Conduct Problems and Hair Cortisol Concentrations Decrease in School-Aged Children after VIPP-SD: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Two Twin Cohorts

Abstract

The Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD) is effective in increasing parental sensitivity and sensitive discipline, and aims to decrease child behavior problems. Changes in quality of parenting may be accompanied by effects on child stress levels. However, studies of VIPP-SD effects on child behavior problems have shown mixed results and there are no studies to date of the effect of the intervention on children’s stress levels, as measured by hair cortisol concentration (HCC). Furthermore, differences in intervention effectiveness may be explained by differential susceptibility factors. We hypothesized that the effects of the VIPP-SD on child behavior problems might be moderated by currently available child polygenic scores of differential susceptibility (PGS-DS). In the current pre-registered trial, we randomly assigned 40% of n = 445 families with school-aged twin children to the intervention group. The VIPP-SD was successful in decreasing both children’s conduct problems and HCC. Effects were not moderated by available child PGS-DS. We conclude that a brief, home-based video-feedback parenting intervention can decrease child behavior problems and affect the child’s stress-related neuroendocrine system as assessed with hair cortisol. In future studies, more specific PGS-DS for externalizing behaviors should be used as well as parental PGS-DS.

The Perspectives of Senior Researchers in Applied Disciplines on the Current State of Developmental Attachment Research: An Interview Study

“…For instance, assessment of hair cortisol has now become dramatically less expensive. A demonstration of the value of measures of cortisol has been in the ongoing series of publications from long-term evaluation of Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (e.g., Garnett et al, 2020), where understanding the regulation or dysregulation of states of arousal using biological measures are used together with observational measures as a crucial part of understanding the mechanisms and consequences of the attachment-based intervention (see also Runze et al, 2022). Use of biological measures such as cortisol may help support two-way dialog with researchers who would otherwise not be able or willing to meet the ''price of entry'' for delving into the insights available in the Ainsworth interactive scales.…”

Matters of Significance

“…For most parts of this project, we pre-register the design and analytic plans; that is, before starting to explore the dataset we make our plans for statistical analyses public in some detail (e.g., Runze et al, 2022). Pre-registration of the data-collection and data-analysis plan is considered one of the major means to enhance replicability because it restricts the number of arbitrary choices for testing the hypotheses (Nosek et al, 2015).…”

Response bias is genetically biased: Another argument for Kagan’s philippic against questionnaires in developmental psychology.

“…Saliva samples were collected from the primary parent and the children at T2 and subsequently genotyped and imputed at the Genetic Laboratory of the Department of Internal Medicine (Population Genomics) at Erasmus MC. A complete description of the process can be found in Supplement 1 (Runze et al, 2022). We computed three polygenic scores: (1) educational attainment (EA), (2), IQ, and (3), income (see Table S1 for information about the base samples).…”