Poster #153 - Physiological Congruence between Child-Caregiver Dyads in Association with Parenting Behavior and Child Characteristics

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), an indicator of parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) functioning, decreases heart rate by producing an inhibitory feedback loop (Berntson, Cacioppo, & Quigley, 1993), and is an important contributor to emotion regulation (Porges, 2007). Physiological synchrony between children and caregivers is a crucial coordinator of parent-child relational alignment (Feldman, 2007), contributes to the development of self-regulatory systems (Champagne, 2008), and is associated with fewer behavior problems in children (Lunkenheimer et al., 2015). Parenting has a strong relationship with the physiological functioning of children. For example, controlling and negative parental behavior is negatively associated with vagal suppression to positive emotion (Calkins et al., 1998). Also, lower physiological synchrony has been reported among child-maltreating dyads (Creaven et al., 2014). In this study, we examined the association between parenting behavior and caregiver-child physiological (RSA) congruence, moderated by child’s sex and negativity.
210 6-year-old children (50% female; 46% Hispanic, 18.4% Black, 11.2% White, .4% Asian, and 24.0% multiracial/other) and their primary caregivers were instructed to discuss an issue on which they didn’t agree and possibly reach a solution. Independent coders evaluated parenting behaviors for supportive presence, intrusiveness, hostility, and children’s negativity (Egeland, 1982). Changes in RSA from baseline to the conflict discussion (via standardized residuals) were measured. Children’s RSA change values were predicted from caregivers’ values, and the absolute value of the standardized residuals from these predictions indicated the degree of discrepancy between children’s physiological responses and what was expected based on caregivers’ responses, for a measure of incongruence. Missing data were imputed using the SPSS EM algorithm.
Higher parental supportive presence was associated with decreased child-caregiver RSA incongruence (r = -0.196, p = 0.004). There were no other significant direct effects of parenting. However, an interaction effect was found between caregiver’s hostility and child’s negativity (b = -0.108, SE = 0.051, p = 0.035), such that only for children low in negativity, caregiver hostility was associated with more discordance (Figure 1). There was a trend for the interaction between caregiver hostility and intrusiveness (b = 0.079 SE = 0.0478, p = 0.099). For lower values of caregiver hostility only, caregiver’s intrusiveness was associated with less RSA incongruence. There was also a significant interaction effect between caregiver hostility and child sex on RSA congruence (b= 0.205, SE= 0.051, p= 0.037). For girls only, caregiver hostility was associated with higher RSA incongruence (Figure 2).
RSA congruence between children and their supportive caregivers can be a physiological indication of mutual awareness and involvement in emotional coregulation. Children with lower negativity also displayed a behavioral incongruence in the presence of parental hostility which is consistent with physiological incongruence. Also, children with higher negativity may be less responsive to their parents’ behaviors, and therefore less sensitive to effects of those behaviors on physiological synchrony. Finally, these findings suggest that girls may be more sensitive to parental hostility than boys. Our findings can provide insight into physiological correlates of parenting behaviors and the potential effects of hostile parenting on development of self-regulatory systems in children.

Authors

• Peivand Razavi, California State University, Northridge
  Presenting Author

• Sara R. Berzenski, California State University, Northridge
  Non-Presenting Author