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Ritual, Habit, and Perfectionism: The Prevalence and Development of Compulsive‐like Behavior in Normal Young Children
Author(s) -
Evans David W.,
Leckman James F.,
Carter Alice,
Reznick J. Steven,
Henshaw Desiree,
King Robert A.,
Pauls David
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1997.tb01925.x
Subject(s) - psychology , psychopathology , developmental psychology , repertoire , habit , young adult , developmental psychopathology , perfectionism (psychology) , internal consistency , clinical psychology , psychometrics , physics , acoustics , psychotherapist
Young children engage in a significant amount of rutualitic, repetitive, and compulsive‐like activity that appears to be part of their Normal behavioral repertoire. Empirically, little is known about the onset, prevalence, and developmental trajectory of these phenomena. A parent‐report questionnaire, the Childhood Routines Inventory (CRI), was developed to assess compulsive‐like behavior in young children, and was administered to 1,492 parents with children between the ages of 8 and 72 months. The CRI has strong overall internal consistency and a distinct two‐factor structure. The frequency of compulsive‐like behaviors changes with age: Two‐, 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds engaged in more compulsive behavior than children younger than 1 year of age and older than 4 years of age. Results are discussed from a development psychopathology framework and for their implications for future research in this area.