Parental Expressivity, Child Physiological and Behavioral Regulation, and Child Adjustment: Testing a Three-Path Mediation Model

Abstract

Research Findings: Parental expressivity, child physiological regulation (indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia suppression), child behavioral regulation, and child adjustment outcomes were examined in 45 children (M age = 4.32 years, SD = 1.30) and their parents. With the exception of child adjustment (i.e., internalizing and externalizing problems and adaptive skills), which were assessed with parents' ratings, all variables were observed behaviorally or physiologically. A 3-path mediation path model was tested with the relations between parental expressivity and child adjustment outcomes mediated through child physiological regulation and behavioral regulation. Despite low power to detect the mediated effect, there was evidence to suggest that physiological regulation and behavioral regulation were 2 mediating mechanisms by which parental high positive/low negative expressivity may influence adaptive skills. Thus, parental expressivity may shape children's physiological regulation. And physiological regulation may be 1 mechanism by which effortful control becomes manifested as behavioral regulation that becomes apparent to others who then make evaluations about individuals' adaptive skills. Practice or Policy: The results have implications for interventions aimed at parent training or parental coaching of emotion as well as interventions aimed at enhancing children's social-emotional or behavioral regulation to improve children's adaptive skills.

Notes

¹The 90-s film was an edited excerpt from a commercially available video recording produced by Team Baby Entertainment, LP. The film consists of young children engaged in pleasant and playful activities that are affiliated with the major university of the community from which participants were recruited.

²The time tracker was a commercially available visual timer and clock manufactured by Learning Resources®. This device is commonly used by parents or teachers to help children manage time.

³During the measurement of RSA suppression, the duration of on-task behavior, the number of times the child peeked inside the puzzle box or at the puzzle pieces, and the latency to first peek were observed during the child-alone puzzle task. Correlational analyses indicated no significant associations between these observed behaviors during the child-alone puzzle task and resting RSA or RSA suppression.

⁴The duration of on-task behavior, the number of times the child peeked inside the puzzle box, and the latency to first peek were observed during the child-alone puzzle task. Correlational analyses indicated that children who worked longer on the child-alone puzzle exhibited poorer behavioral (fine motor) regulation (on the trace-a-star task), but no relations were found between peeking behaviors and behavioral regulation. To avoid issues associated with shared method variance when delineating relations between physiological and behavioral regulation, we did not include behaviors during the child-alone puzzle as measures of behavioral regulation in this study.

†p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01.

⁵In a previous study (Valiente et al., 2006), correlations between observed effortful control and mothers' reports of externalizing and internalizing behaviors were .09 and −.21, ns and p = .01, respectively. In the present study, corresponding correlations were −.06 and −.15, respectively.