Quality of early family relationships and the timing and tempo of puberty: Effects depend on biological sensitivity to context

Guided by evolutionary-developmental theories of biological sensitivity to context and reproductive development, the current research examined the interactive effects of early family environments and psychobiologic reactivity to stress on the subsequent timing and tempo of puberty. As predicted by the theory, among children displaying heightened biological sensitivity to context (i.e., higher stress reactivity), higher quality parent-child relationships forecast slower initial pubertal tempo and later pubertal timing, whereas lower quality parent-child relationships forecast the opposite pattern. No such effects emerged among less context-sensitive children. Whereas sympathetic nervous system reactivity moderated the effects of parent-child relationships on both breast/genital and pubic hair development, adrenocortical activation only moderated the effect on pubic hair development. The current results build on previous research documenting what family contexts predict variation in pubertal timing by demonstrating for whom those contexts matter. In addition, the authors advance a new methodological approach for assessing pubertal tempo using piecewise growth curve analysis.