Associations Between Autonomic Nervous System Reactivity to Stress and Parenting Behaviors for Mothers and Fathers

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

Abstract

Parents shape children’s socioemotional development via child-directed behaviors and parents’ own emotion regulatory abilities (Dix, 1991; Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Eggum, 2010). Extant research has focused largely on mothers rather than fathers (Bariola, Gullone, & Hughes, 2011). In this study we investigated whether parents with better physiological regulation to an acute stress task engage in more positive parenting behaviors during a free-play episode and whether parent gender moderates the relationship between physiological regulation and parenting behaviors.

One hundred six parents (44% fathers; 52% White, 24% Asian American, 12% Latinx, 8% African American/Black, 4% multi-ethnic) completed the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST; Kirschbaum & Hellhammer, 1994) before interacting with their 7- to 11-year-old children. Parent-child free-play episodes were coded for three parenting behaviors: responsiveness (i.e., parent acknowledges and validates the child; ICC = .90), warmth (i.e., parent praises and supports the child; ICC = .99), and communication (i.e., parent explains with patience and consideration; ICC = .93). We recorded parents’ electrocardiography and impedance cardiography during the TSST and interactions from which we extracted respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) to measure parasympathetic nervous system activation and pre-ejection period (PEP) to measure sympathetic nervous system activation. All data were visually inspected off-line by trained research assistants for artifacts and reactivity scores were calculated by subtracting baseline responses (the last 30-sec of baseline) from every 30-sec segment of the TSST and free-play.

We ran six latent growth curve models: three predicting PEP reactivity during the TSST from parent gender, time (twenty 30-second bins), and each of the three parenting behaviors and three predicting RSA reactivity during the TSST from parent gender, time and each of the three parenting behaviors.

We found a significant two-way interaction between parent gender and responsiveness (b = 0.44, p = 0.023) on RSA reactivity, such that mothers with greater RSA reactivity exhibited less responsiveness during the free-play, while fathers’ RSA reactivity was unrelated to their responsiveness.

We found a significant three-way interaction between parent gender, time, and warmth (b = 0.10, p < 0.001) on PEP reactivity, such that fathers who recovered relatively quickly from the speech (large decrease in PEP at the start of the task, but steeper increases in PEP over time) exhibited more warmth with their children during free-play.

We found a significant three-way interaction between parent gender, time, and communication (b = 0.09, p < 0.001) on PEP reactivity, such that fathers who recovered relatively quickly from the speech (large decrease in PEP at the start of the task, but steeper increases in PEP over time) engaged in better communication with their children during free-play.

These findings suggest that fathers with more adaptive physiological regulation to acute stress engage in more positive parenting behaviors with their children. Results will be discussed in terms of the differential insights gained by studying fathers in addition to mothers and by measuring both branches of the ANS.

Authors

• Helena Rose Karnilowicz, University of California - Berkeley
  Presenting Author

• Sara F Waters, Washington State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Wendy Berry Mendes, University of California, San Francisco
  Non-Presenting Author