Poster #140 - Maternal Cognitive Inflexibility, Identification of Affect, and Parenting Risk

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Examining factors that contribute to parenting risk is crucial for understanding children’s development and informing intervention efforts. Substantial evidence supports affective formulations of parenting risk (e.g., attachment), but recently models examining maternal cognitive inflexibility (including executive functioning (EF) deficits and problem-solving difficulties) have come to the fore (Azar et al., 2008; Azar et al., 2012; Crandall et al., 2015). Cognitive inflexibility may limit mothers’ ability to accurately identify emotions during interactions with their children, leading to maladaptive parenting responses that are disconnected from children’s actual behavior.

This study examined associations between maternal cognitive inflexibility, emotion dysregulation, accuracy for identifying affect in multiple sensory modalities (visual and auditory), and parent-child interaction among highly disadvantaged mother-preschooler dyads. Mothers (n = 91) completed standardized assessments of EF (Wisconsin Card Sort Test; Heaton, 1981, Trailmaking Part B; Reitan, 1958) and problem-solving (Parent Problem Solving Inventory; Wasik & Bryant, 1994, Tower of London; Culbertson & Zillmer, 1998). Exploratory factor analysis indicated that measures of EF and problem-solving were best represented by a single factor, labeled ‘maternal cognitive inflexibility.’ Mothers’ emotion dysregulation was assessed using the Inventory of Altered Self Capacities (Briere & Runtz, 2002). Mothers’ accuracy for identifying auditory affect was assessed using the Aprosodia Battery (Ross et al., 1997) which measures emotion recognition by presenting a sentence (“I am going to the other movies”), monosyllabic sounds (“ba ba ba ba ba ba”), and asyllabic sounds (“aaaaahhhhhhh”) using neutral, happy, sad, angry, disinterested, or surprised affective tones. Participants responded with the emotion they thought the speaker was expressing for each of 72 trials. Mothers’ accuracy for identifying visual affect was assessed with the Dynamic Affect Recognition Evaluation (DARE; Porges et al., 2007). The DARE presented mothers with 36 videos of adults showing neutral facial expressions that slowly changed into expressions of either Anger, Disgust, Fear, Happiness, Sadness, or Surprise (Figure 1). Mothers pressed a button when they could identify the emotion expressed and selected one of the six target emotions. Mothers and their preschool children also completed an interaction task that was coded by independent raters for dyadic conflict, intrusiveness, and disengagement, with ratings summed for a measure of overall dyadic dyssynchrony (Johnson & Azar, 1998).

Significant associations were found between maternal cognitive inflexibility and misappraisal of affect in both auditory and visual domains, as well as mother-child interaction. Misidentification of visual affect was associated with dyssynchronous mother-child interactions, however misidentification of auditory emotion was not. Mothers’ emotion dysregulation was not associated with misidentification of visual or auditory affect and with the exception of dyadic intrusiveness, was not associated with parent-child interaction. Misidentification of visual affect mediated the association between mothers’ cognitive inflexibility and dyadic dyssynchrony. Taken together, these findings suggest that maternal cognitive inflexibility may limit mothers’ ability to accurately identify affect in both visual and auditory domains. Mothers’ difficulty identifying visual affect may, in turn, contribute to maladaptive patterns of parent-child interaction. Results from this study provide further support for the role of maternal cognitive inflexibility in the etiology of parenting risk.

Authors

• Sandra T. Azar, Penn State University
  Presenting Author

• Devin McGuier, Penn State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daryl Cooley, Penn State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Levi M. Toback, Penn State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• K.C. Britt, Penn State University
  Non-Presenting Author