Mother–child interactions can be emotionally charged, particularly when mothers experience difficulties with depression. Further, variation in the tone of such interactions has been linked to variation in youth functioning. Yet, little is known about the role of emotion regulatory processes during mother–child interactions. This study examined negative affective transactions between mothers and youth across 5-min conflict and fun-activity planning discussions, in relation to depressive symptoms and maternal and youth respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Maternal depressive symptoms predicted more negative affect. Maternal and youth RSA interacted with maternal depressive symptoms to predict both overall affect and the stability of affect across time. The beneficial effects of youth RSA were stronger, but maternal RSA weaker, in the face of elevated maternal depression.
BakemanR.QueraV.GnisciA. (2009). Observer agreement for timed-event sequential data: A comparison of time-based and event-based algorithms. Behavior Research Methods, 41, 137–147.
2.
BeauchaineT. (2001). Vagal tone, development, and Gray’s motivational theory: Toward an integrated model of autonomic nervous system functioning in psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 13, 183–214.
3.
BerntsonG. G.BiggerJ. T.JrEckbergD. L.GrossmanP.KaufmannP. G.MalikM.,…Van Der MolenM. W. (1997). Heart rate variability: Origins, methods, and interpretive caveats. Psychophysiology, 34, 623–648.
4.
BrennanP. A.Le BrocqueR.HammenC. (2003). Maternal depression, parent-child relationships, and resilient outcomes in adolescence. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 42, 1469–1477.
5.
ButlerE. A. (2011). Temporal interpersonal emotion systems: The “TIES” that form relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15, 367–393.
6.
ButlerE. A.WilhelmF. H.GrossJ. J. (2006). Respiratory sinus arrhythmia, emotion, and emotion regulation during social interaction. Psychophysiology, 43, 612–622.
7.
ButnerJ.DiamondL. M.HicksA. M. (2007). Attachment style and two forms of affect coregulation between romantic partners. Personal Relationships, 14, 431–455.
8.
ColeP. M.MartinS. E.DennisT. A. (2004). Emotion regulation as a scientific construct: Methodological challenges and directions for child development research. Child Development, 75, 317–333.
9.
CollinsW.LaursenB. (2004). Parent-adolescent relationships and influences. In LernerR.SteinbergL. (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (2nd ed., pp. 331–361). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
10.
ConnellA. M.GoodmanS. H. (2002). The association between psychopathology in fathers versus mothers and children’s internalizing and externalizing behavior problems: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 746–773.
11.
CrowellS. E.BeauchaineT. P.McCauleyE.SmithC. J.VasilevC. A.StevensA. L. (2008). Parent–child interactions, peripheral serotonin, and intentional self-inflicted injury in adolescents. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 76, 15–21.
12.
DishionT.KavanaghK. (2003). Intervening in adolescent problem behavior: A family-centered approach. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
13.
El-SheikhM.HargerJ.WhitsonS. M. (2001). Exposure to interparental conflict and children’s adjustment and physical health: The moderating role of vagal tone. Child Development, 72, 1617–1636.
14.
FabesR. A.EisenbergN. (1997). Regulatory control and adults’ stress-related responses to daily life events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 1107–1117.
15.
FengX.ShawD. S.SkubanE. M.LaneT. (2007). Emotional exchange in mother-child dyads: Stability, mutual influence, and associations with maternal depression and child problem behavior. Journal of Family Psychology, 21, 714–725.
16.
GallesS.MillerA.CohnJ.FoxN.(2002). Estimating parasympathetic control of heart rate variability: Two approaches to quantifying vagal tone. Psychophysiology, 39, S37.
17.
GoodmanS. H.GotlibI. H. (1999). Risk for psychopathology in the children of depressed mothers: A developmental model for understanding mechanisms of transmission. Psychological Review, 106, 458–490.
18.
GoodmanS. H.RouseM. H.ConnellA. M.BrothM. R.HallC. M.HeywardD. (2011). Maternal depression and child psychopathology: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 14, 1–27.
19.
HaT.DishionT. J.OverbeekG.BurkW. J.EngelsR. C. (2014). The blues of adolescent romance: Observed affective interactions in adolescent romantic relationships associated with depressive symptoms. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 42, 551–562.
JohnsonP. O.NeymanJ. (1936). Tests of certain linear hypotheses and their application to some educational problems. Statistical Research Memoirs, 1, 57–93.
22.
KennyD.KashyD.CookW. (2006). Dyadic data analysis. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
23.
KovacsM. (1992). Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI). New York, NY: Multi-Health Systems.
24.
LarsonR. W.RichardsM. H. (1994). Family emotions: Do young adolescents and their parents experience the same states?Journal of Research on Adolescence, 4, 567–583.
25.
MatjaskoJ. L.FeldmanA. F. (2005). Emotional transmission between parents and adolescents: The importance of work characteristics and relationship quality. In SchneiderB.WaiteL. J. (Eds.), Being together, working apart: Dual-career families and the work-life balance (pp. 138–158). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
26.
MerikangasK. R.HeJ. P.BursteinM.SwansonS. A.AvenevoliS.CuiL.,…SwendsenJ. (2010). Lifetime prevalence of mental disorders in US adolescents: Results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication—Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A). Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 49, 980–989.
27.
PargasR. C. M.BrennanP. A.HammenC.Le BrocqueR. (2010). Resilience to maternal depression in young adulthood. Developmental Psychology, 46, 805–814.
28.
PerlmanS. B.CamrasL. A.PelphreyK. A. (2008). Physiology and functioning: Parents’ vagal tone, emotion socialization, and children’s emotion knowledge. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 100, 308–315.
29.
PorgesS. (1995). Orienting in a defensive world: Mammalian modifications of our evolutionary heritage. A polyvagal theory. Psychophysiology, 32, 301–318.
30.
PorgesS. (2007). The polyvagal perspective. Biological Psychology, 74, 116–143.
31.
PorgesS. W.Doussard-RooseveltJ. A.PortalesA. L.GreenspanS. I. (1996). Infant regulation of the vagal “brake” predicts behavior problems: A psychobiological model of social behavior. Developmental Psychobiology, 29, 697–712.
32.
PreacherK.CurranP.BauerD. (2006). Computational tools for probing interaction effects in multiple linear regression, multilevel modeling, and latent curve analysis. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 31, 437–448.
33.
PughK. L.FarrellA. D. (2012). The impact of maternal depressive symptoms on adolescents’ aggression: Role of parenting and family mediators. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 21, 589–602.
34.
RadloffL. S. (1977). The CES-D scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement, 1, 385–401.
35.
RandallA. K.PostJ. H.ReedR. G.ButlerE. A. (2013). Cooperating with your romantic partner: Associations with interpersonal emotion coordination. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 30, 1072–1095.
36.
ReisingM. M.WatsonK. H.HardcastleE. J.MerchantM. J.RobertsL.ForehandR.CompasB. E. (2013). Parental depression and economic disadvantage: The role of parenting in associations with internalizing and externalizing symptoms in children and adolescents. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 22, 335–343.
37.
RottenbergJ. (2007). Cardiac vagal control in depression: A critical analysis. Biological Psychology, 74, 200–211.
38.
SaxbeD.RepettiR. L. (2010). For better or worse? Coregulation of couples’ cortisol levels and mood states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 92–103.
39.
ShannonK. E.BeauchaineT. P.BrennerS. L.NeuhausE.Gatzke-KoppL. (2007). Familial and temperamental predictors of resilience in children at risk for conduct disorder and depression. Development and Psychopathology, 19, 701–727.
40.
StephensG. J.SilbertL. J.HassonU. (2010). Speaker-listener neural coupling underlies successful communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, 107, 14425–14430.
41.
ThayerJ. F.LaneR. D. (2000). A model of neurovisceral integration in emotion regulation and dysregulation. Journal of Affective Disorders, 61, 201–216.
42.
WetterE. K.El-SheikhM. (2012). Trajectories of children’s internalizing symptoms: The role of maternal internalizing symptoms, respiratory sinus arrhythmia and child sex. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 53, 168–177.
43.
WilhelmF. H.GrossmanP.CoyleM. A. (2004). Improving estimation of cardiac vagal tone during spontaneous breathing using a paced-breathing calibration. Biomedical Sciences Instrumentation, 40, 317–324.
