Poster #19 - Caregiver History of Interpersonal Trauma Predicts Caregiver-Child Physiological Dyadic Concordance

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Biological Processes: Psychophysiology

Integrative Statement

Mothers and children share a psychobiological synchronization observed in circadian rhythms, ANS reactivity, attachment-related hormones, and infant-mother gaze (Feldman, 2007; Waters, West, & Mendes, 2014; Feldman, Magori-Cohen, Galili, Singer, & Louzoun, 2011). Synchronization is evolutionarily adaptive; through it, the mother regulates the infant’s arousal levels (Feldman, 2007; Papoušek, 2007; Field, 1994). Concordance persists throughout the lifespan, and some researchers hypothesize that interpersonal co-regulation occurs to varying degrees across all attachment relationships (Sbarra & Hazan, 2008). Given robust associations between physiological concordance and behavioral/emotional synchrony, supported by sensitive/responsive caregiving, influences on attachment are crucial to examine. Patterns of attachment security are transmitted intergenerationally, and parents with a history of child maltreatment evidence less attachment security with their own offspring (Berthelot et al., 2015). Therefore, we expected parents’ history of child maltreatment would predict decreases in physiological concordance with their children.
190 child-caregiver dyads (children were 50% female, 45.3% Hispanic) were assessed during a baseline task (listening to an audio book) when children were 6. Three-minutes of cardiac data was scored for respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Caregivers’ histories of child maltreatment were assessed using the Briere (1992) child maltreatment interview. Parallel growth curve analysis established latent intercept and slope factors (via level and shape model) for caregivers and children across the task, predicted the slope and intercept of the child’s cardiac model from the parent’s slope and intercept, and assessed whether the relation between the caregiver’s and child’s cardiac functioning depended on caregiver’s maltreatment history.
Children’s (p = .888) and caregivers’ (p = .142) RSA increased non-significantly across the task, with intercepts positively correlated (p = .003). A significant interaction between frequency of caregivers’ emotional abuse and RSA slope in predicting children’s RSA slope revealed that caregivers with higher frequencies of abuse’s RSA slopes more strongly predicted their child’s slope (b = .768, p = .001; i.e., increased concordance), whereas for caregivers with infrequent (b = .300, p < .001) or no (b = -.170, p = .113) emotional abuse, concordance was weaker. A comparable interaction was identified for physical abuse, but no other subtype of maltreatment.
Caregivers’ history of interpersonal trauma had intergenerational effects on physiological concordance, but in an unexpected direction. These effects were specific to types of maltreatment involving close interpersonal violations by caregivers (i.e., emotional and physical abuse). Thus, a critical mechanism in explaining these effects is likely the intergenerational transmission of attachment relationships. However, the finding that concordance increased in this context may be specific to physiological patterns during the neutral baseline task, such that caregivers with less stable regulatory patterns had children that were similarly reactive and thus were more concordant than dyads that did not respond physiologically to the task. It is possible that CSA and neglect did not relate to increased concordance because they may constitute a greater "ontological denial" (denial of basic humanity) that undermines one's ability to physiologically synchronize in attachment relationships. Examination of these relations during challenging tasks and with attention to other aspects of the maltreatment experience will be essential.

Authors

• Tanya Oleskowicz, California State University Northridge
  Presenting Author

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