The interdisciplinary field of developmental psychopathology has made great strides by including context into theoretical and empirical approaches to studying risk and resilience. Perhaps no context is more important to the developing child than their relationships with their caregivers (typically a child’s parents), as caregivers are a key source of stimulation and nurturance to young children. Coupled with the high degree of brain plasticity in the earliest years of life, these caregiving relationships have an immense influence on shaping behavioral outcomes relevant to developmental psychopathology. In this article, we discuss three areas within caregiving relationships: (1) caregiver–child interactions in everyday, naturalistic settings; (2) caregivers’ social cognitions about their child; and (3) caregivers’ broader social and cultural context. For each area, we provide an overview of its significance to the field, identify existing knowledge gaps, and offer potential approaches for bridging these gaps to foster growth in the field. Lastly, given that one value of a scientific discipline is its ability to produce research useful in guiding real-world decisions related to policy and practice, we encourage developmental psychopathology to consider that a focus on caregiving, a modifiable target, supports this mission.

中文翻译：

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照顾关系是发展精神病理学的基石

通过将背景纳入研究风险和复原力的理论和实证方法中，发展精神病理学的跨学科领域取得了长足的进步。对于成长中的孩子来说，也许没有什么环境比他们与照顾者（通常是孩子的父母）的关系更重要，因为照顾者是幼儿刺激和养育的关键来源。再加上生命早期大脑的高度可塑性，这些照顾关系对塑造与发展精神病理学相关的行为结果具有巨大影响。在本文中，我们讨论看护关系中的三个领域：（1）日常自然环境中的看护者与儿童的互动；(2) 照顾者对其孩子的社会认知；(3) 照顾者更广泛的社会和文化背景。对于每个领域，我们概述了其对该领域的重要性，确定了现有的知识差距，并提供了弥补这些差距以促进该领域发展的潜在方法。最后，鉴于一门科学学科的价值之一是其能够产生有助于指导与政策和实践相关的现实世界决策的研究，我们鼓励发展精神病理学考虑对护理的关注，一个可修改的目标，支持这一使命。