Developmental Patterns of Parent Negativity Predict Adolescent Executive Functioning

• In Event: Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

The developmental period of adolescence is marked by a number of individual (e.g., physical, neurobiological) and contextual (e.g., home environment, parent-child relationship) changes with implications for adjustment. For example, neurodevelopmental models of adolescent brain functioning emphasize the continued maturation of prefrontal brain regions throughout adolescence and young adulthood responsible for executive functioning (EF) abilities (Steinberg, 2005). Given that EF is inextricably linked with academic, social, and psychological outcomes (Becker, Miao, Duncan, & McClelland, 2014; Harden et al., 2020; & Holmes, Kim-Spoon, & Deater-Deckard, 2016), it is important to examine the contextual factors that may confer risk for maladaptive EF, including the parent-adolescent relationship. Indeed, previous research has demonstrated that negative parenting adversely impacts regulatory abilities during adolescence (Brody & Ge, 2001). Given that as parents adjust to the challenges associated with the transition to adolescence—including parenting stress, adolescents’ autonomy assertions, and hostility and conflict—they may respond with increases in negative parenting, the present study sought to clarify developmental trajectories of negative parenting during adolescence and examine their associations with later EF.
The current sample included 167 adolescents (53% males). Adolescents were 13 or 14 years of age at Time 1 and seen annually for four years.
Negative parenting was assessed via the Parent-Child Relationship Scale (Hetherington & Clingempeel, 1992). EF was captured using three behavioral tasks that each measure an underlying construct of EF: working memory, shifting, and inhibitory control, which are in line with the theoretical model proposed by Miyake et al. (2000). Working memory was measured using the Stanford–Binet memory for digits (Roid, 2003), Shifting using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST; Heaton & Staff, 2003), and Inhibitory control using the Multi-Source Interference Task (MSIT; Bush, Shin, Holmes, Rosen, & Vogt, 2003).
Growth mixture modeling identified two distinct classes of adolescent reported negative parenting. The two classes were characterized as (1) normative, decreasing (n = 140) and (2) at-risk, increasing (n = 27). Next, we considered whether adolescents’ negative parenting trajectory predicted their EF at Time 4 after accounting for demographic covariates, including race, income to needs ratio, and parent education, as well as baseline EF, using multiple regression. Results demonstrated that EF at Time 1, parent education, and negative parenting predicted EF at Time 4, but race and income did not (see Table 1 for estimates). The significant negative association between negative parenting and EF at Time 4 suggested that adolescents who experienced increasing negative parenting exhibited worse EF at Time 4, compared to those who experienced decreasing negative parenting across adolescence.
The present study not only identifies differential trajectories of negative parenting across adolescence but also demonstrates how adolescents who experience increases in negative parenting overtime may exhibit maladaptive EF later on. Given the link between EF and adjustment, results highlight a potential developmental pathway in which negative parenting may contribute to maladjustment.

Authors

• Toria Herd, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Presenting Author

• Karen Jacques, Virginia Tech
  Non-Presenting Author

• Brooks King-Casas, Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, and Virginia Tech
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jungmeen Kim-Spoon, Virginia Tech
  Non-Presenting Author