ArticleDevelopment and psychopathology2016
Early unpredictability predicts increased adolescent externalizing behaviors and substance use: A life history perspective.
Article in Development and psychopathology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 61 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
61 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 155 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prenatal stress and externalizing behaviors in childhood and adolescence: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychological bulletin · 2024Pooled it
- Meta-Analysis of Direct and Indirect Effects of Father Absence on Menarcheal Timing.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Pooled it
- Brief, computerized inhibitory control training to leverage adolescent neural plasticity: A pilot effectiveness trial.Applied neuropsychology. ChildTrial
- [Family Environmental Unpredictability and Adolescent Physiological and Psychological Health: The Buffering Role of Positive School Climate].Xin li xue bao. Acta psychologica Sinica · 2026Article
- Heterogeneous Joint Trajectories of Dual-Factor Mental Health in Chinese Middle Adolescence: Integrating Emotional and Behavioral Indicators.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2026Article
- Timing of adverse childhood experiences shapes epigenetic ageing and life-history outcomes.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Anhedonia buffers the effects of early-life unpredictability on threat-reward decision-making.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Environmental unpredictability predicts positive social risk taking through neural cognitive control.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Article
- Childhood adversity and adolescent mental health: Examining cumulative and specificity effects across contexts and developmental timing.Development and psychopathology · 2025Article
- Early life environmental unpredictability shapes non-suicidal self-injury: dual roles of experiential avoidance as mediator and moderator in Chinese college students.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Belief Updating, Childhood Maltreatment, and Paranoia in Schizophrenia-Spectrum Disorders.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2025Article
- Adaptation and validation of the Chinese versions of the childhood perceived poverty and wealth questionnaire(C‑CPPWQ) and the childhood perceived unpredictability questionnaire (C‑CPUQ).BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the retrospective family unpredictability scale.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Harshness and unpredictability during childhood: an approach from life-history theory to understanding risk behaviors.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Individual longitudinal changes in DNA-methylome identify signatures of early-life adversity and correlate with later outcome.Neurobiology of stress · 2024Article
- Article
- Comparing the multivariate relationships of conceptual adversity models and structural brain development in adolescent girls: A registered report.Developmental psychology · 2024Article
- Annual Research Review: The power of predictability - patterns of signals in early life shape neurodevelopment and mental health trajectories.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2024Review
- Specifying the timescale of early life unpredictability helps explain the development of internalising and externalising behaviours.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Exploring the Association Between Trauma, Instability, and Youth Cardiometabolic Health Outcomes Over Three Years.The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine · 2024Article
1 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
According to evolutionary life history models, environmental harshness and unpredictability can both promote a fast life history strategy characterized by increased risk taking and enacting short-term, opportunistic behaviors. The current longitudinal study tests whether environmental unpredictability during childhood has stronger effects on risky behavior during adolescence than harshness, and whether there may be an early "sensitive period" during which unpredictability has particularly strong and unique effects on these outcomes. Using data from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation, prospective assessments of environmental unpredictability (changes in residence, cohabitation, and parental occupation) and harshness (mean socioeconomic status) from birth into adolescence were used to predict self-reported externalizing behaviors and substance use at age 16 (N = 220). Exposure to greater early unpredictability (between ages 0 and 5) predicted more externalizing behaviors as well as more alcohol and marijuana use at age 16, controlling for harshness and later unpredictability (between ages 6 and 16). Harshness predicted adolescent substance use, and later unpredictability predicted adolescent externalizing behaviors at the trend level. Early unpredictability and harshness also interacted, such that the highest levels of risk taking occurred in individuals who experienced more early unpredictability and lived in harsher environments. Age 16 externalizing behaviors, but not substance use, mediated the association between early unpredictability and externalizing/criminal behaviors at age 23. We discuss how exposure to early environmental unpredictability may alter biological and social-cognitive functioning from a life history perspective.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.