Inter-Parental Conflict, Maternal Behavior, and Mother-Child Physiology

父母间冲突、母亲行为和母子生理学

• 批准号: 8114338
• 负责人: Leah Hibel
• 金额: $ 18.22万
• 依托单位: PURDUE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-03-01 至 2013-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8114338
• 关键词: Address; Adrenal Glands; Affect; Age-Months; Arousal; Autonomic nervous system; Basic Science; Behavior; Biological; Biological Assay; Biological Markers; Biology; Child; Child Development; Child health care; Code; Conflict (Psychology); Couples; Development; Distress; Emotional; Empathy; Family; Hormones; Hostility; Hydrocortisone; Individual Differences; Infant; Intervention; Knowledge; Laboratories; Laboratory Procedures; Life; Literature; Maternal Behavior; Mediating; Mental Health; Moods; Mother-Child Relations; Mothers; Outcome Measure; Parent-Child Relations; Parenting behavior; Parents; Participant; Physiological; Physiology; Play; Preventive Intervention; Public Health; Randomized; Reaction; Recovery; Regulation; Research; Role; Saliva; Salivary; Sampling; Stress; System; Translational Research; Video Recording; Withdrawal; Work; alpha-amylase; base; biobehavior; biological adaptation to stress; coping; design; fighting; hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis; maternal stress; mother' s soothing; physical conditioning; psychobiology; research study; response; stressor

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Mothers play a critical role in facilitating the development of biobehavioral regulation in the child. However, marital conflict is related to a host of negative parenting practices, and marital conflict's effect on parenting behavior is thought to be a key mechanism leading to child maladjustment. Despite strong evidence that conflict and hostility between marital partners spillsover to effect parenting behaviors, mechanisms explaining how affect and mood transfers between dyadic familial relationships remains poorly understood. However, theoretical and empirical frameworks suggest marital conflict to be a major stressor, and responsible for changes in stress responsive physiological systems. To date, no study has examined marital stress physiology as a mechanism by which marital conflict impedes the ability for a child to behaviorally and physiological regulate in the face of challenge. The proposed study aims to fill this knowledge gap by examining the extent to which marital conflict induced maternal stress physiology reduces a mother's ability to respond sensitively to her infant during distress. We will then address the implications for the infant, by examining the degree to which the infant physiologically reacts and recovers from distress with maternal support. Participants will include 150 married parents living with their biological child approximately 6 months of age. Using a randomized controlled design, we will assign couples to engage in either a conflict discussion (N= 75) or a non-conflict discussion (N=75) before engaging in a mother-infant freeplay. After the freeplay, the mother will be asked to soothe her distressed infant (the infant will undergo a standardized laboratory procedure designed to elicit distress). Four saliva samples will be collected from the mother surrounding the marital discussion and four samples will be collected from the infant surrounding the distress task. Samples will later be assayed for cortisol and salivary alpha amylase, markers of the two major components of the psychobiology of the stress response (the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis and the autonomic nervous system, respectively). We will first examine if marital conflict induced stress physiology is responsible for reduced sensitivity in maternal caretaking. We will then examine if maternal stress physiology is a mechanism by which maternal stress is transmitted to her infant by examining infant physiological reactivity and recovery to challenge with maternal support. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed study aims to identify the physiological mechanisms by which marital conflict spills over into parenting behaviors and effects infant regulation. Specifically, we will be examining the effects of physiological reactivity surrounding marital conflict on maternal behavior and the infant's physiological reaction to, and ability to recover from distress with maternal support. The identification of physiological mechanisms is relevant because their discovery will provide a deeper understanding of the causes of maternal behavior and the implications for the development of child regulation, and provide the basis for new targets of family-based interventions.

描述（由申请人提供）：母亲在促进儿童生物行为调节的发展方面发挥着关键作用。然而，婚姻冲突与许多消极的父母行为有关，婚姻冲突对父母行为的影响被认为是导致儿童适应不良的一个重要机制。尽管有强有力的证据表明，婚姻伴侣之间的冲突和敌意溢出影响育儿行为，解释如何影响和情绪之间的二元家庭关系的转移机制仍然知之甚少。然而，理论和实证框架表明，婚姻冲突是一个主要的压力源，并负责压力反应的生理系统的变化。迄今为止，还没有研究将婚姻压力生理学作为一种机制来研究，婚姻冲突会阻碍孩子在面对挑战时进行行为和生理调节的能力。拟议中的研究旨在填补这一知识空白，检查在何种程度上婚姻冲突引起的产妇压力生理降低母亲的能力，以敏感地回应她的婴儿在危难中。然后，我们将讨论婴儿的影响，通过检查婴儿的生理反应和恢复的程度与母亲的支持。参与者将包括150名已婚父母，他们与大约6个月大的亲生孩子一起生活。使用随机对照设计，我们将分配夫妇进行冲突讨论（N= 75）或非冲突讨论（N=75），然后再进行母婴自由游戏。在自由玩耍之后，母亲将被要求安抚她痛苦的婴儿（婴儿将经历一个标准化的实验室程序，旨在引起痛苦）。将从围绕婚姻讨论的母亲收集四个唾液样本，并从围绕痛苦任务的婴儿收集四个样本。随后将对样本进行皮质醇和唾液α淀粉酶的分析，这是应激反应的心理生物学的两个主要组成部分（分别是下丘脑垂体肾上腺轴和自主神经系统）的标志物。我们将首先研究，如果婚姻冲突引起的压力生理是负责降低敏感性，在产妇照顾。然后，我们将检查是否产妇压力生理学是一种机制，通过检查婴儿的生理反应和恢复，以挑战母亲的支持，母亲的压力传递给她的婴儿。 公共卫生关系：本研究的目的是探讨婚姻冲突对父母养育行为的影响及其对婴儿调节的生理机制。具体来说，我们将研究围绕婚姻冲突的生理反应对母亲行为的影响，以及婴儿对母亲支持的生理反应和从痛苦中恢复的能力。生理机制的识别是相关的，因为它们的发现将提供更深入的了解母亲行为的原因和对儿童调节发展的影响，并为以家庭为基础的干预措施的新目标提供基础。