Examining Parental Effects on Risks for Child Psychopathology: The Role of Psychophysiological Markers

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Parental psychopathology and poor parenting are known to place children at risk for psychopathology. However, many children at risk do not develop behavioral problems. It has been proposed that individual differences in physiological activity may moderate the effect of environmental stress on child maladjustment (Steinberg and Avenevoli, 2000). Four papers in this symposium address influences of parental psychopathology and parenting on child behavioral problems in toddlerhood, childhood and adolescence, and identify several physiological markers at individual and dyadic levels that buffer or exacerbate parental effects on child psychopathology. Presentations will 1) explore these associations in cultural and contextual diverse populations and different developmental stages, 2) include effects of hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis and parasympathetic functioning 3) take into consideration influences from both fathers and mothers, and 4) apply multi-method assessments when assessing parental factors.

The first talk examines whether toddlers’ cortisol awakening responses and maternal depression interact to predict behavioral problems across children’s second year of life. The second focuses on the moderating role of child respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) withdrawal in relations between maternal parenting behaviors and child anxiety in military families. The third discusses how child sex and resting RSA moderate linkages between fathers’ antisociality and child delinquent behaviors across middle childhood and adolescence. The fourth examines predictive linkages between parental psychopathology, observed parenting, parent-child RSA synchrony assessed during a conflict discussion, and child psychopathology in Chinese families. These presentations highlight the role played by physiological markers as moderators of environmental impact in the development of psychopathology in children.

Sub Unit

• Developmental Psychopathology

Chair

• Liu Bai, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

Individual Presentations

• Maternal Depression and Infant Behavioral Problems: The Moderating Role of Infant Stress Reactivity - Presenting Author: Liu Bai, Pennsylvania State University, University Park; Non-Presenting Author: Douglas M Teti, The Pennsylvania State University

• Child Cardiac Vagal Regulation Moderates the Relationship between Parenting Behaviors and Anxiety Symptoms in Post-Deployed Military Families - Presenting Author: Jingchen Zhang, University of Delaware; Non-Presenting Author: Abigail Gewirtz, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Paternal Antisociality and Growth in Child Delinquent Behaviors: Moderating Effects of Child Sex and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA) - Presenting Author: Jia Yan, Utah State University; Non-Presenting Author: Sarah Jane Schoppe-Sullivan, Ohio State University; Non-Presenting Author: Theodore P Beauchaine, University of Notre Dame

• The Relations of Emotional Parenting and Parental Psychopathology on Chinese Children’s Psychopathology: Moderation by Parent-Child Physiological Synchrony - Presenting Author: Hui Wang, Beijing Normal University; Non-Presenting Author: Zhuo Rachel Han, Beijing Normal University