Testing Competing Models of the Intergenerational Transmission of Emotion Dysregulation

• In Event: A Multisystem Perspective for Understanding the Role of Physiological Regulation in Child Development

Abstract

The origins of many social and emotional problems in children can be traced to experiences in utero (Glover, 2011). A mother who struggles to understand, accept, and regulate her emotions—the defining characteristics of emotion dysregulation (Beauchaine, 2015)—may transmit this dysregulated phenotype to her infant, even before birth. Maternal emotion dysregulation may also compromise the quality of care provided to her toddler. Childhood emotion dysregulation has been identified as a transdiagnostic vulnerability for a wide range of psychiatric disorders (Cole et al., 2017). However, the contribution of a mother’s experiences of emotion dysregulation to child socio-emotional problems has been poorly understood. Understanding these maternal risk factors could have important implications for intervention and prevention programs for young children.
In this study, we examined the unique and additive effects of maternal prenatal and postnatal emotion dysregulation on the physiological indices of emotion dysregulation in 18-month old toddlers. We specifically sought to determine whether these associations are best explained by the Cumulative stress or the Match-mismatch hypotheses. According to the Cumulative stress model (McEwen, 1998), a child who is cumulatively and chronically exposed to prenatal and postnatal stress is at greater risks for social and emotional impairments. On the other hand, the Match-mismatch model (Nederhof & Schmidt, 2012) posits that it is the mismatch between prenatal and postnatal rearing conditions that confers risk for problematic child developmental outcomes.
Pregnant women were recruited after their 25th week of pregnancy with the goal of achieving a uniform distribution of scores on the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (Gratz & Roemer, 2004). A sample of 162 pregnant women participated in the prenatal wave of the study. Eighty-one mother-child dyads participated in the 18-month postnatal phase of the study, when the child was 18 months old. Toddlers’ respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and heart rate were measured at rest and in response to the Strange Situation Procedure (Ainsworth et al., 1978). Low resting RSA and large decreases in RSA from resting to challenge conditions have been identified as biomarkers of emotion dysregulation. High resting RSA, on the other hand, reflects effective emotion regulation skills in the absence of environmental challenges (Beauchaine, 2015).
Regression analyses showed that a toddler’s physiological activity, both at rest and in response to the Strange Situation Procedure, was not independently predicted by a mother’s prenatal and postnatal emotion dysregulation. There was, however, a significant interaction (β = -0.30, p <0.05), such that toddlers of mothers who experienced chronically high levels of prenatal and postnatal emotion dysregulation showed the lowest resting RSA (b = -0.02, p <0.01, Figure 1). The highest resting RSA, on the other hand, was observed among toddlers of mothers who experienced high levels emotion dysregulation during pregnancy and low levels of emotion dysregulation at 18 months postpartum (b = 0.02, p <0.05).
Our results lend partial support for both the Cumulative stress and the Match-mismatch hypotheses. Findings highlight the importance of considering emotion dysregulation during pregnancy and early postnatal period as transdiagnostic risks for child emotion regulatory processes.

Authors

• Nila Shakiba, University of Utah
  Presenting Author

• Sheila E Crowell, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lee Raby, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Brendan Dale Ostlund, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah Terrell, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mindy A. Brown, Brigham Young University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Parisa R. Kaliush, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Robert Vlisides-Henry, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Bailey Speck, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Dylan Neff, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Liz Conradt, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author