(PS8-A1) Parental Physiological Arousal and Parenting Behaviors: Associations with Adolescents' Internalizing Symptoms

A large body of evidence has linked harsh and withdrawn parenting behaviors with heightened levels of psychopathology in youth. Further, emerging lines of research support an association between parenting behaviors and physiological reactivity in parents, with parents who engage in more hostile parenting behaviors exhibiting physiological hyperreactivity and decreased physiological flexibility in response to stress. However, it is unclear how parenting behaviors and physiological reactivity may interact to predict adolescents’ psychological adjustment over time.

Drawing from a sample of adolescents (n = 97; 48% Female; M_age = 12.21, SD = 1.68) and their parents, the present study examined associations among observed harsh/withdrawn parenting behaviors, parents’ physiological reactivity during a dyadic conflict discussion task (i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity [RSA-R]), and youth symptoms of internalizing psychopathology over time. Follow-up data was collected from 117 participants one year following the baseline assessment (N_youth = 59, N_parents = 58; 40% attrition), with extensive efforts taken to address missing data (e.g., Little’s MCAR test, exploration of auxiliary variables, expectation-maximization). We expected that over time, (1) harsh/withdrawn parenting would be positively associated with adolescents’ internalizing symptoms, and (2) parents’ physiological reactivity would moderate the association between harsh/withdrawn parenting and adolescents’ internalizing problems.
           
Consistent with these hypotheses, harsh/withdrawn parenting at baseline was significantly associated with adolescents’ internalizing symptoms at follow-up (b = .17, p = .04). Further, parents’ RSA-R scores moderated the longitudinal association between harsh/withdrawn parenting and youth internalizing symptoms (b = .24, p = .04), where at moderate (b = .26, t(90) = 2.21, p = .03) and high (b = .50, t(90) = 2.93, p = .004) levels of RSA reactivity, harsh/withdrawn parenting was associated with greater internalizing symptoms in adolescents over time.

Findings replicate a strong body of evidence linking harsh/withdrawn parenting behaviors with youth psychopathology. Further, the present study presents novel findings that physiological reactivity might play an important role in the development of internalizing problems. Specifically, results indicate that when parents exhibit greater physiological reactivity to stress experienced during parent-child conflict, this may exacerbate the effects of additional sources of risk (i.e., harsh/withdrawn parenting). Future research should build upon these findings by leveraging ambulatory measures of parental physiological arousal to clarify patterns of reactivity in vivo. In addition, the present findings have valuable clinical implications, supporting the utility of measuring physiological reactivity (e.g., biofeedback) during dyadic conflict within clinical settings.