Nicole B. Perry

The indirect effects of maternal emotion socialization on friendship quality in middle childhood.

Emotion development processes have long been linked to social competence in early childhood but rarely have these associations been examined in middle childhood or with relational outcomes. Guided by theories of interpersonal relationships and emotion socialization, the current study was designed to fill these gaps by examining a longitudinal process model indirectly linking emotion development to friendship quality. Data were drawn from 336 children (179 girls, 65% White), their mothers, and their teachers across 3 time points spanning the ages of 5-10 years. A path analysis model was utilized to examine the way in which maternal emotion socialization indirectly affects childrens friendship quality. Results supported the hypothesized model in which maternal emotion socialization strategies used when children were age 5 were associated with changes in friendship quality from ages 7 to 10 via changes in childrens emotion regulation. Findings highlight the importance of emotional processes for relational outcomes in middle childhood.

A Transactional Analysis of the Relation Between Maternal Sensitivity and Child Vagal Regulation

A transactional model examining the longitudinal association between vagal regulation (as indexed by vagal withdrawal) and maternal sensitivity from age 2.5 to age 5.5 was assessed. The sample included 356 children (171 male, 185 female) and their mothers who participated in a laboratory visit at age 2.5, 4.5, and 5.5. Cardiac vagal tone was obtained during a baseline task and during emotional frustration tasks. Maternal sensitivity was assessed via direct observation during a pretend play and cleanup task. To test for transactional associations, a path model estimating stability paths for vagal withdrawal and maternal sensitivity was compared with a full reciprocal model that included all cross-lagged pathways. A chi-square difference test was used to evaluate whether the cross-lagged model explained the data above and beyond the stability model. The vagal withdrawal cross-lagged model was found to fit significantly better than the stability model and revealed that maternal sensitivity at 2.5 years was associated positively with vagal withdrawal at 4.5 years, and vagal withdrawal at 4.5 years was associated positively with maternal sensitivity at 5.5 years. These results suggest that early sensitive responding by mothers was associated with increases in vagal withdrawal, which in turn was associated with higher levels of sensitive parenting.

The Relation Between Maternal Emotional Support and Child Physiological Regulation Across the Preschool Years

Trajectories of baseline RSA (respiratory sinus arrhythmia), an index of reactivity, and vagal withdrawal, an index of regulation, across the preschool period were examined. In addition, maternal emotional support was investigated as a potential time-varying predictor of these trajectories. Physiological measures were obtained during frustration tasks, and a maternal emotional support measure was assessed via maternal report and direct observation. Childrens baseline RSA and vagal withdrawal scores were moderately stable across the preschool period. Growth models indicated that childrens baseline RSA scores changed linearly over the preschool years, and there was significant variability in withdrawal trajectories. Greater maternal emotional support predicted higher initial withdrawal levels and lower emotional support was associated with the greatest increase in withdrawal over time. This suggests that children of higher emotionally supportive mothers reached higher levels of physiological regulation earlier in development and therefore did not show the same increase across preschool as children of less supportive mothers. Maternal emotional support was not significantly related to trajectories of baseline RSA.

Identifying Developmental Cascades among Differentiated Dimensions of Social Competence and Emotion Regulation.

This study used data from 356 children, their mothers, teachers, and peers to examine the longitudinal and dynamic associations among 3 dimensions of social competence derived from Hindes (1987) framework of social complexity: social skills, peer group acceptance, and friendship quality. Direct and indirect associations among each discrete dimension of social competence and emotion regulation were also examined. The results suggest that there are important distinctions among the dimensions of social competence as they relate to one another and to emotion regulation. Model comparisons provided evidence of cascading and reciprocal effects among the variables, demonstrating complex associations that are ongoing across middle childhood. Specifically, there were cascading effects from emotion regulation abilities at age 5 years to social skills at age 7, which was then associated with age 10 outcomes of more positive friendship quality, greater peer acceptance, and greater emotion regulation.

Maternal Punitive Reactions to Children's Negative Emotions and Young Adult Trait Anger: Effect of Gender and Emotional Closeness

The current study tested whether young adults recollected reports of their mothers punitive reactions to their negative emotions in childhood predicted anger expression in young adulthood and whether emotional closeness weakens this association. Further, a three-way interaction was tested to examine whether emotional closeness is a stronger protective factor for young women than for young men. Results revealed a significant three-way interaction (gender × emotional closeness × maternal punitive reactions). For young men, maternal punitive reactions to negative emotions were directly associated with increased anger expressions. Maternal punitive reactions to young womens negative emotions in childhood were associated with increased anger in adulthood only when they reported low maternal emotional closeness. Findings suggest that maternal emotional closeness may serve as a buffer against the negative effects of maternal punitive reactions for womens anger expression in young adulthood.

Mothers’ and Fathers’ Reports of Their Supportive Responses to Their Children’s Negative Emotions Over Time

SYNOPSIS Objective. Parents’ emotion socialization practices are thought to be moderately stable over time; however, a partner’s socialization practices could initiate change. Design. We examined mothers’ and fathers’ reports of their supportive responses to their children’s negative emotions when the target child was 7 years old and again at age 10. We tested a dyadic, longitudinal path model with 111 mother–father pairs. Results. Significant actor and partner effects emerged: Parents’ age 7 responses predicted their own age 10 responses and their partners’ later responses. Conclusions. Parents’ reported responses to children’s negative emotions during middle childhood are predicted by their own earlier responses and by their partners’ responses.

Maternal behavior predicts infant neurophysiological and behavioral attention processes in the first year.

We apply a biopsychosocial conceptualization to attention development in the 1st year and examine the role of neurophysiological and social processes on the development of early attention processes. We tested whether maternal behavior measured during 2 mother−child interaction tasks when infants (N = 388) were 5 months predicted infant medial frontal (F3/F4) EEG power and observed attention behavior during an attention task at 10 months. After controlling for infant attention behavior and EEG power in the same task measured at an earlier 5-month time point, results indicated a significant direct and positive association from 5-month maternal positive affect to infant attention behavior at 10 months. However, maternal positive affect was not related to medial frontal EEG power. In contrast, 5-month maternal intrusive behavior was associated with infants’ task-related EEG power change at the left frontal location, F3, at 10 months of age. The test of indirect effects from 5-month maternal intrusiveness to 10-month infant attention behavior via infants’ EEG power change at F3 was significant. These findings suggest that the development of neural networks serving attention processes may be 1 mechanism through which early maternal behavior is related to infant attention development in the 1st year and that intrusive maternal behavior may have a particularly disruptive effect on this process.

Changes in frontal EEG coherence across infancy predict cognitive abilities at age 3: The mediating role of attentional control.

Theoretical perspectives of cognitive development have maintained that functional integration of the prefrontal cortex across infancy underlies the emergence of attentional control and higher cognitive abilities in early childhood. To investigate these proposed relations, we tested whether functional integration of prefrontal regions across the second half of the first year predicted observed cognitive performance in early childhood 1 year prior indirectly through observed attentional control (N = 300). Results indicated that greater change in left-but not right-frontal EEG coherence between 5 and 10 months was positively associated with attentional control, cognitive flexibility, receptive language, and behavioral inhibitory control. Specifically, a larger increase in coherence between left frontal regions was positively associated with accuracy on a visual search task at Age 2, and visual search accuracy was positively associated with receptive vocabulary, performance on a set-shifting task (DCCS), and delay of gratification at Age 3. Finally, the indirect effects from the change in left frontal EEG coherence to 3-year cognitive flexibility, receptive language, and behavioral inhibitory control were significant, suggesting that internally controlled attention is a mechanism through which early neural maturation influences childrens cognitive development. (PsycINFO Database Record

Emotional reactivity, self-control and children's hostile attributions over middle childhood

Hostile attribution bias, a childs tendency to interpret ambiguous social information as threatening or hostile, has been discussed as an important point in which social, emotional and cognitive information intersect. This study explores the natural changes that occur in childrens hostile attributions across three grades during middle childhood and examines how emotional reactivity and self-control at third, fourth and fifth grade independently and interactively relate to these trajectories. Participants included 919 children whose mothers reported on their emotional reactivity, whose teachers reported on their self-control and who completed an attribution bias interview, all at grades 3, 4 and 5. Results revealed that among children with a greater tendency to make hostile attributions at third grade, lower self-control at third grade was associated with greater initial hostile attribution bias and less decline in biases over time. Additionally, greater emotional reactivity at fourth grade was associated with declines in these childrens hostile attributions, but only when self-control was also higher at fourth grade.

Self-regulation as a predictor of patterns of change in externalizing behaviors from infancy to adolescence

We examined associations between specific self-regulatory mechanisms and externalizing behavior patterns from ages 2 to 15 (N = 443). The relation between multiple self-regulatory indicators across multiple domains (i.e., physiological, attentional, emotional, and behavioral) at age 2 and at age 5 and group membership in four distinct externalizing trajectories was examined. By examining each of these self-regulatory processes in combination with one another, and therefore accounting for their shared variance, we aimed to better understand which specific self-regulatory skills were associated most strongly with externalizing behavioral patterns. Findings suggest that behavioral inhibitory control and emotion regulation are particularly important in distinguishing between children who show normative declines in externalizing behaviors across early childhood and those who demonstrate high levels through adolescence.