Michael Rutter
Biographic Data
| ID | 199023 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Rutter |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Rutter |
| SIGNATURE | RUTTER M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Psychiatry Research Trust |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1577-7405 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 87 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 827 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 87 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1966 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
The Isle of Wight studies: The scope and scale of reading difficulties
Beginning in the 1960s, the Isle of Wight studies were among the first to investigate developmental reading problems in representative, population-based samples, using the tools of epidemiology. In this paper, we provide an overview of the contribution of the Isle of Wight studies to research on reading disabilities. We begin with an account of the surveys of primary school children, then move on to describe the programme of epidemiological and l…
Why does early childhood deprivation increase the risk for depression and anxiety in adulthood? A developmental cascade model
BACKGROUND: Using data from the English & Romanian Adoptees (ERA) study, we recently reported that early time-limited exposure to severe institutional deprivation is associated with early-onset and persistent neurodevelopmental problems and later-onset emotional problems. Here, we examine possible reasons for the late emergence of emotional problems in this cohort. Our main focus is on testing a developmental cascade mediated via the functional i…
Child-to-adult neurodevelopmental and mental health trajectories after early life deprivation: The young adult follow-up of the longitudinal English and Romanian Adoptees study
BACKGROUND: Time-limited, early-life exposures to institutional deprivation are associated with disorders in childhood, but it is unknown whether effects persist into adulthood. We used data from the English and Romanian Adoptees study to assess whether deprivation-associated adverse neurodevelopmental and mental health outcomes persist into young adulthood. METHODS: The English and Romanian Adoptees study is a longitudinal, natural experiment in…
The behaviour of adopted adolescents who spent their infancy in residential group care: The Greek Metera study
The aim of the study was to determine whether adopted children with early experiences of institutional care are at an increased risk of developing behavioural difficulties. The participants were 52 adopted adolescents aged 13 years. The comparison group comprised 36 adolescents of the same age who were brought up in their biological families. The adopted young people were more overactive and inattentive at school compared with those raised in the…
Assessing the Concept of the ‘Insecure‐Other’ Category in the Cassidy–Marvin Scheme: Changes Between 4 and 6 Years in the English and Romanian Adoptee Study
We set out to explore the meaning of the attachment categories in the Cassidy/Marvin strange situation procedure, as employed in the home, using data from a longitudinal study of children adopted into UK families up to the age of 42 months from Romanian institutions, and of adopted children without the experience of institutional care––both groups being assessed at 4 and 6 years of age. Inter‐rater reliability was found to be good. Security (mean…
Parents’ evaluation of adoption success: A follow-up study of intercountry and domestic adoptions
Parents of 165 children adopted from Romania and 52 children adopted from within the United Kingdom rated the success of the adoptions when the children were 11 years old. As was the case at two earlier study waves, satisfaction was found to be extremely high. Both positive and negative assessments were generally stable between ages 6 and 11, although for the children who had more problems there was an increase in negative evaluation, albeit with…
The Importance of Cultural Identity in Adoption: A Study of Young People Adopted from Romania
This article by Celia Beckett, Amanda Hawkins, Michael Rutter, Jenny Castle, Emma Colvert, Christine Groothues, Jana Kreppner, Suzanne Stevens and Edmund Sonuga-Barke examines attitudes regarding cultural and national identity in a group of 165 young people adopted from Romania. The attitudes of their adoptive parents are also explored. The adoptive parents were interviewed over three or four time periods, when their children were 4/6, 11 and 15 …
Nonmaternal care in infancy and emotional/behavioral difficulties at 4 years old: Moderation by family risk characteristics
The authors examined the role of familial risk and child characteristics in the association between the type of child care in infancy (maternal care [MC]) versus nonmaternal care [NMC]) and emotional/behavioral difficulties at 4 years old. Canadian families (N=1,358) with children between 1 and 12 months old were followed over 4 years. Family risks were found to moderate the association between type of child care and physical aggression. MC in in…
Resilience, competence, and coping
Resilience to adult psychopathology following childhood maltreatment: Evidence from a community sample
Communicative Openness About Adoption and Interest in Contact in a Sample of Domestic and Intercountry Adolescent Adoptees
Adolescent intercountry (n = 122) and domestic (n = 40) adoptees and their adoptive parents were asked about their views on communicative openness. The adoptees were also asked for their thoughts on birth parents and contact. A modest association between communicative openness and feelings about adoptive status and self-esteem was found. Girls were more interested in many aspects of their adoptions than boys. Compared with the situation at 11 yea…
The Experience of Adoption (1) A Study of Intercountry and Domestic Adoption from the child's point of view
Amanda Hawkins, Celia Beckett, Jenny Castle, Christine Groothues, Edmund Sonuga-Barke, Emma Colvert, Jana Kreppner, Suzanne Stevens and Michael Rutter compared views about adoption for two groups of 11-year-old children (n = 180). The team's analyses compared the views of children according to their pre-adoption background: UK domestic adoptees placed before the age of six months versus intercountry adoptees who had experienced extreme deprivatio…
Psychopathological Development Across Adolescence
Normality and impairment following profound early institutional deprivation: A longitudinal follow-up into early adolescence
Longitudinal analyses on normal versus impaired functioning across 7 domains were conducted in children who had experienced profound institutional deprivation up to the age of 42 months and were adopted from Romania into U.K. families. Comparisons were made with noninstitutionalized children adopted from Romania and with nondeprived within-U.K. adoptees placed before the age of 6 months. Specifically, the validity of the assessment, the degree of…
Gene–environment interplay and psychopathology: Multiple varieties but real effects
Gene–environment interplay is a general term that covers several divergent concepts with different meanings and different implications. In this review, we evaluate research evidence on four varieties of gene–environment interplay. First, we consider epigenetic mechanisms by which environmental influences alter the effects of genes. Second, we focus on variations in heritability according to environmental circumstances. Third, we discuss what is k…
Continuities and discontinuities in psychopathology between childhood and adult life
The possible mechanisms involved in continuities and discontinuities in psychopathology between childhood and adult life are considered in relation to the findings from systematic, prospective, long‐term longitudinal studies. Findings on schizophrenia, neurodevelopmental disorders, emotional disturbances, antisocial behaviour and substance abuse are used as conditions illustrating the key issues. The overarching themes are then discussed in relat…
Implications of Resilience Concepts for Scientific Understanding
Resilience is an interactive concept that refers to a relative resistance to environmental risk experiences, or the overcoming of stress or adversity. As such, it differs from both social competence positive mental health. Resilience differs from traditional concepts of risk and protection in its focus on individual variations in response to comparable experiences. Accordingly, the research focus needs to be on those individual differences and th…
Service use by families with children adopted from Romania
Service use between six and 11 years of age is reported for children adopted from Romania into UK families, and compared with that for children adopted within the UK before six months of age. Between six and 11, there had been only one adoption breakdown, and about one in ten couples experienced a marital breakdown. Apart from continuing concerns over hepatitis B carrier status in a small number of children, physical health problems were not a pr…
Strategy for Investigating Interactions Between Measured Genes and Measured Environments
The purpose of this article is to promote research that tests hypotheses of measured gene-environment interaction (GxE). A GxE occurs when the effect of exposure to an environmental pathogen on health is conditional on a person's genotype (or conversely, when environmental experience moderates genes' effects on health). Gene-environment interactions were thought to be rare in psychiatry, but empirical findings of measured GxEs are now emerging. H…
Adult outcome for children with autism
Background: Information on long‐term prognosis in autism is limited. Outcome is known to be poor for those with an IQ below 50, but there have been few systematic studies of individuals with an IQ above this. Method: Sixty‐eight individuals meeting criteria for autism and with a performance IQ of 50 or above in childhood were followed up as adults. Their mean age when first seen was 7 years (range 3–15 years); at follow‐up the average age was 29 …
Pathways of genetic influences onpsychopathology
Quantitative genetics, using data from twin and adoptee studies, has shown substantial genetic influences on all forms of psychiatric disorder; however, with just a few exceptions, the evidence indicates that the disorders are multifactorial, with influences that are both genetic and environmental. In recent years, molecular genetics has begun to identify individual susceptibility genes; examples are given for schizophrenia, attention deficit/hyp…
Validity of adult retrospective reports of adverse childhood experiences: Review of the evidence
Influential studies have cast doubt on the validity of retrospective reports by adults of their own adverse experiences in childhood. Accordingly, many researchers view retrospective reports with scepticism.A computer-based search, supplemented by hand searches, was used to identify studies reported between 1980 and 2001 in which there was a quantified assessment of the validity of retrospective recall of sexual abuse, physical abuse, physical/em…
Maternal Expressed Emotion Predicts Children's Antisocial Behavior Problems: Using Monozygotic-Twin Differences to Identify Environmental Effects on Behavioral Development
If maternal expressed emotion is an environmental risk factor for children's antisocial behavior problems, it should account for behavioral differences between siblings growing up in the same family even after genetic influences on children's behavior problems are taken into account. This hypothesis was tested in the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study with a nationally representative 1994-1995 birth cohort of twins. The authors interviewe…
Are There Biological Programming Effects for Psychological Development? Findings From a Study of Romanian Adoptees
Associations between experiences and outcomes could be due to (a) continuation of adversity or (b) organismic changes, including experience-expectant and experience-adaptive developmental programming. The adoption into British families of children who had been reared in profoundly depriving institutions in Romania presented an opportunity to test mechanisms. Romanian children reared from infancy in very depriving institutions for periods up to 42…
Using sex differences in psychopathology to study causal mechanisms: Unifying issues and research strategies
Background: Although there is an extensive literature, both speculative and empirical, on postulated differences between males and females in their rates of particular types of disorder, very little is known about the mechanisms that underlie these sex differences. The study of mechanisms is important because it may provide clues on aetiological processes. The review seeks to outline what is known, what are the methodological hazards that must be…
Validity of adult retrospective reports of adverse childhood experiences: Review of the evidence
Influential studies have cast doubt on the validity of retrospective reports by adults of their own adverse experiences in childhood. Accordingly, many researchers view retrospective reports with scepticism.A computer-based search, supplemented by hand searches, was used to identify studies reported between 1980 and 2001 in which there was a quantified assessment of the validity of retrospective recall of sexual abuse, physical abuse, physical/em…
Fifteen thousand hours: Secondary Schools and Their Effects on Children
Maternal Expressed Emotion Predicts Children's Antisocial Behavior Problems: Using Monozygotic-Twin Differences to Identify Environmental Effects on Behavioral Development
If maternal expressed emotion is an environmental risk factor for children's antisocial behavior problems, it should account for behavioral differences between siblings growing up in the same family even after genetic influences on children's behavior problems are taken into account. This hypothesis was tested in the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study with a nationally representative 1994-1995 birth cohort of twins. The authors interviewe…
Maternal deprivation reassessed
The Measurement of Family Activities and Relationships: A Methodological Study
Normality and impairment following profound early institutional deprivation: A longitudinal follow-up into early adolescence
Longitudinal analyses on normal versus impaired functioning across 7 domains were conducted in children who had experienced profound institutional deprivation up to the age of 42 months and were adopted from Romania into U.K. families. Comparisons were made with noninstitutionalized children adopted from Romania and with nondeprived within-U.K. adoptees placed before the age of 6 months. Specifically, the validity of the assessment, the degree of…
Genotype–environment correlations in late childhood and early adolescence: Antisocial behavioral problems and coercive parenting
A key question for understanding the interplay between nature and nurture in development is the direction of effects in socialization. A longitudinal adoption design provides a unique opportunity to investigate this issue in terms of genotype-environment correlations for behavioral problems. As part of the Colorado Adoption Project, adopted children were classified as being at genetic risk (N = 38) or not at genetic risk (N = 50) for antisocial b…
Commentary: Some focus and process considerations regarding effects of parental depression on children
Six main questions are considered: How does depression affect parent-child interaction? Are the effects of parental depression uniform? Do they stem specifically from depressions as such? Do the risks derive from alterations in parent-child interaction? Which psychological functions in the child are affected? and Why do children differ in their responses to parental depression
Testing hypotheses on specific environmental causal effects on behavior
There have been strong critiques of the notion that environmental influences can have an important effect on psychological functioning. The substance of these criticisms is considered in order to infer the methodological challenges that have to be met. Concepts of cause and of the testing of causal effects are discussed with a particular focus on the need to consider sample selection and the value (and limitations) of longitudinal data. The desig…
Are There Biological Programming Effects for Psychological Development? Findings From a Study of Romanian Adoptees
Associations between experiences and outcomes could be due to (a) continuation of adversity or (b) organismic changes, including experience-expectant and experience-adaptive developmental programming. The adoption into British families of children who had been reared in profoundly depriving institutions in Romania presented an opportunity to test mechanisms. Romanian children reared from infancy in very depriving institutions for periods up to 42…
Genotype-environment correlations in late childhood and early adolescence: Antisocial behavioral problems and coercive parenting
A key question for understanding the interplay between nature and nurture in development is the direction of effects in socialization. A longitudinal adoption design provides a unique opportunity to investigate this issue in terms of genotype-environment correlations for behavioral problems. As part of the Colorado Adoption Project, adopted children were classified as being at genetic risk (N = 38) or not at genetic risk (N = 50) for antisocial b…
Nature–nurture integration: The example of antisocial behavior
Children in substitute care: Some conceptual considerations and research implications
Communicative Openness About Adoption and Interest in Contact in a Sample of Domestic and Intercountry Adolescent Adoptees
Adolescent intercountry (n = 122) and domestic (n = 40) adoptees and their adoptive parents were asked about their views on communicative openness. The adoptees were also asked for their thoughts on birth parents and contact. A modest association between communicative openness and feelings about adoptive status and self-esteem was found. Girls were more interested in many aspects of their adoptions than boys. Compared with the situation at 11 yea…
The Experience of Adoption (1) A Study of Intercountry and Domestic Adoption from the child's point of view
Amanda Hawkins, Celia Beckett, Jenny Castle, Christine Groothues, Edmund Sonuga-Barke, Emma Colvert, Jana Kreppner, Suzanne Stevens and Michael Rutter compared views about adoption for two groups of 11-year-old children (n = 180). The team's analyses compared the views of children according to their pre-adoption background: UK domestic adoptees placed before the age of six months versus intercountry adoptees who had experienced extreme deprivatio…
Some research considerations on intergenerational continuities and discontinuities: Comment on the special section
Nonmaternal care in infancy and emotional/behavioral difficulties at 4 years old: Moderation by family risk characteristics
The authors examined the role of familial risk and child characteristics in the association between the type of child care in infancy (maternal care [MC]) versus nonmaternal care [NMC]) and emotional/behavioral difficulties at 4 years old. Canadian families (N=1,358) with children between 1 and 12 months old were followed over 4 years. Family risks were found to moderate the association between type of child care and physical aggression. MC in in…
Commentary: Causal processes leading to antisocial behavior
Conceptual, and empirical, questions are raised regarding the notion that physical aggression is the main individual risk factor for antisocial behavior, that language impairment also constitutes a risk factor, the meaning of the male preponderance for antisocial behavior, the findings on environmentally mediated risk; the role of biosocial interplay; social context effects; the construct of antisocial behavior, developmental trends; processing o…
Risk mechanisms in development: Some conceptual and methodological considerations
This commentary focuses on several issues concerning research on risk mechanisms that are raised in this special issue. First, we focus on what marks this special issue as distinctive in the ways in which risk research is conducted. Second, several general issues in research are highlighted, including sample characteristics, measurement strategies, specificity of risk factors and risk mechanisms, categorical vs. dimensional approaches to samples …
The behaviour of adopted adolescents who spent their infancy in residential group care: The Greek Metera study
The aim of the study was to determine whether adopted children with early experiences of institutional care are at an increased risk of developing behavioural difficulties. The participants were 52 adopted adolescents aged 13 years. The comparison group comprised 36 adolescents of the same age who were brought up in their biological families. The adopted young people were more overactive and inattentive at school compared with those raised in the…
Psychopathological Development Across Adolescence
Social context: Meanings, measures and mechanisms
Concepts, findings and methodological considerations regarding the influence of social circumstances on psychological functioning are selectively reviewed with respect to five different types of possible effect deriving from: the impact of social connotation or meaning of risk/protective factors; social comparison effects; compositional effects deriving from the make-up of a social group; a social contextual effect reflecting the ethos of a broad…
Parenting Breakdown: The Making and Breaking of Intergenerational Links
The role of cognition in child development and disorder
The role of cognition in child development is reviewed with respect to the role of cognitive processing and cognitive deficits. Cognitive processing is discussed with respect to the self‐system; the effects of psychosocial experiences; risk, vulnerability and protective mechanisms; vulnerability to depression; aetiology and treatment of depression. Cognitive deficits are discussed with respect to the socio‐emotional consequences of language delay…
Service use by families with children adopted from Romania
Service use between six and 11 years of age is reported for children adopted from Romania into UK families, and compared with that for children adopted within the UK before six months of age. Between six and 11, there had been only one adoption breakdown, and about one in ten couples experienced a marital breakdown. Apart from continuing concerns over hepatitis B carrier status in a small number of children, physical health problems were not a pr…
The Measurement of Family Activities and Relationships: A Methodological Study
A Children's Behaviour Questionnaire for Completion by Teachers: Preliminary Findings
Childhood asthma: A psychosomatic disorder? Some epidemiological considerations
Epidemiologists with an interest in bronchial asthma, have given little attention to the psychiatric aspects of this condition, particularly as it occurs in childhood. Clinical impressions, rather than the results of systematic studies, are responsible for the fact that some paediatricians and psychiatrists have come to view the personality of the asthmatic child in terms of a stereotype engendered by a particular type of mother-child relationshi…
E ducational A spects of C hildhood M aladjustment: S ome E pidemiological F indings
Parent‐child Separation: Psychological Effects on the Children
Temperamental characteristics as predictors of behavior disorders in children
Sixty children, three to seven years old, each of whom had at least one mentally ill parent, were assessed for both temperamental differences and behavior disorder. Information was obtained from parents and teachers one year after the initial interviews. Certain temperamental characteristics, especially low habit regularity and low fastidiousness, were predictive of the development of later psychiatric disorder
Maternal Deprivation, Reassessed
Cycles of disadvantage: A Review of Research
Adolescent Turmoil: Fact or Fiction?
The concept of adolescent turmoil is considered in the context of findings from a total population epidemiological study of Isle of Wight 14–15‐yr‐olds. It is concluded that parent child alienation is not a common feature unless the adolescents are already showing psychiatric problems. Inner turmoil, however, as represented by feelings of misery and self‐depreciation is quite frequent. Psychiatric, conditions are only slightly commoner during ado…
Bias resulting from missing information: Some epidemiological findings
The biases resulting from missing information were examined in three psychiatric epidemiological studies. In each study, cases with missing information could be compared with the main sample because data were available from several sources or at several points in time through a longitudinal study. In almost all instances, cases with missing data differed systematically in terms of variables crucial to the questions being studied. In general, they…
Maternal Deprivation, 1972-1978: New Findings, New Concepts, New Approaches
Research since 1972 in the field of "maternal deprivation" is critically reviewed. The results are used to reassess briefly the formulations proposed in 1972 and to discuss more fully the meaning and practical implications of fresh findings on new or recently revived topics. These include the development of social relationships and the process of bonding, critical periods of development, the links between childhood experiences and parenting behav…
Stress, Coping and Development: Some Issues and Some Questions
The concept of psychosocial stress is reviewed in relation to empirical findings on the effects of different types of life, events in childhood and adult life. It is concluded that the concept is unhelpfully broad and that the events need to be subdivided according to their characteristics and meaning. In considering all types of, stimuli, individual differences in response are crucial; so‐called stressors may have no effect or may be cither bene…
Maternal deprivation reassessed
Social-emotional consequences of day care for preschool children
Research evidence of the social and emotional sequelae of day care is reviewed. Although day care for very young children is not likely to result in serious emotional disturbance, it would be misleading to conclude that it is without risks or effects. Much depends on the quality of the day care, and on the age, characteristics, and family circumstances of the child. Areas in need of further study are identified, and some speculative policy implic…
The city and the child
The incidence of psychosocial problems of various kinds tends to be much higher in the inner cities than in areas of small towns or in rural communities. This paper explores the mechanisms likely to contribute to this difference, and considers the implications for mental health practitioners and policy makers
Children in Lesbian and Single‐parent Households: Psychosexual and Psychiatric Appraisal
Thirty‐seven school‐age children reared in 27 lesbian households were compared with 38 school‐age children reared in 27 heterosexual single‐parent households, with respect to their psychosexual development and their emotions, behaviour and relationships. Systematic standardized intervews with the mothers and with the children, together with parent and teacher questionnaires, were used to make the psychosexual and psychiatric appraisal. The two gr…
Learning to be parents: Principles, programs and methods
Changing Youth in a Changing Society: Patterns of Adolescent Development and Disorder
Juvenile delinquency: Trends and Perspectives
Parental psychiatric disorder: Effects on children
Synopsis A 4-year prospective study was undertaken of the families of 137 newly referred English speaking psychiatric patients with children at home aged under 15 years. The group comprised a representative sample of such patients living in one inner London borough. Teacher questionnaires were obtained yearly for all children of school age in the families, and for age-, sex- and classroom-matched controls. Detailed standardized interviews were un…
The Domain of Developmental Psychopathology
It is the "developmental" component of developmental psychopathology that distinguishes this discipline from abnormal psychology, psychiatry, and even clinical child psychology. At the same time, the focus on individual patterns of adaptation and maladaptation distinguishes this field from the larger discipline of developmental psychology. In this essay a developmental perspective is presented, and the implications of this perspective for researc…
Resilience in the Face of Adversity: Protective Factors and Resistance to Psychiatric Disorder
Almost since the beginnings of psychiatric practice, there has been a recognition that negative life experiences and stressful happenings may serve to precipitate mental disorders (Garmezy & Rutter, 1985). Nearly 200 years ago, Pinel wrote about the psychiatric risks associated with unexpected reverses or adverse circumstances, and it is reported that his initial question to newly admitted psychiatric patients was: “Have you suffered vexation, gr…
The role of cognition in child development and disorder
The role of cognition in child development is reviewed with respect to the role of cognitive processing and cognitive deficits. Cognitive processing is discussed with respect to the self‐system; the effects of psychosocial experiences; risk, vulnerability and protective mechanisms; vulnerability to depression; aetiology and treatment of depression. Cognitive deficits are discussed with respect to the socio‐emotional consequences of language delay…
Psychosocial resilience and protective mechanisms
The concept of mechanisms that protect people against the psychological risks associated with adversity is discussed in relation to four main processes: reduction of risk impact, reduction of negative chain reactions, establishment and maintenance of self-esteem and self-efficacy, and opening up of opportunities. The mechanisms operating at key turning points in people's lives must be given special attention
Development of Antisocial and Prosocial Behavior: Research, Theories, and Issues
Psychology (78 works) · Developmental psychology (67 works) · Psychiatry (36 works) · Clinical Psychology (34 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (33 works) · Social Psychology (26 works) · Medicine (25 works) · Child Welfare and Adoption (21 works) · Cognitive Abilities and Testing (15 works) · Sociology (14 works)