Erika M. Manczak

Regulatory focus in the life story: Prevention and promotion as expressed in three layers of personality

Regulatory Focus Theory (Higgins, 1997) outlines the ways in which people attempt to achieve the presence of positive outcomes (promotion) or preserve the absence of negative outcomes (prevention), suggesting that individuals may differ in chronic orientations. The present work examines regulatory outlooks within a multilayered model of personality composed of dispositional traits, characteristic goals, and life stories (narrative identity). Foregrounding the concept of narrative identity, the current study investigates how narrative themes of prevention and promotion relate to regulatory focus as expressed in dispositional traits and characteristic goals and explores the relative contribution of each layer of personality to psychological well-being and physical health. The findings suggest that dispositional traits, personal goals, and life narratives cohere loosely around the central themes of prevention and promotion. Moreover, promotion focus across layers of personality was related to higher levels of self-reported quality of life, compared to prevention focus. Illustrating the incremental validity of different layers of personality, promotion focus in life stories independently predicted psychological health above and beyond promotion focus in dispositional traits.

Does empathy have a cost? Diverging psychological and physiological effects within families.

OBJECTIVE Parental empathy is associated with a host of beneficial psychosocial outcomes for children. However, less is known about the effects of being empathic for parents. The current study tested the hypothesis that, although parental empathy may be beneficial to children both psychologically and physiologically, it may take a physiological toll on parents. METHOD The current study examined psychological and physiological correlates of parental empathy in 247 parent-adolescent dyads. During a baseline laboratory visit, parents and adolescents provide blood samples from which markers of systemic inflammation, including interleukin 1-ra, interleukin 6, and C-reactive protein, were assayed. Parents completed self-report questionnaires of empathy, well-being, and self-esteem, and also reported on their childs emotion regulation. Following the laboratory visit, adolescents completed 2 weeks of daily diary reporting on their emotion regulation abilities. RESULTS In adolescents, parental empathy was significantly associated with both better emotion regulation and with less systemic inflammation. For parents, being empathic was associated with greater self-esteem and purpose in life, but also with higher systemic inflammation. CONCLUSIONS These findings reinforce the importance of simultaneously considering both psychological and physical health-related effects of psychosocial traits and suggests that empathy may have diverging effects across providers and recipients of empathy.

How Much are Harry Potter's Glasses Worth? Children's Monetary Evaluation of Authentic Objects

Adults attach special value to objects that link to notable people or events—authentic objects. We examined childrens monetary evaluation of authentic objects, focusing on four kinds: celebrity possessions (e.g., Harry Potters glasses), original creations (e.g., the very first teddy bear), personal possessions (e.g., your grandfathers baseball glove), and merely old items (e.g., an old chair). Children ages 4 to 12 years old and adults (N = 151) were asked how much people would pay for authentic and control objects. Young children consistently placed greater monetary value on celebrity possessions than on original creations, even when adults judged the two kinds of items to be equivalent. These results suggest that contact with a special individual may be the foundation for the value placed on authentic objects.

Parents' childhood socioeconomic circumstances are associated with their children's asthma outcomes

Background Previous literature documents associations between low socioeconomic status (SES) and poor health outcomes, including asthma. However, this literature has largely focused on the effects of current family circumstances. Objective We sought to test an intergenerational hypothesis, that the childhood SES that parents experience will be associated with asthma outcomes in their children, independent of effects of current family SES. Second, we aimed to test whether this association is in part due to difficulties in current parent‐child relationships. Methods This was an observational study, whereby 150 parents were interviewed about their childhood SES and their children (physician‐diagnosed asthma, ages 9‐17 years) were interviewed about current family stress. Asthma control was assessed by parent report and child report (primary outcome), and blood was collected from children to measure cytokine production relevant to asthma (secondary outcomes). Results To the degree that parents had lower childhood SES, their offspring showed worse asthma outcomes across multiple indicators. This included lower asthma control scores (parent and child report, Ps < .05), and greater stimulated production of TH2 and TH1 cytokines by PBMCs (Ps < .05). These associations were independent of current family SES. Mediation analyses were consistent with a scenario wherein parents with low childhood SES had current family relationships that were more stressful, and these difficulties, in turn, related to worse asthma control and greater cytokine production in children. Conclusions These results suggest the potential “long reach” of low SES across generations, and the importance of expanding theories of how the social environment can affect childhood asthma to include characteristics of earlier generations.

What Is a “Level” of Personality?

We find much to admire in Sheldon, Cheng, and Hilpert’s (this issue) ambitious effort to capture the full gamut of personality within a broad integrative framework. The Multilevel Personality in Context (MPIC) model brings together many important concepts and findings from diverse research programs and traditions to underscore the multifaceted nature of personality and the complex ways in which it is contextualized in biology, social relations, and culture. Sympathetic with much of the effort put forth by Sheldon and colleagues and appreciative of their desire to build on previous work of others (e.g., McAdams, 1995; McAdams & Pals, 2006), we nonetheless question the extent to which personality itself can be adequately characterized in terms of a strict hierarchy of nested levels. The target article raises the question of just what a level is—and in particular, what is a level of personality?

Children Seek Historical Traces of Owned Objects

An objects mental representation includes not just visible attributes but also its nonvisible history. The present studies tested whether preschoolers seek subtle indicators of an objects history, such as a mark acquired during its handling. Five studies with 169 children 3-5 years of age and 97 college students found that children (like adults) searched for concealed traces of object history, invisible traces of object history, and the absence of traces of object history, to successfully identify an owned object. Controls demonstrated that children (like adults) appropriately limit their search for hidden indicators when an owned object is visibly distinct. Altogether, these results demonstrate that concealed and invisible indicators of history are an important component of preschool childrens object concepts.

Physiological Reactivity During Parent-Adolescent Discussions: Associations with Scaffolding Behaviors and Relationship Quality.

BackgroundParents and adolescents commonly discuss stressful experiences. However, little is known about the features of these conversations that may have implications for health.MethodsOne hundred five adolescents and their parents engaged in conversations about two challenging events, with parental contributions to the discussions coded for four scaffolding behaviors (reiterations, negations, move alongs, and new interpretations). Systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and heart rate were measured in both participants at baseline and throughout the conversation. Parent-reported relationship quality was also assessed.ResultsFor both parents and adolescents, negative scaffolding behaviors were associated with increased physiological reactivity, whereas positive scaffolding behaviors were associated with decreased reactivity. Furthermore, children in higher quality parent-child relationships showed greater reactivity to reiterations and lower reactivity to new interpretations, but those in lower quality relationships demonstrated the opposite patterns.ConclusionsSpecific aspects of parent-child interactions appear to contribute to physiological responses to challenging events, which in turn may have implications for health.

The Role of Family Routines in the Intergenerational Transmission of Depressive Symptoms between Parents and their Adolescent Children

Whereas previous research on environmental factors implicated in the intergenerational transmission of depression has tended to focus on the role of parenting quality (e.g., harshness), the current study sought to assess whether structural aspects of families may contribute to depression-relevant affective and immune processes in youths. Specifically, the present study examined the role of family routines in linking parental depressive symptoms to youth emotion regulation, a depression-relevant marker of low-grade inflammation, and depressive symptoms in youths. 261 parent-adolescent dyads reported on their own depressive symptoms, family routines, and youths’ emotion regulation abilities. In addition, peripheral blood was drawn from youths to assess levels of the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin 6 (IL-6). Path analyses provided support for a model in which parental depressive symptoms related to fewer family routines, which in turn were associated with higher IL-6 and depressive symptoms in youths as well as marginally associated with worse youth emotion regulation. Moreover, family routines were found to statistically account for part of the association between parent- and youth- depressive symptoms. Together, these results suggest that family routines may represent an additional facet of the family environment that can potentially contribute to the intergenerational transmission of depressive symptoms.

The Price of Perspective Taking Child Depressive Symptoms Interact With Parental Empathy to Predict Immune Functioning in Parents

Parental empathy is generally held as a positive characteristic; however, might there be contexts in which parental empathy is actually harmful? The present study examined whether adolescents’ depressive symptoms might have immunologic costs for more empathic parents. A total of 143 parents and their children completed self-report measures of empathy and depressive symptoms, respectively. One year later, production of four proinflammatory cytokines in parents’ blood was measured in response to in vitro exposure to a bacterial product. Significant interactions across all inflammatory markers emerged, such that parents who were higher in empathy showed greater inflammatory cytokine production if their children also reported high levels of depressive symptoms, but lower cytokine production if their children reported low levels of symptoms. Less empathic parents showed the opposite pattern. These results provide support for the hypothesis that parents high in empathy may be especially sensitive physiologically to their children’s psychopathologic symptoms.

Relational Victimization and Telomere Length in Adolescent Girls

An emerging body of research suggests that telomere length (TL)-a measure of cellular aging-is inversely associated with experiences of childhood stress. Given the salience of peer relationships in childhood and adolescence, we tested whether relational victimization is a unique and specific predictor of salivary TL in girls. Results examining 122 girls (ages 9-15) revealed that greater relational victimization was related to shorter TL but that similar associations were not evident for other measures of social relationships nor accounted for by factors related to depression, life stress, or 5-HTTLPR genotype. The present findings suggest that relational victimization is uniquely associated with TL in adolescence, revealing a link between key aspects of social relationships and biological processes.