Parental Investment Patterns in a Shifting Economy

该项目研究国家和个人经济因素对家庭功能的影响。年轻人的福利受到其父母可获得的经济资源的影响。也就是说，父母获得经济资源的方式影响父母投入他们的时间，注意力和财政资源在照顾年轻人。拟议的研究将测试的假设，父母的投资策略转移，以回应父母的当前访问（或预期的未来访问）的经济资源。 作为一种新的预测，拟议的研究将衡量这些投资模式根据儿童风险水平的不同而有所不同的方式。例如，儿童的早产状态是不利健康结果的潜在风险因素。 过去的工作表明，处于风险中的儿童是（1）父母忽视/虐待，或（2）特别高水平的照顾的接受者。这项研究测试了这些儿童的这些两极化结果的基础。虽然预计经历或预测经济前景不佳的父母在低风险儿童身上的投资多于高风险儿童，但预计经历或预测经济前景强劲的父母在高风险儿童身上的投资多于低风险儿童。这一模式可能有进化的起源，但在国家或个人财富不同的文化或家庭中仍然可以观察到，预计父母更高水平的投资将对儿童的未来结果-特别是风险儿童的未来结果-构成重要的补偿模式。拟议中的研究将衡量这些结果发生的途径，即父母投资模式对儿童生理反应的影响。 具体来说，该项目将评估儿童激素和酶的变化，这些激素和酶已知会对压力做出反应。这些生理变化反过来又可以预测这些孩子的健康结果是积极还是消极的。这项研究关注的是父母双方表现出的投资模式。虽然许多反应预计是相似的，但其他反应可能会有所不同。 该研究还测试了盎格鲁和拉丁美洲家庭的投资模式。然而，由于父母投资模式的普遍性，预计各组之间没有差异。该研究将使用不同的方法来测试预测：（1）横向研究将衡量父母在孩子出生后不久的初始投资策略，（2）纵向研究将评估孩子在生命最初3年的结果，以及（3）一项实验将测试当父母接触到暗示积极或消极未来的媒体图像时，这项研究评估了经济因素对风险儿童福祉的影响。预测与国家和家庭经济变量对较脆弱儿童的结果的选择性后果有关。研究结果还将为发展以理论为基础的干预措施，促进父亲在风险儿童的投资奠定基础，从而扩展了研究人员过去的工作，记录早期干预措施的有效性，以增加母亲在非常年轻的风险儿童的投资。 研究结果也将对来自不同文化和种族背景的家庭的早期干预的潜在有效性的相似性或差异产生影响。

This project examines the effects of national and personal economic factors on the functioning of families. The welfare of the young is influenced by the economic resources available to their parents. That is, parental access to economic resources influences the ways parents invest their time, attention, and financial resources in the care of the young. The proposed research will test the hypothesis that parental investment strategies shift in response to parents' current access (or expected future access) to economic resources. As a novel prediction, the proposed studies will measure the ways in which those investment patterns differ based on the risk level of the child. For example, the child's preterm status serves as a potential risk factor for adverse health outcomes. Past work has shown that at risk children are the recipients of either (1) parental neglect/abuse, or (2) exceptionally high levels of care. This research tests the basis for these polarized outcomes of such children. Although parents experiencing or projecting a poor economic outlook are predicted to invest more in low risk than high risk children, parents experiencing or projecting a strong economic outlook are predicted to invest more in high risk than in low risk children. This pattern presumably has an evolutionary origin, but is still observed across cultures or families that differ in national or personal wealth.Higher levels of parental investment are expected to pose an important compensatory pattern in the future outcomes of children -- in particular, the future outcomes of at-risk children. The proposed studies will measure the route by which such outcomes occur, that is, the influence of parental investment patterns on children's physiological responses. Specifically, the project will assess changes in children's hormones and enzymes that are known to react to stress. Such physiological changes, in turn, should predict adverse or positive health outcomes for these children.The research is concerned with the investment patterns shown by both mothers and fathers. Although many of the responses are expected to be similar, others may differ. The research also tests investment patterns for Anglo and Latino families. However, nodifferences are anticipated across groupings due to the universal nature of parental investment patterns. The research will make use of different approaches in testing predictions: (1) a cross-sectional study will measure parents' initial investment strategies soon after children are born, (2) a longitudinal study will assess children's outcomes across the first 3 years of life, and (3) an experiment will test the ways parents change their future projections about parenting when exposed to media images that suggest positive or negative future economic outcomes.This research assesses the effects of economic factors on the well-being of at-risk children. Predictions are relevant to the selective consequences of national and family economic variables on the outcomes of more vulnerable children. Findings will also provide the groundwork for the development of theory-based interventions that promote paternal investment in at-risk children, thus extending the investigator's past work documenting the effectiveness of an early intervention for increasing maternal investment in very young at-risk children. Findings will also have implications for the similarities or differences in the potential effectiveness of early interventions for families from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.