates that child socio-emotional development is not dictated by isolated variables at single points in time. It is driven by dynamic networks of family relationships, maternal mental health, and broader cultural environments.