TY - JOUR
T1 - Toddler parasympathetic regulation and fear
T2 - Links to maternal appraisal and behavior
AU - Cho, Sunghye
AU - Buss, Kristin A.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by NIMH R01MH75750 to Kristin A. Buss. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
PY - 2017/3/1
Y1 - 2017/3/1
N2 - There is a growing recognition that parental socialization influences interact with young children's emerging capacity for physiological regulation and shape children's developmental trajectories. Nevertheless, the transactional processes linking parental socialization and physiological regulatory processes remain not well understood, particularly for fear-prone toddlers. To address this gap in the literature, the present study investigated the biopsychosocial processes that underlie toddlers’ fear regulation by examining the relations among toddler parasympathetic regulation, maternal appraisal, and parenting behaviors. Participants included 124 mothers and their toddlers (Mage = 24.43 months), who participated in a longitudinal study of temperament and socio-emotional development. Toddlers’ parasympathetic reactivity was found to moderate the links between maternal anticipatory appraisal of child fearfulness and (a) maternal provision of physical comfort and (b) preschool-age child inhibition. Additionally, maternal comforting behaviors during the low-threat task predicted preschool-age separation distress, specifically for toddlers demonstrating a low baseline RSA.
AB - There is a growing recognition that parental socialization influences interact with young children's emerging capacity for physiological regulation and shape children's developmental trajectories. Nevertheless, the transactional processes linking parental socialization and physiological regulatory processes remain not well understood, particularly for fear-prone toddlers. To address this gap in the literature, the present study investigated the biopsychosocial processes that underlie toddlers’ fear regulation by examining the relations among toddler parasympathetic regulation, maternal appraisal, and parenting behaviors. Participants included 124 mothers and their toddlers (Mage = 24.43 months), who participated in a longitudinal study of temperament and socio-emotional development. Toddlers’ parasympathetic reactivity was found to moderate the links between maternal anticipatory appraisal of child fearfulness and (a) maternal provision of physical comfort and (b) preschool-age child inhibition. Additionally, maternal comforting behaviors during the low-threat task predicted preschool-age separation distress, specifically for toddlers demonstrating a low baseline RSA.
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U2 - 10.1002/dev.21481
DO - 10.1002/dev.21481
M3 - Article
C2 - 27785806
AN - SCOPUS:85012085433
VL - 59
SP - 197
EP - 208
JO - Developmental Psychobiology
JF - Developmental Psychobiology
SN - 0012-1630
IS - 2
ER -