Moderating effects of environmental stressors on the development of attention to threat in infancy

• In Event: Biopsychosocial processes in early development: Using large-scale longitudinal studies to uncover interacting developmental mechanisms

Abstract

Specific profiles of attention to emotional stimuli, especially to threat, have been linked to psychosocial outcomes across development, including the development of anxiety (Pérez-Edgar et al., 2010). There is only a very small literature investigating the development of attention biases to threat starting in infancy (see Burris et al., 2019 for review). Although we know that some attention biases to threat are normative, and early developing, it is unclear how some normative biases diverge into maladaptive patterns of emotional processing. Researchers have posited that biological predispositions, such as those linked to infant temperament or genetic predisposition, might account for this divergence. Some research has also investigated environmental impacts upon attention to emotional stimuli in infancy, though little research has examined the impact of the immediate household environment on the development of attention biases to emotional stimuli. While there is some evidence that acute negative environments can impact attentional patterns toward threat, less research exists to explore the impact of normative levels of negative factors in the environment. One commonly experienced feature of a normative environment is varying levels of daily parenting hassles. High levels of parenting hassles can be considered a proxy for parenting stress, carrying implications for parental mental health and parenting efficacy. High parenting stress has been linked to less positive and responsive interactions with children (Deater-Deckard & Scarr, 1996).

Given these findings, the current study examined the relation between household stress, maternal anxiety, and attention bias to threat in a large longitudinal sample of infants tested at 4, 8, and 12 months. To measure attention to emotional facial configurations, infants were presented with a passive viewing eye-tracking task in which angry, happy, or neutral facial configurations appeared in one of the four corners of a screen. We measured infants’ latency to fixate each target image. We also assessed frequency of parenting hassles in the household environment via the Parent Daily Hassles Survey (Crnic, 1991), and maternal anxiety using the Beck Anxiety Inventory (Beck et al, 1998).

Results showed that perceived intensity of daily parenting hassles moderated the development of attention bias to threat in young infants over time. At low or average levels of parenting stress, infants’ attention to threat did not significantly change from 4 to 12 months. However, high levels of parenting stress were related to change in infants’ attention bias to threat over time, with them being initially faster and then becoming slower to detect angry (but not happy) facial configurations, regardless of parental anxiety levels.

Our findings highlight the impact of the environment on the development of infants’ early threat processing, and the need to further investigate how early environmental factors shape the development of infant emotion processing.

Authors

• Jessica Burris, University of Rutgers - Newark
  Presenting Author

• Lori Beth Reider, Rutgers University - Newark

• Kelley E Gunther, Yale University

• Kristin A. Buss, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• Koraly Elisa Perez-Edgar, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• Vanessa LoBue, Rutgers University