Testing Different Sources of Environmental Unpredictability on Adolescent Dunctioning: The Role of Temperament

• In Event: Recent Advances in Research on Highly Sensitive Children

Abstract

The dimensional model of adversity highlighted environmental unpredictability—the stochastic changes in resources and mortality over time—as a potent factor that shapes development (e.g., Ellis, Figueredo, Brumbach, & Schlomer, 2009). Given inconsistencies in prior operationalizations, Young et al (2020) delineated two types of unpredictability: ancestral-cue unpredictability refers to cues within our ancestral environment that natural selection programmed the individuals to treat as reliable information (e.g., family instability, Sturge-Apple et al., 2017); statistical-learning unpredictability refers to prediction errors when the developing person uses their past experiences to estimate the statistical nature of future environment (e.g., random variability in repeatedly measured family context, Li, Liu, Hartman & Belsky, 2018). This study sought to investigate the moderating role of temperament within the evolutionary conceptualization (Korte et al., 2005) that may account for the heterogeneity in adaptation to unpredictability. Temperamental traits are organized into broad spectrums of correlated suites of behavior that reflect the degree to which one is responsive to environment. Adolescents with greater temperamental sensitivity evidence greater inhibition coupled with more careful and thorough exploration of the environment, generally reflecting greater environmental responsiveness. We evaluated the physiological and cognitive intermediate processes for adolescent adaptation to unpredictability, as well as socioemotional sequelae.
192 families with an adolescent were followed for two years (Wave 1: Mage= 12.4 years). At wave one, ancestral-cue unpredictability was operationalized by mother-reported cumulative incidents of disruptive family events (Forman & Davies, 2003), and statistical-learning unpredictability as stochastic variability in the minute-to-minute observation of maternal hostility during a family conflict discussion (e.g., Li et al., 2018). We assessed temperamental sensitivity based on global performance during a puzzle-solving and a Tribot task (i.e., novel context). Higher scores reflected behavioral inhibition in novel situations and careful engagement in problem-solving. Vagal reactivity was assessed during family conflict discussion and set-shifting difficulty was measured via perseverative responses in Wisconsin Card Sorting task (Grant & Berg, 1948). At both waves, mothers rated adolescent social withdrawal and delinquency on the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001).
The parenting unpredictability-x-temperamental sensitivity interaction was only significantly linked to shifting difficulty whereas family instability-x-temperamental sensitivity interaction was only significantly linked to physiological reactivity. Under high parenting unpredictability (Figure 1A), individuals with higher temperamental sensitivity showed greater shifting difficulty, whereas low-temperamental-sensitivity individuals demonstrated lower shifting difficulty. Under high family instability (Figure 1B), only adolescents with low temperamental sensitivity demonstrated dampened vagal reactivity. Turning to changes in adolescent socioemotional functioning over time (Figure 2), the indirect pathway of family instability-x-temperamental sensitivity interaction in association with vagal stress reactivity and subsequently changes in social withdrawal turned out significant (Estimate= 0.01, 95%CI: [0.003, 0.03]). Conditional indirect effect indicated that for adolescent with low temperamental sensitivity, greater family instability was significantly linked to dampened vagal reactivity (withdrawal) to stressors, which was then associated with lower social withdrawal (B = -0.02, p = .02). Findings highlighted divergent intermediate mechanisms through which different unpredictability signals may operate. Findings also illuminated the importance of considering temperament to understand individual difference in adaptation to unpredictability.

Authors

• Zhi Li, Peking University
  Presenting Author

• Melissa L Sturge-Apple, University of Rochester

• Cory Platts, University of Rochester

• Patrick Davies, University of Rochester