Inhibitory Control and Parenting During Infancy: Differentiating Between Classic and Emotionally Charged Go/No-Go Tasks

• In Event: 2-078 - Affective and Cognitive Aspects of Parental Self-Regulation in Early Parenting

Integrative Statement

Introduction. Adaptive infant development generally occurs in the context of well-regulated parenting environments and sensitive parenting behavior (Feldman, 2015). As such, it is important to examine determinants of adaptive parenting environments, so they can be targeted in prevention and intervention initiatives. Parents’ inhibitory control (IC) may be important, as this cognitive skill helps problem-solve, override impulses, and make pro-active decisions based on goals rather than habits or reactions (Barrett & Fleming, 2011). However, empirical studies on the association between IC and parenting stress/behavior showed mixed results and modest effect sizes (Crandall et al., 2010; Sturge-Apple et al., 2017). Mixed findings may be understood through the framework of "dual competition theory", i.e., the notion that emotional contexts interfere with individuals’ cognitive skills and that individual differences exist in the level of interference (Pessoa, 2009). The current study developed a novel Go/No-Go task designated to assess IC in infant-parenting-related emotional contexts (i.e., neutral/happy/upset infant emotional facial expressions), as well as in non-parenting-related and non-emotional contexts.
Hypotheses. (1) Emotional infant face stimuli will generate greater interference in IC than emotional adult face stimuli, and house stimuli (Feldman, 2015; Mueller, 2011). The role of emotional valance is unclear (Ramos-Loyo et al., 2017; Greif & Waring, 2018) (2) Individual differences in emotional infant face interference of IC are expected to be a better predictor of parenting stress/behavior than interferences because of other stimuli (i.e., emotional adult face; house; Pessoa, 2009).
Study population. 60 first-time parents and their infant (10-12 months old).
Methods. Parents performed a Go/No-Go task (Figure 1) comprised of 8 counterbalanced conditions: negative/neutral/positive infant/adult faces; houses; classic. Parents filled out questionnaires (parenting stress/chaos/behavior), and parent-infant interactions were observed.
Results. Preliminary repeated measures analyses (Table 1) showed a significant context-effect for commission errors, such that more commission errors were made under the context of negative infant face stimuli (compared to negative/neutral/positive adult) and neutral infant face stimuli (compared to neutral adult). Regression analyses showed that participants who made more commission errors under negative infant face stimuli reported significantly more parenting stress (β=0.68; p=0.04; R2=0.38), an association that was unique and held above and beyond commission errors in control contexts (house and sad adults). Less omission errors under negative infant face stimuli were trend significantly associated with more harsh parenting (β=-0.45; p=0.09; R2=0.20). When adding control contexts to this latter model, omission errors under negative infant emotion remained the strongest predictor – though not significant (βnegative infant=-0.43, p=0.17; βsad adult=-0.06; p=0.84; βhouse=0.06; p=0.83).
Discussion. The study describes the development of a novel Go/No-go task, designed to assess IC in infant-parenting-related emotional contexts. Results support the need for ecologically valid measures and suggest that IC (i.e., more commission errors and less omission errors; Yechiam et al., 2006) in the context of negative infant emotion is a unique predictor of parenting stress and harsh parenting during infancy. Future analyses will examine links with observed parent and infant behavior as well as determinants of IC in infant-parenting-related emotional contexts.

Authors

• Sofie Rousseau, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Ziama Arkin Infancy Institute
  Presenting Author

• Tahl Frenkel, Ziama Arkin Infancy Institute
  Non-Presenting Author