Developmental Psychology 2015, Vol. 51, No. 5, 621– 634

© 2015 American Psychological Association 0012-1649/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038951

Time Spent in Child Care: How and Why Does It Affect Social Development? Aletha C. Huston, Kaeley C. Bobbitt, and Alison Bentley

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University of Texas at Austin Children who experience early and extensive child care, especially center-based care, are rated by teachers as having more externalizing behavior problems than are other children. This association is reduced, but not eliminated, when care is of high quality, and it varies by socioeconomic disadvantage and the type of behavior assessed. We examine the processes that may account for the quantity effect, concluding that it occurs primarily among relatively advantaged White non-Hispanic families. It appears primarily for teacher-rated behavior, especially externalizing and low self-control, but is not evident for positive behavior and peer interaction skills. Some of the processes accounting for the relation of quantity to behavior are most likely to be poor caregiver– child relationships and negative peer interactions, not reduced attachment to mothers or lowered maternal sensitivity. Many questions remain about duration of effects, developmental and individual differences, more nuanced conceptualizations of both care quality and social behavior, and variations across cultural and ethnic groups. Keywords: child care, social behavior, externalizing, problem behavior Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038951.supp

tions about the social and developmental processes that affect early development of social skills. The majority of children in the United States experience some nonparental care beginning in the first year of life— often by age 3 months—primarily because their parents are employed. In 2013, 63.9% of women with children under age 6 were employed, a rate that has been relatively steady since the 1990s (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013). Because nonparental care is likely to be a continuing part of most children’s lives, it is important to determine what might account for harmful effects and how care can be designed to promote positive social skills. The purposes of this review, therefore, are as follows: (a) to gain a better understanding of the circumstances in which high amounts of child care forecast behavior problems or poor social skills, and (b) to examine the processes that may account for the quantity “effect.” This article is organized as follows. First, we summarize the empirical findings concerning the relations of quantity of care to children’s social behavior, with particular attention to issues of causal direction and to how these relations vary across age, population groups, and measures of behavior. We consider centerbased care specifically because the relations of extensive care to behavior problems are greatest for children in centers. Next, we examine possible social processes that may account for these patterns—mother– child relationships and attachment, teacher– child relationships, and peer interactions— concluding that social interactions and relationships with teachers and peers probably play a major role in the types of social behavior learned in child care settings. Finally, we draw conclusions and suggest avenues for future research. The scope of this review is limited to care and education during the age period before kindergarten entry, excluding research on influences of kindergarten and after school settings in the elementary years. We focus solely on children’s social behavior, both

The purpose of this article is to gain a better understanding of a conundrum. When children who have experienced early and extensive child care, especially center-based care, reach school age, their teachers rate them as having elevated behavior problems in comparison with other children. Although these effects are small and are reduced when care is of high quality, they are not completely eliminated. This pattern is in marked contrast to a large body of research demonstrating that high-quality group care, even for many hours per week, can lead to positive social skills and lowered behavior problems, as well as promoting young children’s early cognitive development. High cumulative quantity of care has no relation, positive or negative, to cognitive and language skills (see, e.g., NICHD Early Child Care Research Network [hereafter NICHD ECCRN], 2002). Although the data are not entirely consistent in showing negative relations of early care and education to behavior problems, they raise concerns for parents and policymakers and pose ques-

This article was published Online First March 9, 2015. Aletha C. Huston, Kaeley C. Bobbitt, and Alison Bentley, Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin. Kaeley C. Bobbitt is now at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin. Alison Bentley is now at United Way of Greater Austin, Austin, Texas. The research in this paper was partially supported by two grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to the University of Texas Population Research Center: 5 R24 HD042849 (R24 Center Grant) and a predoctoral fellowship for Kaeley Bobbitt from 5 T32 HD007081, a training program in population studies. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Aletha C. Huston, Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, 108 E. Dean Keaton, Austin, TX 78712-0141. E-mail: [email protected] 621

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positive and negative, not on cognitive, intellectual, or language development.

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Quantity of Nonparental Care and Social Behavior From the 1950s on, scholars, social critics, and parents worried about the potential effects of nonparental care on children’s development. Drawing from research on children in institutions, in 1951 the World Health Organization issued a statement asserting that “’day nurseries’ constituted a form of maternal deprivation with permanent negative effects on children” (quoted in Hayes, Palmer, & Zaslow, 1990, p. 48). Rooted in Bowlby’s theory of attachment, the early research on “day care” was directed primarily to understanding harmful effects on infants’ attachment to mothers, with the corollary that insecure attachment would undermine social and emotional adjustment. In the late 1980s, a panel formed by the National Research Council, which is noted for its objectivity, concluded that children experiencing infant care, but not later care, had elevated levels of avoidant insecure attachment to mothers, but also that child care experience was associated with social competence with peers (Hayes et al., 1990). Clarke-Stewart (1989; Clarke-Stewart & Fein, 1983) argued against the conclusion that child care caused insecure attachment noting that the research was based on small, nonrepresentative samples; that differences among families had not been adequately controlled; that the Strange Situation, the principal measure of attachment security, was less valid for children experiencing regular separations from their mothers; and that quality of care had not been considered. Belsky (1986, 2001) argued then and later that child care was a risk factor, noting that a single focus on age of entry ignored the cumulative risk to secure attachment and to later behavior problems when child care was early (beginning in infancy), extensive (more than 20 –30 hr per week), and continuous (lasting until school entry). All parties agreed that the research left important questions unanswered. In response, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) launched a multisite longitudinal study to address the effects of child care on the development of young children, the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), using methods that addressed many of the criticisms of the earlier literature. A national sample of 1,364 babies born in 1991 was followed from infancy to age 15. Information about the number of hours, type, number of arrangements, and quality of care was collected every 3 to 6 months beginning at age 4 months and continuing through age 4 1/2 years (see NICHD ECCRN, 2005a, for details of method).

How Much Nonparental Care Do U.S. Children Receive? In the NICHD SECCYD, 72% of the children experienced some nonparental child care during their first year of life, with an average age at entry of 3.31 months and an average of 27 hr per week from 3 through 54 months (range ⫽ 0 – 67; NICHD ECCRN, 1997c, 2003a). Once children had entered child care, most continued to receive care throughout their infant and preschool years. The cross-age correlations for average hours per week in care ranged from .50 to .77 across time periods. Approximately 10 years later, about half of the children in a nationally representative

sample (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Birth Cohort [ECLS-B]) and 67% of those in a low-income rural sample were in nonparental care between infancy and age 3 (Berry et al., 2014; Ruzek, Burchinal, Farkas, & Duncan, 2014).

Relations of Quantity of Care to Social Behavior NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Children’s social development was measured almost annually from age 24 months until 15 years with multiple methods, including teachers’ and parents’ ratings, as well as direct observation. All of the analyses controlled for an extensive set of selection variables (e.g., maternal education, family income, maternal psychological well-being, race, child gender, family structure), as well as quality and type of care. Quantity of care was typically defined as the cumulative average number of hours per week in nonmaternal or nonparental care from age 4 months up to the age of assessment. Summaries of the major publications testing quantity of care and center care effects on social behavior appear in Supplemental Tables A and B (available online), respectively. The overall findings show that cumulative quantity of care across early childhood (from infancy through preschool) predicted caregivers’ and teachers’ reports of children’s problem behavior, especially externalizing problems, by age 4 1/2 (NICHD ECCRN, 2003a). The association was especially strong for children who had spent extensive time in center-based care (NICHD ECCRN, 2004). Although these patterns were consistent, the effect sizes were small to moderate (NICHD ECCRN, 2006; Supplemental Tables A and C). There were weaker and less consistent relations of quantity to teacher-rated internalizing problems, low social skills, and to maternal ratings of problem behavior. In the first grade, children with more hours of care prior to school entry were rated higher by teachers on externalizing and on conflict with the teacher than were those with fewer hours in care (NICHD ECCRN, 2002, 2003a, 2005b). Later follow-ups showed declining and nonsignificant associations of quantity with teacherrated behavior problems at third and sixth grades, but center care experience did continue to predict externalizing (Belsky et al., 2007). By ninth grade, neither total hours of all types of care nor amount of center care predicted self-reported externalizing behavior, but youth who had experienced high amounts of care reported higher impulsivity and risk-taking than did those with fewer hours in care. These relations were partially mediated by externalizing behaviors in the elementary school years (Vandell et al., 2010). Nationally representative studies. Two separate analyses of the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) demonstrated that children with any kind of organized experience (center-based care, preschool, prekindergarten, or Head Start) in the year prior to kindergarten were rated by kindergarten and first-grade teachers as lower on self-control and higher on externalizing behavior problems than were children who had experienced noncenter care or no nonparental care in the prior year (Loeb, Bridges, Bassok, Fuller, & Rumberger, 2007; Magnuson, Ruhm, & Waldfogel, 2007). This finding did not hold for a substantial number of children who attended prekindergarten in the same school as their kindergarten or for children in public schools who had attended Head Start (Magnuson et al., 2007). The association between center care and

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externalizing behavior was greater for those who had experienced more than 30 hr a week (Loeb et al., 2007). Similarly, in a nationally representative sample of children born in 2001 (the ECLS-B), children who had experienced full-time care, especially center-based care at age 4, were rated by kindergarten teachers and parents as being higher on externalizing than were children who had been in full-time parent care. For the most part, full-time or center care at ages 9 months and 2 years was not independently related to kindergarten behavior, but center care experience at 9 and 24 months increased the association of later center care to behavior problems, suggesting cumulative effects (Coley, Votruba-Drzal, Miller, & Koury, 2013). Other longitudinal studies. Additional longitudinal evidence from samples of American children and evidence from several countries is consistent with these findings. In the United States, children who spent more time in child care from infancy through preschool age manifested more negative adjustment in kindergarten than did those with fewer hours in care (Bates et al., 1994), and preschoolers who had experienced infant care were rated higher on aggression by teachers (Park & Honig, 1991). In a large sample of Norwegian children, quantity of care predicted teacher reports of conflict, but not externalizing problems or social competence (Solheim, Wichstrøm, Belsky, & Berg-Nielsen, 2013). Australian toddlers who had experienced high amounts of care manifested lower levels of sociability and persistence and were more likely to react negatively than their counterparts (Yamauchi & Leigh, 2011). Finally, after introduction of a policy offering inexpensive child care in Quebec, maternal employment increased, and motherreported behavior problems increased more in that province than in other provinces without such a policy (Baker, Gruber, & Mulligan, 2008). Other studies have found no effects on behavior. No relation of cumulative hours to teacher-rated behavior at age 4 1/2 appeared in a middle-class U.S. sample (Bornstein, Hahn, Gist, & Haynes, 2006) or in several studies of populations from outside the United States, including England (Barnes et al., 2010) and Norway (Zachrisson, Dearing, Lekhal, & Toppelberg, 2013; Lekhal, 2012). Children in other countries experience different public policies, average levels of quality, and patterns of care than do U.S. children. Moreover, some of these studies relied on mothers’ reports, which are less likely to show relations to quantity than are those of teachers (NICHD ECCRN, 2003a). A brief summary of the major studies appears in Supplemental Table C. Two meta-analyses also found little or no evidence that child care and early maternal employment were related to children’s socioemotional development. Examining 59 studies by age of entry (infancy, toddler, or preschool) and, separately, extent of care, Erel, Oberman, and Yirmiya, (2000) found no consistent relations of extent of care to children’s social interactions with peers or with adults. A meta-analysis of 48 studies of maternal employment demonstrated nonsignificant relations of early maternal employment to externalizing behavior problems and a significant relation of maternal employment to low levels of internalizing problems (Lucas-Thompson, Goldberg, & Prause, 2010). Jacob (2009) reviewed 15 articles, 10 of which were from the NICHD SECCYD, so her conclusion that quantity has negative effects does not add greatly to the information provided by that investigation.

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Nonlinear effects. For the most part, the relations of hours to behavior are linear; repeated tests for thresholds and nonlinear effects are nonsignificant (e.g., NICHD ECCRN 2003a). One exception is the finding that White non-Hispanic children whose mothers worked part-time in the first year of life had more positive social skills and fewer externalizing problems in the preschool and early school years than did those of full-time workers, with those whose mothers had not been employed falling in between (BrooksGunn, Han, & Waldfogel, 2010). Stress. A recent body of research has identified physiological indicators of stress that may result from and affect social interactions in child care. Some children evidence elevated or rising levels of cortisol, a hormone that can indicate arousal, on days when they are in child care, particularly low-quality care (Gunnar, Kryzer, Van Ryzin, & Phillips, 2010; Hatfield, Hestenes, KintnerDuffy, & O’Brien, 2013; O’Brien, Weaver, Burchinal, ClarkeStewart, & Vandell, 2013; Vermeer & van IJzendoorn, 2006). In a meta-analysis, Alink and colleagues (2008) found that, for preschool children, high basal cortisol levels are associated with externalizing behavior. The small amount of evidence about the relations of quantity of child care to cortisol levels shows variations by family risk and individual temperament (Berry et al., 2014; Tarullo, Mliner, & Gunnar, 2011). Moreover, children’s cortisol patterns change over the months they experience child care. In one longitudinal investigation, 2-year-olds in child care displayed a flat diurnal cortisol pattern on days in child care and a decreasing pattern at home, but at age 3, these same children showed decreasing patterns in both settings (Ouellet-Morin et al., 2010). High hours in care during the first 3 years of life predicted lower awakening levels of cortisol at age 15 in the NICHD Study, a pattern that the authors interpreted as an indication of effects of early interpersonal stress resulting in hypo-responsiveness (Roisman et al., 2009). However, a metaanalysis shows no relation of cortisol levels to externalizing behavior for adolescents (Alink et al., 2008).

Causal Direction Early studies of child care were faulted because of possible selection effects— children in child care and their families might differ from those not in child care. All of the more recent studies contained extensive controls for family and child characteristics, and some of them controlled for age of entry, type, and quality of care. Nevertheless, the correlational methods used do not permit certain causal inference because bias from unmeasured differences among families using more and less care may remain. Using data from the NICHD SECCYD, McCartney et al., (2010) tested the proposition that quantity of care is causally related to externalizing problems with different techniques designed to reduce biases inherent in ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. The association of quantity with externalizing was robust to all of the model specifications tested except a fixed-effects model analyzing the relation of changes in child care hours to changes in externalizing behavior problems. Neither increases nor decreases in time spent in care between 24 and 54 months were related to changes in externalizing behavior problems, but analysis of changes may not capture the effects of consistently high or low quantity of care. Several other investigators have found support for causal relations of care to behavior with fixed effects, propensity

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scores, and instrumental variables (IV) techniques, all of which yield less biased estimates than do ordinary regressions (e.g., see Foster & Kalil, 2008; Gennetian, Magnuson, & Morris, 2008). In most of these analyses, some of the associations of preschool experience with behavior problems remained (Coley & Lombardi, 2013; Loeb et al., 2007; Magnuson et al., 2007; Yamauchi & Leigh, 2011). By contrast, some more stringent models have not supported causal relations. No relations of early child care to mother-reported behavior were found with fixed effects sibling comparisons in a national U.S. sample (Jaffee, Van Hulle, & Rodgers, 2011). Although quantity predicted problem behavior in a population-based Norwegian sample using an OLS analysis with listwise deletion, a combination of fixed effects and multiple imputation for missing observations eliminated the association (Zachrisson et al., 2013). Finally, among children of low-income single mothers, estimates from regressions showed small positive associations of center care experience with mother-reported externalizing problems in elementary school, but in IV analysis, using random assignment as an instrument, children experiencing center care in the preschool years were rated lower on externalizing problems than were children who had not had child care experience (Crosby, Dowsett, Gennetian, & Huston, 2010).

Age of Child Care Experience Attachment theory leads to an emphasis on infancy as a time when child care may have particularly deleterious effects. Evaluating the roles of care in different developmental periods is difficult because early entry and high cumulative amounts of care are highly correlated. If controls for other developmental periods are included, the unique relation of one period to the outcome can be detected, but such a finding can also result from a lower correlation of that developmental period with the others. Given this limitation, there is no support for the unique relation of infant child care to social development. Although cumulative amounts of care predicted behavior problems in several investigations, leading the investigators to conclude that it exacerbated the effects of preschool care, infant care did not predict more strongly than care in other periods (Coley & Lombardi, 2013; Loeb et al., 2007; NICHD ECCRN, 2003a, 2004), and mother’s employment in infancy, net of later employment, was not linearly related to problem behavior (Brooks-Gunn et al., 2010). By contrast, in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), children who had experienced nonparental care before age 1 year, compared with those who those who had nonparental care later or not at all, displayed lower levels of mother-reported conduct problems and oppositional behavior when they were in middle childhood and early adolescence (Jaffee et al., 2011). There are some hints in the literature that the toddler period, approximately 1 to 3 years of age, may be an important time in which child care settings can influence the rudiments of social behavior with peers and adults. In toddlerhood, children become mobile, giving them increased opportunities for initiating peer interactions and competing for resources when they also have limited ability to verbalize, resolve conflicts nonaggressively, or take others’ perspectives (Hamann, Warneken, & Tomasello, 2012; Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 2006). Toddlers’ social interactions involve frequent conflict, often over toys and resources

(Rubin et al., 2006), but their peer interactions do not fall neatly into “positive” and “negative” categories (Williams, Ontai, & Mastergeorge, 2007). Child care settings could play an important role in shaping and guiding children’s very early interactions, promoting positive behavior and helping them to learn nonaggressive ways of resolving conflicts. Unfortunately, some of the child care settings in which toddlers exercise their limited social skills are of poor quality. In their recent review, Phillips and Lowenstein (2011) asserted that the average quality of toddler care in the United States is mediocre. Positive caregiving was “very uncharacteristic” or “somewhat uncharacteristic” in 57% of the care settings for children ages 1 to 3 observed in the early 1990s (NICHD ECCRN, 2000). About 10 years later, the majority of settings in which a nationally representative sample of 2-year-olds in the ECLS-B were observed were rated medium quality on a global measure that incorporates many features in addition to positive caregiving (Ruzek, et al., 2014). In mixed-age home care settings, toddlers received less sensitive, supportive care than did preschoolers and were less socially integrated and engaged in activities. Caregivers’ positive behavior was more strongly associated with toddlers’ positive social integration than with that of preschoolers (Kryzer, Kovan, Phillips, Domagall, & Gunnar, 2007). Care during the toddler period predicts later problem behavior and peer competence slightly more consistently than does care in earlier or later other developmental periods (Bates et al., 1994; Jaffee et al., 2011; NICHD ECCRN, 2003a, NICHD ECCRN, 2008). Although interpreting these findings is difficult, they point to the need for more intensive examination of the role of long hours of child care during the toddler years in the development of social skills and behavior problems.

Caveats and Limits to Quantity Effects Ethnic Group, Family Income, Family Risk, and Gender In general, high quantity of care is less apt to be associated with behavior problems for children from African American families, Hispanic families, low-income families, or families with high socioeconomic or psychological risks than for their counterparts. Race and ethnic group. Scholars studying minority children have argued that child care must be considered as part of a broader context of minority socialization experiences (Johnson et al., 2003). It is noteworthy, therefore, that relations between quantity of child care and behavior problems are found more consistently among non-Hispanic Whites than among African American and Hispanic children. In the NICHD SECCYD, mothers’ employment during the first year predicted children’s social behavior for White non-Hispanic children, but not for African American children (Brooks-Gunn et al., 2010). Similarly, the relation between preschool experience and externalizing was not significant for English-speaking Hispanic children in the ECLS-K (Loeb et al., 2007). Family income. The relations of high quantity of care, particularly center-based care, to behavior problems appear across most family income levels, but typically not for those with very low incomes. In the ECLS-K, the association of preschool expe-

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rience with behavior problems was not evident for children of mothers receiving welfare (Magnuson et al., 2007). In two largescale studies of very low-income mothers, the quantity of children’s preschool care experiences was not related to behavior problems in the preschool years (Loeb, Fuller, Kagan, & Carrol, 2004; Votruba-Drzal, Coley, & Chase-Lansdale, 2004) or the elementary years (Bassok, French, Fuller, & Kagan, 2008; Votruba-Drzal, Coley, Maldonado-Carreño, Li-Grining, & ChaseLansdale, 2010). Family risk. Family risk is variously defined by poverty, low socioeconomic status, maternal depression, early maternal age at birth of the child, single-parent family structure, and/or chaotic and low quality of family functioning. Extensive early care is associated with behavior problems and high levels of cortisol for children from low risk families, but, for those in high risk families, early care may be beneficial. In a sample of rural families, hours of early care predicted high levels of cortisol and behavior problems for children in low-risk families, but for those in high risk families, more hours predicted lower cortisol levels and fewer problems (Berry et al., 2013, 2014). In two analyses of the Canadian National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth (NLSCY), early care predicted higher mother-reported aggression in low-risk families (Côté, Borge, Geoffroy, Rutter, & Tremblay, 2008), but lower aggression in high risk families (Borge, Rutter, Côté, & Tremblay, 2004). Early maternal employment predicted lowered behavior problems, both externalizing and internalizing, in single-parent families (Lucas-Thompson et al., 2010 meta-analysis) and in a sample of low-income mothers, many of whom were African American and Hispanic (Coley & Lombardi, 2013). Minority ethnic group status, family income, and family risk are confounded, so it is difficult to determine the independent effects of each. One explanation for socioeconomic variation in the effects of care is “lost or gained resources.” Because children in disadvantaged families may have access to fewer resources at home than do those in more advantaged families, their child care experiences may offer more opportunities for positive social learning than do their homes, whereas the opposite may be true for children from more advantaged families. A second explanation is economic— the income that parents generate when their children are in child care may be more critical for supplying basic needs, enriching the home environment and reducing parent stress for families with one parent, low incomes, or other disadvantages than it is for high income families (Newcombe, 2003). The data do not support a “dual risk hypothesis”—that child care and family risk have cumulative effects; they are more consistent with a compensation hypothesis, that child care counteracts the hazards of a high risk family. Gender. Although boys are typically rated higher than girls on externalizing behavior and aggression, there are no consistent gender differences in the relation of maternal employment or child care hours to problem behavior (Lamb & Ahnert, 2006; LucasThompson et al., 2010 meta-analysis). After an initial finding that quantity of care predicted insecure attachment for boys more than for girls (NICHD ECCRN, 1997b), repeated tests for interactions of gender with hours were nonsignificant in the NICHD study (e.g., NICHD ECCRN, 2003a). In Bornstein et al.’s (2006) longitudinal study, a specific test for gender interactions demonstrated no gender differences in the relation of hours to behavior although

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high child-to-adult ratios were more strongly associated with boys’ observed problem behavior than with that of girls.

Conceptualizations of Social Behavior The relations of quantity of child care to negative behavior appear primarily in teachers’ ratings of externalizing behavior and less consistently in parental reports or teachers’ ratings of internalizing behavior problems and positive social skills. Quantity is typically not related to observed aggressive or positive behavior during play (NICHD ECCRN, 1998a 2003a). Teachers see children in settings with other children, and they have more standards of comparison than do parents. Observations offer a limited sample of behavior, so they may miss patterns that teachers see over time. Children’s behavior may also vary across contexts. Finally, ratings and observations are sometimes based on different conceptualizations of social competence. Teacher and parent ratings of externalizing behavior include aggression, disobedience, and lack of behavioral control, and ratings of self-control include controlling temper, accepting peer ideas, and responding appropriately to peer pressure (National Center for Education Statistics). The most common rating scales for social competence emphasize adult definitions of well-behaved children, for example, calling people by name, cooperation with adults, and responsibility (e.g., Gresham & Elliot, 1990). Theories of peer competence emphasize many complex skills that are not represented in these measures. “Competent peer interaction . . . includes proactive and positive behaviors with peers including asking others to play, sharing toys and ideas, and engaging in pretend play instead of being anxious, fearful, or aggressive” (Howes et al., 2011, p. 400). In pretend play, competent children engage in complex turn-taking, understand symbolic as well as literal meanings, negotiate role assignments, and maintain positive affect (Howes et al., 2011). Peer relationships include social and communication skills, dyadic friendships, and peer group acceptance, as well as cooperativeness and low aggression (NICHD ECCRN, 2008). Externalizing behavior—aggression, defiance, arguing, and tantrums— often occurs as part of social interactions with adults and peers that include prosocial skills, particularly for very young children. Toddlers who frequently initiate conflicts with peers are also those who are most socially outgoing and likely to initiate positive interactions (Rubin et al., 2006; authors’ calculations from NICHD SECCYD). Although teachers rate highly aggressive children as low on social skills, observational studies of preschool children’s groups, starting with Lois Murphy (1937), show positive associations between aggression and prosocial behavior (e.g., Friedrich & Stein, 1973), probably because more sociable children interact more frequently than do less sociable children. A moderate level of aggression may be adaptive in successful peer relationships. In one analysis of the NICHD SECCYD, a subset of elementary schoolchildren who were rated by their peers as both popular and aggressive had more extensive child care histories than did aggressive nonpopular children (Rodkin & Roisman, 2010). Taking a more nuanced approach to understanding social behavior might lead to a better understanding of how early care and education settings impede or promote optimal social development.

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Summary of Quantity Effects Although the findings are not entirely consistent, there is persuasive evidence that children who spend many hours in nonparental care, particularly center-based care, during their early years are apt to be perceived by teachers as manifesting higher levels of externalizing behavior problems in the preschool and early school years than are similar children with less child care experience. Some, but not all, investigations using methods for reducing selection and omitted variable bias support the hypothesis that the relation is causal. The finding is most consistent for externalizing problems, including aggression, lack of self-control, and teacherchild conflict, is less consistent for internalizing problems and poor social skills, and does not occur for observed social behavior or complex peer skills. High quantity of child care is more strongly related to teacher reports than to maternal reports or observations of behavior, and is less often found for any behavior in children from families with very low incomes, single-parent family structure, or for those who are African American or Hispanic. Despite these caveats, the association is sufficiently well documented to merit careful analysis of the processes that may account for it.

Processes by Which Quantity of Care May Affect Social Behavior We turn now to an examination of processes that may underlie the relation of quantity of child care to children’s behavior problems. The goal is not to “explain away” the finding, but instead to delve into the social and developmental processes that account for it. Because social development occurs through interactions with others, we examine children’s relationships with mothers, child care teachers, and peers as possible explanations.

Mother–Child Relationships Attachment. Much of the early research on child care grew out of the hypothesis that extensive time away from the mother would interfere with the formation of a strong, secure attachment. Separations might also reduce maternal sensitivity because mothers would have less time to learn their infants’ signals and rhythms. In the NICHD SECCYD, mothers’ time with their infants was assessed directly with time use diaries. There was no evidence that time per se was important for the mother– child relationship. Mothers who spent more of their nonwork time with their infants, regardless of employment status, were more sensitive and provided more stimulation. Maternal time with the baby was unrelated to attachment or to any indicator of social development during the child’s first 3 years of life (Booth, Clarke-Stewart, Vandell, McCartney, & Tresch-Owen, 2002; Huston & Rosenkrantz Aronson, 2005). There is little evidence that high amounts of nonmaternal care during infancy lead to insecure attachment for most children. There were no overall relations of quantity of care to attachment security as measured by the Strange Situation at 15 or 36 months of age in the NICHD SECCYD, but a subgroup of infants whose mothers were relatively insensitive were more apt to be insecure when they had experienced nonmaternal care than when they had experienced little or no care (NICHD ECCRN, 1997b; 2001). Maternal sensitivity. Disruption in the parent– child relationship produced by child care might also be evident in reduced

sensitivity during mother– child interactions. In the NICHD SECCYD, observations of mother-child interactions when children were 3 years old, mothers of children who had experienced high amounts of care were less sensitive than other mothers. By first grade, this was true only for White non-Hispanic families; for Hispanic and African American children, high amounts of care predicted more sensitivity ((NICHD ECCRN 1999; 2003c). Mother– child relationships do not mediate the quantity effect. Although children of less sensitive mothers had higher levels of behavior problems than those of more sensitive mothers, maternal sensitivity did not account for the relation of quantity of care to children’s problem behavior at ages 4 1/2 or in kindergarten (NICHD ECCRN, 2003a). Similarly, insecure attachment is associated with later behavior problems (Fearon, BakermansKranenburg, Van IJzendoorn, Lapsley, & Roisman, 2010), but given its small and inconsistent relations to quantity of care, attachment is not likely to be a mediator of the quantity effects. Family and maternal differences associated with employment decisions. Parents who place their children in high amounts of child care may have family and individual characteristics that contribute to their children’s behavior problems. When children in the NICHD SECCYD were 6 months old, children in high amounts of infant care were more likely to have mothers who contributed a relatively high proportion of the family income, who had more positive beliefs about the benefits and costs of maternal employment, and who were less worried about regular separations from their children than were mothers using little or no child care (NICHD ECCRN, 1997a). Mothers who worked part-time provided more positive and sensitive home environments than did nonemployed women, and these home environmental variables partially accounted for their children’s lower externalizing behavior in preschool and first grade (Brooks-Gunn et al., 2010). Although some of these home and family characteristics were controlled in analyses testing the relation of child care to behavior problems, it is possible that other unmeasured differences among families and children were not controlled. The match between mothers’ values and their work behavior has not been considered in most regression analyses. Mothers whose employment patterns (full-time or none) matched their attitudes and beliefs about the costs and benefits of employment for their children had better psychological well-being and were more sensitive than were mothers whose beliefs conflicted with their behavior. Their children had fewer behavior problems and better social adjustment than did mothers whose beliefs and employment behavior were in conflict (Chang, 2013; NICHD ECCRN, 1998b).

Caregiver Behavior and Quality of Care One of the first questions that arises when child care experts are confronted with the evidence of quantity effects is: Are the effects of quantity because of low quality? Evidence from decades of longitudinal, correlational studies shows that children who have experienced high-quality nonmaternal care have better social skills than do children who have been in lower-quality care settings, but the effect sizes are consistently small (Lamb & Ahnert, 2006; NICHD ECCRN, 2003b, 2006; Phillips & Lowenstein, 2011; Zaslow et al., 2010). In a meta-analysis of four large child care studies, in fact, no reliable association of global measures of

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child-care quality to changes in teacher-rated social skills and externalizing problems emerged (Keys et al., 2013). The relation between quantity and children’s behavior problems persists despite controls for child care quality, presenting a conundrum— how can high-quality care promote development but high quantity of care, even when high quality, pose risks for development? The short answer seems to be that high quality can partially but not completely override negative effects of long hours, but, for the most part, quality and quantity have independent relations to social behavior. Conclusions are complicated by definitions of quality that often include a broad range of structural and physical characteristics of care, whereas it is likely that social interactions and relationships with teachers and peers are particularly important for the development of social behavior (Phillips, McCartney, & Sussman, 2006, p. 473). A second problem in drawing conclusions arises from the fact that quality observations are not available for all children in quantity analyses; until recently, studies of quality have not accounted for effects of missing observations or children not receiving nonparental care. Defining quality. Both theory and extant data suggest that the relationships between children and the adults in their child care settings are especially important for the development of social skills and behavior problems. Global definitions of quality, which are often a mixture of the structural environment, the physical environment, and caregiver behaviors, may obscure specific components that are most important for children’s social development (Zaslow et al., 2010). Preschool teachers’ social and emotional support is related to children’s positive social skills and lowered behavior problems. In the NICHD SECCYD, “positive caregiving,” predicted teacherrated social competence at age 4 1/2, but not at later ages (Belsky et al., 2007; NICHD ECCRN, 2003b). In several investigations of preschool and prekindergarten classrooms, children in early education settings with emotionally supportive teachers had higher levels of social competence and fewer problem behaviors over the preschool and early elementary years compared with children in classrooms with less emotionally supportive teachers (Burchinal, Vandergrift, Pianta, & Mashburn, 2010; Curby et al., 2009; Howes et al., 2011; Peisner-Feinberg et al., 2001). Quality as mediator. Both developmental theory and available empirical evidence lead to the hypothesis that low-quality adult– child relationships, poor classroom organization, and teachers’ inadequate behavior management skills could account for a negative effect of long hours in child care. Children who spend more hours in child care do experience somewhat lower quality than do those in fewer hours. Correlations between quantity and quality range from ⫺.11 to ⫺.29 (Berry et al., 2014; McCartney et al., 2010; NICHD ECCRN 1997b). Nevertheless, low-quality care does not completely account for the relation of quantity to behavior problems. In the NICHD SECCYD, quantity effects appeared net of quality. Similarly, quality did not explain the differences in behavior problems for children whose mothers had been employed full-time versus parttime during their first year of life (Brooks-Gunn et al., 2010). Other studies of children’s experiences of child care in samples with greater diversity in families, child care quality, and regulatory contexts (albeit smaller numbers) suggest that quality can play an important role in modifying or eliminating the association between

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time in care and behavior problems, but each of these studies has limitations (Love et al., 2003). Quality as moderator. If low quality of caregiver– child relationships accounted for some of the effect of hours in child care, one might expect that the association of quantity with behavior problems would be absent or even reversed for children experiencing high-quality care. Although the overall analyses typically showed no interactions of quantity with quality (NICHD ECCRN, 2003b) a more targeted analysis demonstrated that the relation of cumulative child care hours to externalizing behavior problems at 24, 36, and 54 months of age was smaller, but not eliminated, under higher quality conditions (McCartney et al., 2010). Other investigations indicate that quality reverses the quantity effect. In a Montreal sample, longer exposure to high-quality care was associated with greater interest/participation, as rated by the child care teacher, while longer exposure to low quality was associated with greater anger/defiance (Hausfather, Toharia, LaRoche, & Engelsmann, 1997). Among children from low-income families in three United States cities, those with more hours in high-quality care had lower mother-rated externalizing scores during the preschool years; those with more hours in low quality had higher externalizing scores, but neither child care hours nor quality predicted behavior problems in middle childhood (Votruba-Drzal et al., 2004; Votruba-Drzal et al., 2010). These patterns are consistent with recent findings that longer exposure to high-quality programs is associated with positive social behavior (Zaslow et al., 2010).

Relationships With Peers For many of today’s children, child care offers the earliest and most frequent exposure to other children, either of their own age, as in most centers, or representing a range of ages, as is true in many home-based settings. In one analysis, 3-year-olds spent about 30% of their time in child care engaging in peer interactions, in contrast with about 10% of their time interacting with a teacher (O’Brien et al., 2013). These early peer interactions are a platform for learning both positive and negative social behavior. Surprisingly little attention has been given to understanding how peers in child care settings contribute to one another’s development, how adult caregivers influence peer interactions, or to integrating that understanding with knowledge about the development of peer relations. Group size. The fact that center care is more consistently associated with behavior problems than are other types of care suggests that experiences with large groups of peers may account for some of the effects of quantity. In groups of young children, aggression is an effective means to gain access to toys, equipment, or other resources; that is, there are naturally occurring reinforcements for dominant and aggressive behavior (Patterson, Littman, & Bricker, 1967). Negative effects of peers might be more likely in large groups, especially those with high ratios of children to adults, where children are likely to face competition for resources and conflicts with peers without adult mediation. Social interactions are less positive and more aggressive in larger groups, particularly when there are limited supplies of desirable toys (Ruopp, Travers, Glantz, & Coelen, 1979), and children in large groups, compared with small ones, engage in less pretend play and are more apt to be victims of aggression (Howes et al., 2011). When group size was experimentally manipulated in structured

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play sessions, the quality of caregivers’ behavior was more positive, and children exhibited greater well-being and cooperation in smaller groups (de Schipper, Riksen-Walraven & Geurts, 2006). Experience with peers over time may lead to both positive and negative patterns. Having a history of care with two or more children predicted only one of several measures of problem behavior: teacher-rated negative behavior at age 2, but at age 3, children with a history of being in child care with peers showed more positive observed behavior (NICHD ECCRN, 2001). There was no consistent relation of experience with different-sized groups in the preschool years to peer skills in elementary school (NICHD ECCRN, 2008). The only planned test of group size as a mediator of quantity of care found that cumulative experience in large groups, whether in centers or home child care settings, partially accounted for the association of cumulative hours in care with externalizing problems at age 4 1/2 (McCartney et al., 2010). Affective quality of peer interactions. The affective character of children’s observed peer interactions in child care is related to later competent peer skills and aggressive behavior problems. Children who had positive peer interactions from 15 through 54 months had low levels of behavior problems at age 4 1/2 (NICHD ECCRN 2003b), and, in third grade, were more sociable, had better social skills with peers, were more cooperative and less aggressive, had more close friends, and were more accepted by their peers. Third-graders with more frequent negative prior experience with peers in child care were more aggressive, had fewer social skills, and had fewer friends (NICHD ECCRN, 2008). In a smaller sample, quality of friendships at age 9 and 14 were predicted by friendship quality in preschool (Howes & Tonyan, 2000). Of course, it is possible that children who are more sociable and socially skilled engage in positive peer interactions from the outset, and that children who are more defiant and difficult show these behaviors from an early age. To test this possibility, infants’ temperaments and moods were examined as indicators of children’s predispositions. There was no relation of temperament to positive or negative peer interaction observed at 15 months (NICHD ECCRN, 2008). Even if initial individual differences exist, given the rudimentary peer skills of 15-month-olds, it is likely that the characteristics of the child care setting and the behavior of caregivers and other children would affect the direction and development of such interactions. Caregivers, peer climate, and peer competence. Positive relationships with teachers and supportive peer climates enhance skilled peer interaction, whereas negative peer interactions and negative peer climates increase the likelihood of aggressive and disruptive behavior. In numerous observational studies, emotionally supportive care and positive caregiver-child relationships were related to positive social behaviors among peers (e.g., DeynootSchaub & Riksen-Walraven, 2006; Howes et al., 2011; NICHD ECCRN, 2001; Peisner-Feinberg et al., 2001; Spivak & Howes, 2011). Adults can also scaffold positive peer interactions (Legendre & Munchenbach, 2011; Williams, Mastergeorge, & Ontai, 2010), but teachers typically maintain distance when children are playing together, intervening only when conflicts occur (Kontos, Burchinal, Howes, Wisseh, & Galinsky, 2002). Not only do the adults in children’s environments influence their peer interactions, but so also do the characteristics and behaviors

of the other children—the overall peer climate of the classroom. Children experiencing classrooms with high levels of behavior problems and poor teacher– child relationships are more likely to be victims of aggression (Howes et al., 2011) and, in elementary school to have high levels of aggressive and disruptive behavior (Peisner-Feinberg et al., 2001) or social withdrawal (Howes & Tonyan, 2000). Do peer interactions explain quantity effect? There is no direct evidence about whether peer experiences account for the relations of quantity of care to children’s social behavior. In one analysis, cumulative quantity was related to externalizing problems even with controls for center-care and exposure to peers (NICHD ECRN, 2003a), but for the most part, the mediation and moderation questions have not been examined. We know relatively little about what features of child care settings affect children’s relationships with one another. The most commonly used quality measures—the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scales (Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, 2005), the Observational Rating of the Child Care Environment (NICHD ECCRN, 2000), and the Classroom Assessment Score System (Pianta, LaParo, & Hamre, 2008)— emphasize adult interactions with children, but provide little information about the quality of peer contacts or how adults respond to and scaffold peer interactions and conflicts.

Conclusions The Quantity Effect Is Real We began this review with two purposes: (a) to gain a better understanding of the circumstances in which quantity of child care leads to behavior problems and poor social skills, and (b) to examine the processes that may account for the quantity “effect.” Our first conclusion is that the quantity effect is real. The three largest, most representative, and best-controlled studies of children’s early experiences in child care (the NICHD SECCYD, the ECLS-K, and the ECLS-B), as well as many smaller studies, show that children who have experienced many hours in child care prior to school entry, especially center-based care, are rated by their teachers in the early grades as having more externalizing behavior problems, more teacher– child conflict, and lower levels of selfcontrol than their counterparts. With a few exceptions, the causal role of child care is supported by demonstrations that this finding is robust to numerous methods of controlling for unobserved selection and omitted variable bias. Quantity effect is small, but important. The effect sizes of child care hours and center care are typically small, but they are comparable to and more long-lasting than the effect sizes for quality. At the same time, the vast majority of children score within the normal range of problem behaviors; few children meet the criteria for clinical levels of problems regardless of child care history. The effect of child care hours fades out after first grade. Nevertheless, there is reason to be concerned. Aggressive behavior in the preschool years predicts trajectories of later aggression (Campbell, Spieker, Burchinal, Poe, & the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2006; Crick et al., 2006), and positive peer interactions predict later social skills with peers (Blandon, Calkins, Grimm, Keane & O’Brien, 2010). Moreover, the reduction of differences between children with different child care histories could result from effects of group contagion; kindergarten

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children who had little or no child care experience exhibited more externalizing behavior when more of their classmates had experienced extensive and/or center-based care (Dmitrieva, Steinberg, & Belsky, 2007). Even small effects can be important at the population level if they occur for large numbers of children, and, of course, this is true for both quantity and quality effects. Quantity effect is context specific. The associations of child care quantity with problem behavior and social adjustment occur primarily for teacher/caregiver reports. They are less consistent in parent reports, and they do not appear for observed measures of aggression (e.g., observed classroom behavior and dyadic peer interaction). One reason for this discrepancy may be the wellestablished fact that children’s social behavior is context-specific—correlations of behavior across contexts are typically low to moderate (Dinnebeil et al., 2013). Parents and teachers perceive children differently, and child care “effects” may be more prevalent in classroom contexts than they are at home or in play interactions with peers. Quantity effect is specific to particular measures of behavior. To the extent that there is a quantity “effect,” it is specific to certain categories of social behavior, principally externalizing behavior problems. It is less consistent for ratings of such internalizing problems as social withdrawal, anxious behavior, and sadness and for such positive social skills as cooperation and helpfulness. It is unrelated to skills in making friends, pretend play, leadership, and complex interactions that are central to successful peer interaction. Quantity effect is population specific. For children facing disadvantages associated with low income, single-parent family structure, and minority ethnic group membership, extensive child care is not associated with high levels of externalizing; in some cases, it predicts low levels of problems. Child care does not represent an additional risk for them, but instead may compensate for other disadvantages. As almost half of U.S. children belong to an ethnic minority, these findings signal caution about generalizing to today’s population of children (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2013). At a broader cultural level, most of the information about early and extensive care applies to children in the United States. Although there are some parallel findings for other countries, the effects of child care may vary depending on the social and cultural context, the availability of such policies as paid family leave, the average quality of care, the flexibility of parents’ work, the level of pay for childcare workers, and degree of education required of care providers. Developmental differences. High quantity of care in infancy does not have unique or larger effects than does care at later ages, but the toddler years may be an important time during which child care cultivates children’s interactions with peers. Because the amount of time children spend in child care is highly stable over the years from 0 to 4, disentangling different development periods is difficult, but, on the whole, it appears that the association with behavior problems is a function of cumulative hours over time rather than any particular developmental period. Cohort and secular variations. Over the past 25 years, the rates of maternal employment and use of child care have remained relatively steady, suggesting that the data from the 1990s continue to be applicable. Rates of employment for mothers of children under age 6 increased from 28.7% in 1970 to 58.2% in 1990,

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leveling off to 63.9% in 2013 (U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013; Veum & Gleason, 1991), and 20%–30% of employed mothers used center care between 1985 and 2011, with no linear trend (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2013). Although about 26% of children lived with a single parent in 2012 (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2013), there were no differences in employment rates for single and married mothers (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014).

Why? Processes Accounting for Quantity Effect Our analyses of processes underlying negative effects of extensive child care, particularly center care, on children’s social behavior point to lack of emotionally supportive adult– child interactions and to problematic peer interactions as two important components of settings that increase the likelihood of behavior problems and produce stress in child care. Conversely, we find no support for the hypothesis that child care effects on children’s relationships with their mothers account for the association of child care quantity with behavior problems. Mother– child relationship. Attachment theory formed the basis for much of the early research on child care effects, but the relations of child care quantity to children’s behavior are not mediated by effects on attachment to parents, maternal sensitivity, or the mother-child relationship. Care in infancy, the time that is most important for attachment formation, is not uniquely related to later behavior, and there is little support for the notion that quantity of care interferes with secure attachment for most children. High quantity of care is associated with reduced maternal sensitivity, but sensitivity does not explain the association of quantity with children’s later externalizing behavior. Quality of adult– child relationships. Although quality of care is associated with children’s social skills, quantity of child care is related to behavior problems even with quality controlled. Adult– child interactions and relationships in child care account partially, but not fully, for the effects of long hours. Extensive time in child care has less pronounced relations to behavior and to signs of stress when caregivers are emotionally supportive and sensitive as well as providing organized and skilled behavior management. Relationships with peers. Children’s early positive and negative interactions with peers in child care forecast later social skills and relationships with other children. There is some evidence that experience in large groups of children partially accounts for relations of quantity to behavior problems, perhaps because aggression and uncontrolled behavior are not only more likely but also more successful when many children are together. Positive interactions with peers and supportive peer climates can enhance peer skills, but we do not know whether these features of care account for or override effects of cumulative quantity.

Future Directions Peer Processes Peer interactions are a source of both positive and negative social behavior, but peer processes have received much less attention than adult relationships in child care research. More information is needed about the conditions that foster positive peer interactions, including ways that teachers and caregivers can shape

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children’s social skills with peers by sensitive adult– child interactions, scaffolding and guiding behavior within peer groups (e.g., conflict resolution and problem solving skills). Although ratio and group size have been studied, it would be useful to drill down to determine how children’s experiences differ in large versus small groups and with different types of adult supervision, different levels of resources, and different amounts of crowding (Evans, 2006; Smith & Connolly, 1977). More nuanced conceptualization and measurement of the ecology children’s social behavior, attending to the combinations of prosocial and aggressive behavior, as well as relationships among peers, might permit a better understanding of the consequences of early group experience.

Developmental Differences The toddler period may have particular importance because of children’s mobility, increasing independence, and rudimentary peer interactions at a time when they have limited self-control or language capabilities. Some evidence that group size and ratio matter more in the toddler years than in the later preschool years (Huston, 2008) suggests that group processes may be important, but there are serious gaps in our understanding of how child care can promote social and emotional learning during the toddler years. Although there are many successful interventions promoting social and emotional skills among 3- and 4-year-olds, (see, e.g., Camilli, Vargas, Sharon, & Barnett, 2010), the few tests of such interventions in toddler care have not yielded encouraging results (e.g., Bos et al., 2012).

Time of Day Activities, interactions, and mood (of both adults and children) are likely to vary by time of day. Possible importance of time of day is suggested by the finding that long hours per day rather than many days per week predicted behavior problems (McCartney et al., 2010) and that cortisol elevations for children in child care occur in the afternoon. The routines in child care centers typically include activities in the morning, an early afternoon nap, followed by a relatively unstructured period when children and teachers may be tired and irritable. Most observational studies of child care environments collect samples in the morning, perhaps missing some of the experiences that could contribute to negative effects of long hours.

Ethnic and Cultural Diversity The ethnic and cultural diversity of United States children has increased dramatically over the last 50 years; in 2012 only slightly over half (53%) of the child population was white, non-Hispanic (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2013). The negative association of child care quantity to behavior problems is not evident for African American and Hispanic children, but the benefits of child care quality do apply to those groups. Similarly, approximately 44% of America’s children lived in lowincome families (less than 200% of the poverty threshold) in 2011 (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2013), and there is evidence showing both positive and negative effects of child care quantity for that group.

Individual Differences Individual differences in temperament, sociability, fearfulness, and inhibition may affect responses to child care experiences. In the NICHD SECCYD, infants with difficult temperaments and children with a specific allele previously linked to aggression showed more behavior problems in low-quality care than did other children in similar care but there was no genetic moderation of quantity effects (Belsky & Pluess, 2013). Children who are temperamentally fearful or behaviorally inhibited appear to be more susceptible to stress in child care than are sociable, outgoing children (Phillips, Fox, & Gunnar, 2011; Tarullo et al., 2011). Prolonged hours in child care may present demands for social interaction and vigilance that exceed some children’s tolerance limits and lead to behavior problems. In conclusion, the quantity effect is real, though small, and it is limited to particular behaviors, populations, and contexts. Low quality and large groups account for some, but not all of the effect. Some of the processes accounting for effects of quantity on social behavior appear to be the nature of adult– child interactions and peer interactions in the child care context.

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Received September 3, 2013 Revision received January 6, 2015 Accepted January 19, 2015 䡲

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Time spent in child care: How and why does it affect social development?

Children who experience early and extensive child care, especially center-based care, are rated by teachers as having more externalizing behavior prob...
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