Regulatory skill as a resilience factor for adults with a history of foster care: A pilot study

Abstract

Individuals with a history of foster care (FC) are at elevated risk for emotion regulation-related mental illness. The purpose of the current study was to characterize regulatory function in a group of adults with a history of FC (N = 26) relative to those without a history of FC (N = 27) and how regulatory function moderates adverse caregiving-related outcomes (daily cortisol production and trait anxiety). Self-report items (anxiety, emotion regulation strategies, inhibitory control, caregiving history) were collected along with more objective measures (computerized task and salivary cortisol). Inhibitory control was assessed via self-report and a computerized task (emotional face go/nogo). Results showed that for adults with a history of FC, higher levels of inhibitory control were associated with higher accuracy on the emotional face go/nogo task and greater reported use of the emotion regulation strategy cognitive reappraisal. Greater use of cognitive reappraisal in turn was associated with healthier stress-related outcomes (decreased trait anxiety and steeper sloped cortisol production throughout the day). Dose-response associations were observed between self-reported regulatory skills and FC experiences (i.e., number of placements and age when exited foster care). These findings suggest that adverse caregiving can have long-term influences on mental health that extend into adulthood; however, individual differences in regulatory skills moderate these outcomes and may be an important target for intervention following caregiving adversity. © 2014 The Authors. Developmental Psychobiology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 57: 1–16, 2015.

Negative Emotional Response Inhibition: Support for a cognitive mechanism underlying negative urgency in nonsuicidal self-injury

“…Early NERI was defined as the commission error rate to negative emotional non-target faces. Prior studies have found associations between worse early NERI and childhood adversity (Johnson & Tottenham, 2015;Tottenham et al, 2010), depression-related constructs (Hjordt et al, 2017;Vanderhasselt, Kühn, & De Raedt, 2011), as well as violence among psychiatric inpatients (Brugman et al, 2016), aggression (Denny & Siemer, 2012), and criminality/psychopathy (Iria, Barbosa, & Paixão, 2011). Neuroimaging indicates that negative urgency is related to recruitment of inhibitory regions during early NERI (Chester et al, 2016).…”

“…We used E-Prime software to present task stimuli and collect data, which were included in analyses only if correct hit rate exceeded 75% (see Johnson & Tottenham, 2015). Two NSSI participants had missing data, resulting in a sample of n = 83 (NSSI: n = 41; control: n = 42).…”

Social scaffolding of human amygdala-mPFCcircuit development

“…Thus, a button press to the emotional faces would be a false alarm error. False alarm error rate that was greater to fear faces than happy faces was interpreted as an error in affective behavior regulation (Johnson & Tottenham, 2015). Children and adolescents performed this task twice, once sitting next to their parent and once sitting next to a friendly female experimenter in counterbalanced order.…”

Longitudinal associations between low morning cortisol in infancy and anger dysregulation in early childhood in a CPS‐referred sample

“…Executive functioning is defined as one's cognitive control over goal-directed activity. In a study of adults, Johnson and Tottenham (2015) found that a history of foster care involvement was associated with elevated trait anxiety and a blunted diurnal cortisol rhythm, with this association moderated by inhibitory control. Specifically, individuals with higher levels of inhibitory control were more likely to use adaptive emotion regulation strategies than individuals with lower levels of inhibitory control, with adaptive emotion regulation in turn associated with reduced trait anxiety.…”

“…In a study of adults, Johnson and Tottenham (2015) found that a history of foster care involvement was associated with elevated trait anxiety and a blunted diurnal cortisol rhythm, with this association moderated by inhibitory control. Executive functioning is defined as one's cognitive control over goal-directed activity.…”