Parent-Child Cardiac Convergence During Distress: Longitudinal and Cross-sectional Mechanisms of Early Childhood Regulatory Processes

负面情绪调节是指一个人从痛苦的事件中冷静下来的能力。理解包括负面情绪调控在内的发育过程很重要，因为它预测了以后生活中许多不同的健康结果。例如，约75%的严重精神健康障碍与调节情绪的挑战有关。第二年是研究负面情绪调节发展途径的重要年龄，因为这是婴儿从困境中获得可靠的调节策略的第一年。因为第二年可能是调节策略的延展性特别高的时候，这个研究项目将特别有助于理解发育机制，然后为那些表现出能够从高度痛苦的情况中冷静下来的早期挑战的儿童制定预防性干预措施。 目前的研究计划继续进行一项研究计划，调查12-24个月大的幼儿在接受了非常令人痛苦的事件-疫苗接种针头后如何平静下来。最初的研究计划(Discovery Grant 2015-2020)成功地跟踪了健康幼儿在12个月、18个月和24个月大时进行的400多次独特的疫苗接种。该项目检查了在疫苗接种预约期间和一年中对疼痛和高度痛苦的刺激(针头)做出反应的行为和心脏模式。在全面描述了行为和生理上的负面影响调节模式后，研究的更新计划努力实现下一步飞跃。我们建议的项目考察了影响儿童负面影响调节模式在这一敏感时期如何发展的一个关键因素。这笔续期补助金旨在调查亲子生理调谐的影响(即父母和孩子从高度痛苦中进行调节的模式有多相似)。从本质上讲，我们感兴趣的是研究亲子协调如何在痛苦的刺激后直接对高度痛苦的环境做出反应和调节；确定亲子协调是否纵向预测幼儿负面情绪调节；最后，研究调节对幼儿负面情绪调节的潜在机制是否是父母评价(即幼儿有多痛苦)及其结果行为(即抚慰行为)。我们断言，这项研究计划将具有很大的影响力，因为它标志着在文献中第一次在自然背景下研究调谐，纵向研究，并已经被研究以辨别调谐实际上影响幼儿负面情绪调节的机制。

Negative affect regulation is one's ability to calm down from distressing events. Understanding the developmental processes subsuming negative affect regulation is important because it predicts many different health outcomes later in life. For example, about 75% of serious mental health disorders relate to challenges with regulating emotions. The second year of life is an important age to study in the developmental pathway of negative affect regulation because this is the first year infants have reliable strategies to regulate from distress. Because the second year of life may be when malleability of regulatory strategies is especially high, this program of research will be especially informative to understanding developmental mechanisms and then creating preventative interventions for children who show early challenges with being able to calm down from highly distressing situations. The current program of research continues a program of research examining how 12-24 month old toddlers calm down after a highly distressing event- vaccination needle. The original program of research (Discovery Grant 2015-2020) successfully followed healthy toddlers through over 400 unique vaccination appointments at 12-, 18-, and 24-months of age. This project examined both behavioural and cardiac patterns in response to a painful and highly distressing stimulus (needle) both within the vaccination appointment and over the course of the year. Having comprehensively described negative affect regulatory patterns, both behaviourally and physiologically, the renewal program of research strives to take the next leap forward. Our proposed project examines a key factor impacting how a child's negative affect regulation patterns develop during this sensitive period. This renewal grant sets out to investigate the impact of parent-child physiological attunement (i.e. how similar a parent's and child's pattern of regulating from high distress are). In essence, we are interested in studying parent-child attunement in how they react to and regulate from a highly distressing context directly after a painful stimulus; determining whether parent-child attunement predicts toddler negative affect regulation longitudinally; and finally, examining if the mechanisms underlying attunement's impact on toddler negative affect regulation are parent appraisals (i.e. how distressed the toddler is) and their resultant behaviours (i.e. soothing behaviours). We assert this program of research will be highly influential as it marks the first time in the literature, attunement has been studied in a natural context, has been studied longitudinally, and has been studied to discern the mechanisms by which attunement actually impacts toddler negative affect regulation.