Poster #22 - Longitudinal Association of Emotional Parenting and Child Aggressive Behaviors: The Role of Parent-child Physiological Synchrony

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Biological Processes: Psychophysiology

Integrative Statement

Considering the high prevalence of aggressive problems in middle childhood and its negative impact on children’s overall adjustment (Cooley et al., 2018), it is important to explore factors that may give rise childhood aggression and underlying mechanisms within the family context. Previous studies have linked emotional parenting to childhood aggression (Criss et al. 2016; Romanchych 2014). Applying a biopsychosocial approach, this study aims to examine the relations between a series of emotion-related parenting behaviors (ERPBs, e.g., psychological control and psychological unavailability, parental emotion dysregulation) and childhood aggression, with a focus on the potential moderating effects of parent-child physiological synchrony on these relations.
Parent-child physiological synchrony refers to parent-child “matching of biological states” during an interactive activity, in which the dyads’ rhythms share the same state and frequency and then form a “signal relational unit” (Feldman 2007; Feldman et al. 2011). Previous studies suggest that parent-child physiological synchrony might be more likely to be a moderator, interacting with proximal environmental factors (such as parenting) and influencing children’s developmental outcomes, rather than directly influencing child outcomes (Hinnat et al., 2013).
Based on this literature, we hypothesize the following: (a) maladaptive ERPBs (parental psychological control, psychological unavailability, and parental emotion dysregulation) positively predicts child aggressive behaviors, and (b) parent-child physiological synchrony moderates the relationship between ERPBs and child aggressive behaviors. Specially, it was hypothesized that under the condition of more negative ERPBs, children who demonstrated greater physiological synchrony were expected to show more aggressive behaviors. In contrast, under the condition of lower levels of ERPB, children who demonstrated less physiological synchrony were expected to develop fewer aggressive behaviors.
Eighty-nine parent-child dyads (Total N = 188) participated in this study (child M age = 8.76, SD = 1.81, 49 boys). In T1, maladaptive ERPBs were observed and coded from dyadic interaction, and parent-child physiological synchrony was assessed using interbeat interval (IBI) calculated from the participant’s heart rate (HR) during an interaction task. Parents also reported children’s aggressive behaviors at T1 and 9 months later (T2) on Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach, 1991). The reliability of CBCL broadband scales was .88 and .81 for T 1 and T2, respectively.
A potential moderation effect of parent-child physiological synchrony was tested using the SPSS PROCESS macro (Model 1). As shown in Table 1, parent-child physiological synchrony moderated the relation between parental emotion dysregulation and child aggressive behaviors (T2) (β = 1.54, p < .05), as well as that between parental psychological control and child aggressive behaviors (T2) (β = 1.04, p < .05). Further simple slope tests showed that higher parental emotion dysregulation (B = 2.23, SE = 1.06, CI: .11, 4.36, p < .05) and higher parent psychological control (B = 1.56, SE = .66, CI: .25, 2.87, p < .05) would increase children’s aggressive behaviors only for those children who demonstrated more physiological synchrony with their parents. Our findings suggest that under the condition of specific negative types of emotional parenting, parent-child physiological synchrony seemed to be a risk factor for the development of children’s aggressive behaviors.

Authors

• Nigela Ahemaitijiang, Beijing Normal University
  Presenting Author

• Zhuo Rachel Han, Beijing Normal University
  Non-Presenting Author