Maternal regulation of child affect in externalizing and typically-developing children.

Abstract

Temporal contingencies between children's affect and maternal behavior play a role in the development of children's externalizing problems. The goal of the current study was to use a microsocial approach to compare dyads with externalizing dysregulation (N =191) to healthy controls (N = 54) on maternal supportive regulation of children's negative and positive affect. Children were between the ages of 8 and 12 years. Mother-child dyads participated in conflict and positive discussions, and child affect and maternal supportive affect regulation were coded in real time. First, no group differences on overall levels of mother supportive regulation or child affect were found. Second, three event history analyses in a 2-level Cox hazard regression framework were used to predict the hazard rate of (a) maternal supportiveness, and of children's transitions (b) out of negative affect and (c) into positive affect. The hazard rate of maternal supportiveness, regardless of child affect, was not different between groups. However, as expected, the likelihood of mothers' supportive responses to children's negative affect was lower in externalizing than comparison dyads. In addition, children with externalizing problems were significantly less likely than typically developing children to transition out of negative affect in response to maternal supportiveness. The likelihood of both typically developing children and children with externalizing problems transitioning into positive affect were not related to specific occurrences of maternal supportiveness. Results of the current study show the importance of temporal dynamics in mother-child interactions in the emergence of children's externalizing problems.

An exploratory analysis of emotion dynamics between mothers and adolescents during conflict discussions.

“…Other studies that have examined emotion dynamics in parent-adolescent interactions have utilized a variety of techniques, including state-space grids (e.g., Hollenstein & Lewis, 2006;Lichtwarck-Aschoff et al, 2009), sequential analyses (e.g., Lichtwarck-Aschoff et al, 2010), and event history analysis (e.g., Lougheed, Craig, et al, 2015;Lougheed, Hollenstein, Lichtwarck-Aschoff, & Granic, 2015). Such methods have been crucial for understanding temporal dynamics of emotion in parent-adolescent relationships.…”

“…Most notably, parental validation (i.e., conveying an understanding of another's thoughts and feelings) and interest (i.e., curiosity about another's point of view and feelings) displayed during parent-adolescent interactions are important for child and adolescent adjustment (Allen, Hauser, Bell, & O'Connor, 1994;Lougheed, Hollenstein, Lichtwarck-Aschoff, & Granic, 2015) and effective conflict resolution (Halpern, 2007). Validation and interest may inhibit destructive and promote constructive behaviors during arguments and downregulate negative emotion (Halpern, 2007).…”

“…General features of parent-adolescent relationships may be captured by self-report or by aggregating codes of behavior during interactions, but a dynamical approach provides a window into finer-grained patterns of emotional communication that can become characteristic of a relationship over time (Granic, 2005;Lougheed, Hollenstein, Lichtwarck-Aschoff, & Granic, 2015). Studies that have analyzed interpersonal emotion dynamics in parent-adolescent relationships often examine dependent variables such as mutual positivity (e.g., Connell et al, 2011) or flexibility (e.g., Hollenstein & Lewis, 2006).…”

“…Recent advances in research on emotion dynamics during parent-adolescent interactions include analyzing flexibility (e.g., Connell, Hughes-Scalise, Klostermann, & Azem, 2011;Hollenstein & Lewis, 2006;Lougheed & Hollenstein, 2016), sequential emotion contingencies (Lichtwarck-Aschoff, Kunnen, & van Geert, 2010), and coregulation (Lougheed, Hollenstein, Lichtwarck-Aschoff, & Granic, 2015) during these interactions from a dynamic systems perspective. Despite these advances, most observational research on parent-adolescent interactions focuses on the unidirectional influences of parents' behavior on adolescent outcomes and centers on either concur-rently displayed emotion or sequential influence of one family member's emotions on the other's.…”

The Interpersonal Functions of Empathy: A Relational Perspective

“…In other words, mutual empathic communication during conflict that follows a temporal structure is an important feature of successful conflict management in this population. Work by Lougheed et al (2015) using a similar analytic approach (survival analysis) found that parental support (including validation) of children's emotions effectively down-regulates children's negative emotions. In addition to coding interpersonal communication behaviors, some adult research involves participants' continuous ratings of their own emotions and the social partner's behavior (Levenson & Ruef, 1992;Overall, Fletcher, & Kenny, 2012).…”