Poster #98 - Mother-Child-Sibling Effortful Control and Health Outcomes: An Actor-Partner-Interdependence Modeling Approach

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Family Context & Processes

Integrative Statement

Effortful control (EC)—temperamental self-regulation of attention, behavior, and emotion—fosters social adjustment and academic functioning (Blair et al., 2010). Only recently has attention turned to other facets of wellbeing, such as weight and general physical functioning (e.g., Anderson & Keim, 2016; Anderson & Whitaker, 2018). Family members’ EC likely influences self-modulation of healthy eating choices, exercise decisions, and stress-reduction, as well as other family members’ health. Nonetheless, investigations linking a family member’s EC to another’s wellbeing are rare (and none have tested associations with broad health outcomes); these typically test parents’ influence on children’s developmental functioning (or children’s EC predicting parenting; e.g., Valiente et al., 2007). Developmental theorists have highlighted the need for an organismic perspective, incorporating whole families and transactional processes, to understand development in the context of embedded systems (Cox & Paley, 1997). In particular, models examining siblings’ reciprocal influences on health, while simultaneously accounting for parents’ influences, are needed.

Using data from an ongoing longitudinal twin study, we tested whether mothers’ and eight-year-old twins’ EC influenced their own and each other’s general health, body mass index (BMI), dominant-hand grip strength, and internalizing symptoms, in a comprehensive model accounting for all simultaneous paths and child age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. We hypothesized that one’s own and family members’ EC would be positively associated with health outcomes.

The 254 triads were comprised of 90 girl, 85 boy, and 79 mixed-sex twin pairs and their mothers (46% reported family income $80,000 or less, 62% of mothers had a college degree). Children (N=508; M=8.58 years; 51% female; 54% European American, 28% Latino) and mothers participated in in-home direct assessments of BMI and grip strength. Mothers rated EC, general health, and internalizing symptoms (see Table Notes).

We estimated a multiple-group actor-partner-interdependence model in Mplus 8 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2017) to examine self-effects (actor), mother-child effects (partner), and sibling effects (partner) of EC on health outcomes, by twin-pair type (i.e., girl-girl, boy-boy, girl-boy). Tables display mothers’ (Table 1) and children’s (Table 2) outcomes separately. Actor effects: In all families, EC was positively associated with facets of one’s own health. Links between EC and health for boys were only significant among self-effects. Partner effects: Sibling effects were significant and in expected directions only among sisters. Unique dynamics among mothers and daughters may contribute to surprising EC-health findings in these families: Daughters’ EC was associated positively with mothers’ BMI, whereas mothers EC was negatively associated with daughters’ grip strength. Highly regulated mothers may attend overmuch to their daughters’ health-related behaviors compared to their sons’, at a cost to overall family system functioning and to one another’s well-being.

Findings offer novel evidence linking parents’ and children’s regulatory competence to health outcomes within a family system, highlighting differential associations by source of influence (mother, self, sibling) and by children’s sex. Fostering individual EC may promote boys’ health, whereas girls may benefit from family interventions incorporating mothers’ and siblings’ EC. Models including other family members and assessing relative genetic contributions to EC-health links can extend this work.

Authors

• Jodi Swanson, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author

• Samantha A Miadich, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Leah D. Doane, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathryn Lemery-Chalfant, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author