Paternal Biobehavioral Influence on Family Dynamics and Infant Stress Response

• In Event: Biobehavioral influences of environmental stress and caregiving behaviors on child outcomes

Abstract

The vast majority of research on biobehavioral influences on development have primarily taken a dyadic approach and focused on mothers and infants. Broadly, research has found biobehavioral synchrony between infants and their caregivers are important for attachment and emotional development (Feldman, 2012). Mother-infant biobehavioral attunement and arousal has been found to be highly influenced by environmental factors such as poverty, neighborhood violence, or lack of social support (Blair et al., 2008, Del Giudice, 2011). Further, biobehavioral arousal has been found to be linked to several health outcomes (Bastos et al., 2015). However, the assessment of paternal influence on infant biobehavioral attunement and arousal remains sparse. The goal of this research was to increase our understanding of paternal influence on the biobehavioral dynamics of the family unit, taking a multi-system approach.

Participants consisted of families (n = 23) recruited during pregnancy. The majority of mothers reported being White (70.4%) and unmarried (69.4%), with annual household incomes under $40,000 (77.4%). Participants completed monthly questionnaires across six months and an in-home visit when the infant was 4 months of age, during which parents and infants completed semi-structured interaction tasks and provided saliva samples for cortisol, testosterone, and progesterone.

We first examined the attunement between dyads (Table 1). Results indicated mother-infant cortisol attunement as calculated by Area Under the Curve was positively related to mother-father cortisol (r = .87, p <.001) attunement and mother-father progesterone (as measured by Area Under the Curve; r = .91, p = .001) attunement. Similarly, father-infant cortisol attunement was positively related to mother-father cortisol (r = .61, p = .002) and mother-father progesterone (r = .98, p <.001) attunement. There were no significant relationships found for mother-father testosterone attunement. Further, moderation analyses revealed that father-mother cortisol attunement moderated the association between father-infant and mother-infant cortisol attunement. That is, for father-mother pairs with a high degree of attunement, fathers’ cortisol patterns were also highly attuned with their infants (Figure 1).

Together results suggest that paternal attunement to infants may hinge on the quality of relationship to the infant’s mother and that parental progesterone may assist with sensitivity to infant and partner cues. Sensitivity to partners’ cues, as indexed by cortisol attunement, may facilitate sensitivity to infant cues as well. These findings might serve important contexts for infant attachment, emotional development, and health.

Authors

• Erin Wood, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Presenting Author

• Ray Garza, Oklahoma State University-Stillwater
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nikki Clauss, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Byrd-Craven, Oklahoma State University
  Non-Presenting Author