Cognitive & Emotional Mechanisms of Harsh Parenting

描述(由申请人提供)：拟议研究的首要目标是扩大关于过度反应父母养育的相关性的科学知识，着眼于改善针对儿童行为问题的父母干预措施。根据一个生物心理模型，提出了关于父母对孩子的想法和感受以及对孩子的生理反应如何与严厉的管教有关的假设。具体目标如下：目标1是测试从不良婚姻到问题母子关系的负面情绪压倒的概括性。提出了一个中介模型，在该模型中，先前的儿童外化问题、与儿童交往前的情绪、期望、以及预期的情感和心理生理反应与对儿童行为和过度反应纪律的负面偏向评价有关。目的2是测试严厉的父母教养方式与亲子冲突的心理生理反应之间的关系，将生理学评估扩展到母亲和她们幼儿的生活互动，并包括迷走神经反应(以及皮肤电反应)的评估。这些关系将在100个母婴二人组的样本中进行测试，在这些母婴组中，幼儿表现出不同程度的早期外化问题。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching goal of the proposed study is to expand scientific knowledge regarding the correlates of overreactive parenting, with an eye toward improving parenting interventions that target child conduct problems. Drawing from a biopsychosociai model, hypotheses are offered about how parents' thoughts and feelings about, and physiological responses to, their children relate to harsh discipline. Specific aims are as follows: Aim 1 is to test the generalizability of negative sentiment override from dysfunctional marriages to troubled mother-child relationships. A mediated model in which previous child externalizing problems, preinteraction child-related sentiment, expectations, as well as anticipatory affective and psychophysiological reactivity are associated with negatively biased appraisals of child behavior and overreactive discipline is hypothesized. Aim 2 is to test the relation between harsh parenting and psychophysiological reactivity to parent-child conflict, extending physiological assessment to live interactions of mothers and their toddlers, and including the assessment of vagal reactivity (as well as electrodermal reactivity). These relations will be tested in a sample of 100 mother-toddler dyads in which the toddlers are exhibiting varying degrees of incipient externalizing problems.