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The goals of the present study were to investigate links between changes in peer victimization from elementary to high school and adolescent reactive aggression (Goal 1), whether heightened autonomic nervous system (ANS) reactivity to social and nonsocial stress increases risk for adolescent reactive aggression (Goal 2), and whether increased ANS reactivity strengthens the association between changes in victimization and adolescent reactive aggression (Goal 3). Participants included 145 adolescents (Mage = 16; 54% female; 76% European American, 13% African American, 11% Latino American, 7% Asian American, 5% of mixed race or ethnicity; 60% with family incomes of $100,000 or greater). We collected self-report data in elementary (Time 1 [T1]); (Time 2 [T2]); middle (Time 3 [T3]); and high school (Time 4 [T4]) to assess victimization. At T4, we measured self-reported reactive and proactive aggression, and ANS reactivity (preejection period [PEP], respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) to peer rejection and nonsocial frustration. More positive victimization slope over time (meaning both less decreasing slopes and increasing slopes) predicted greater adolescent reactive, but not proactive aggression (Goal 1). Greater RSA augmentation to peer rejection and more PEP reactivity to nonsocial frustration predicted more reactive, but not proactive aggression (Goal 2). The link between victimization slope and reactive aggression emerged only for adolescents exhibiting RSA augmentation to peer rejection (marginal; Goal 3). Public Significance Statement: The public significance of these results suggests that at-risk youth may benefit from both peer-based strategies to reduce exposure to peer victimization and individual strategies to promote effective emotion regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temperamental inhibitory control is a foundational capacity for children's social, emotional, and behavioral development. Even though temperament is suggested to have a biological basis, the physiological indicators of inhibitory control remain unclear amid mixed empirical results. In this study, we leveraged a multicohort longitudinal design to examine resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) as a physiological correlate of inhibitory control across the early and middle childhood years. Data were collected annually across four time points from cohorts of 4- (n = 150, Mage = 4.53; SD = 0.30; 49.7% female) and 8- (n = 150; Mage = 8.53; SD = 0.29; 49.7% female) year-old children and their caregivers. There were weak, albeit significant, associations between resting RSA and caregiver-reported inhibitory control in middle childhood but not in early childhood. A stronger association was found for older children when latent trait assessments of RSA and inhibitory control were derived from commonalities across the four annual assessments. We conclude that using repeated measures to extract latent trait scores increases power to detect potential physiological indicators of temperament. Public Significance Statement: In the current study we examined resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) as a biological correlate of temperamental inhibitory control with a multicohort, 4-year longitudinal design across early and middle childhood. The analyses examining associations between resting RSA and inhibitory control across the latent trait models (derived from four repeated measures) showed significant associations between resting RSA and inhibitory control in middle childhood but not in early childhood. Results indicated that the biological correlates of temperamental inhibitory control might become more crystalized in middle childhood and showed that the use of repeated measures to extract latent trait scores would increases power to detect potential physiological indicators of temperamental inhibitory control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shyness is a temperamental trait that refers to fear and wariness in the face of social novelty and is known to have a biological basis. One proposed physiological correlate of shyness has been the change in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) from baseline to a stressor. However, past research linking shyness and RSA change has been mixed, which may be, in part, due to a failure to carefully consider the context under which RSA change is measured and the directionality of relations. Using a longitudinal design and cross-lagged analysis (N= 103, 52 girls), we examined parent-reported shyness and RSA change during a stranger approach task (social stressor) and a locked box task (nonsocial stressor) at ages 3 (Mage at Time 1 = 3.50 years, SDage = 0.19 years) and 4 (Mage at Time 2 = 4.76 years, SDage = 0.38). Cardiac vagal withdrawal during the stranger approach task, but not during the frustration task, at age 3 positively predicted shyness at age 4. Shyness at age 3 did not predict cardiac vagal change in either context at age 4. We also found that changes in RSA measured during the frustration task were stable across time, but changes in RSA measured during the stranger approach task were not stable across time, suggesting a developmental change in physiological regulatory systems to social threat. These results suggest that, although biology may come first in shaping children's behavior, this relation depends critically on the context and the incentives in the child's environment. Public Significance Statement: At age 3, cardiac vagal withdrawal, a physiological index of reactivity, was positively related to shyness 1 year later. This relation was specific to cardiac vagal withdrawal measured in a social threat context but not in a frustrating context that was less socially threatening. These results highlight the importance of considering context when examining biological factors that place individuals at greater risk of developing shyness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sought to advance our understanding of how observed child self-regulation, parenting, and their interaction were associated with children's dynamic physiological stress reactivity indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity trajectories. Participants were 85 three-year-old children (54% female) and their mothers oversampled for lower income, higher stressful life events, and higher child maltreatment risk. Child behavioral regulation, assessed as compliance and noncompliance, and maternal supportive parenting were observed during a challenging dyadic puzzle task. Results showed that child RSA exhibited quadratic change across the task on average, characterized by an expected initial decrease and subsequent recovery. Child behavioral regulation and its interaction with maternal supportive parenting were associated with interindividual differences in child RSA reactivity trajectories after controlling for child resting RSA. Children with higher compliance or lower noncompliance showed RSA decreases in response to task stressors but exhibited subsequent RSA recovery only when mothers displayed higher supportive parenting. Children with lower compliance or higher noncompliance displayed negligible RSA changes overall across the task, suggesting blunted or compromised RSA reactivity, regardless of supportive parenting levels. These findings demonstrate novel evidence that preschoolers' better behavioral regulation is related to their more adaptive physiological reactivity to stressors and that supportive parenting is needed to facilitate physiological recovery even in relatively better-regulated preschoolers. Public Significance Statement: This study demonstrates that during challenging mother–preschooler interactions, preschoolers who exhibit better behavioral regulation with mothers and experience higher levels of supportive parenting show the most adaptive physiological reactivity to stressors and efficient physiological recovery after stressors have passed. Child self-regulation and parenting in challenging interactions are potential intervention targets to promote adaptive physiology and behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both parasympathetic nervous system regulation and receipt of social support from close relationships contribute to prosocial development, although few studies have examined their combined influences in adolescence and particularly within racially and ethnically minoritized populations. In this longitudinal study of 229 U.S. Mexican-origin adolescents (48% female-identifying), youths reported on receipt of social support from family and friends from 10 to 16 years, had their baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) measured at 17 years, reported their prosocial behavior and completed the Mind in the Eyes test to assess cognitive empathy at 17 and 19 years, and reported their prosocial civic behavior (i.e., community activity) at 19 years. Family social support predicted prosocial behavior at 17 years, and friend social support predicted prosocial civic behavior at 19 years. Compared to youths with lower or higher baseline RSA, youths with moderate RSA reported more prosocial civic behavior, had greater cognitive empathy, and tended to report more general prosocial behavior at 19 years. The quadratic association between baseline RSA and cognitive empathy was stronger for youths with greater family social support. These findings are the first to extend the evidence that moderate baseline parasympathetic nervous system activity supports prosocial development into late adolescence and with the U.S. Mexican-origin community, and these findings address calls for more integrative biopsychosocial studies of prosociality. Public Significance Statement: This study shows that physiological regulation and social support from family and friends support prosocial development for U.S. Mexican-origin youths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research suggests that women's autonomic nervous system responses to infant cries capture processes that affect their parenting behaviors. The aim of this study was to build on prior work by testing whether pregnant women's autonomic responses to an unfamiliar infant crying also predict their infants' emerging regulation abilities. Participants included 97 women in their third trimester of pregnancy, located in the United States. Most participants identified as White/non-Hispanic (48%) or Hispanic (30%), their mean age was approximately 30 years, and the modal family income was $40,000–$79,999. Pregnant women's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and skin conductance levels (SCL)—which are thought to capture emotional engagement and behavioral inhibition, respectively—were measured while the women watched a relaxing video and a video of an unfamiliar infant crying. Approximately 7 months later, women and their infants completed the still-face paradigm (SFP). Infants' avoidance and resistance behaviors during the SFP reunions were rated. Pregnant women's RSA and SCL responses to the infant cry video uniquely predicted infants' avoidance (but not resistance) during the SFP. Infants displayed higher levels of avoidance when their mothers exhibited lower levels of RSA reactivity or when their mothers exhibited higher levels of SCL activity in response to the infant cry video. Maternal sensitivity during mother–infant free-play interactions did not mediate the associations between pregnant women's autonomic responses to the cry video and infants' avoidant behavior during the SFP. Discussion focuses on potential mechanisms underlying associations between pregnant women's autonomic responses to infant distress and infants' socioemotional development. Public Significance Statement: Autonomic markers of pregnant women's emotional responses to an unfamiliar infant crying collected before the birth of their child could predict their young infants' later socioemotional behaviors. Because infant development provides a foundation for later social and emotional development, these findings suggest that interventions targeting pregnant women's emotional responses to infants' distress cues may lead to improvements in children's socioemotional outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vagal tone is widely believed to be an important physiological aspect of emotion regulation and associated positive behaviors. However, there is inconsistent evidence for relations between children's baseline vagal tone and their helpful or prosocial responses to others (Hastings & Miller, 2014). Recent work in adults suggests a quadratic association (inverted U-shape curve) between baseline vagal tone and prosociality (Kogan et al., 2014). The present research examined whether this nonlinear association was evident in children. The authors found consistent evidence for a quadratic relation between vagal tone and prosociality across 3 samples of children using 6 different measures. Compared to low and high vagal tone, moderate vagal tone in early childhood concurrently predicted greater self-reported prosociality (Study 1), observed empathic concern in response to the distress of others and greater generosity toward less fortunate peers (Study 2), and longitudinally predicted greater self-, mother-, and teacher-reported prosociality 5.5 years later in middle childhood (Study 3). Taken together, the findings suggest that moderate vagal tone at rest represents a physiological preparedness or tendency to engage in different forms of prosociality across different contexts. Early moderate vagal tone may reflect an optimal balance of regulation and arousal that helps prepare children to sympathize, comfort, and share with others. (PsycINFO Database Record

Our primary objective was to examine the extent to which moment-to-moment associations between preschool-aged children's behavior and maternal emotional support differed for mothers showing different levels of parasympathetic engagement. We used behavioral observations of maternal and child behavior and maternal changes in cardiac vagal tone assessed via respiratory sinus arrhythmia in 15-s intervals during a 5-min challenging puzzle task (N = 121 dyads; 65 girls. Mage = 4.42 years). Results from multilevel models showed that increases in children's defeat (e.g., frustration, task withdrawal) coupled with maternal vagal augmentation (an index of social engagement) in a given 15-s interval predicted increases in maternal support in the next interval, whereas increases in children's defeat coupled with maternal vagal withdrawal (an index of physiological arousal) in a given 15-s interval did not prediet increases in maternal support. Findings suggest that vagal augmentation in mothers may operate together with fluctuations in children's negative behaviors to predict supportive parenting in real time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parasympathetic nervous system functioning as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is widely used as a measure of physiological regulation. We examined developmental patterns of children's resting RSA and RSA reactivity from 2 to 15 years of age, a period of time that is marked by considerable advances in children's regulatory abilities. Physiological data were collected from a community sample of 270 children (116 males) during a resting period and during a frustration laboratory task when the children were 2, 4, 5, 7, 10, and 15 years old. We examined both stability and continuity in resting RSA and RSA reactivity across time. We found stability in resting RSA but not RSA reactivity from toddlerhood to adolescence. Separate multilevel models were used to examine changes in resting RSA and RSA reactivity from Age 2 to Age 15. The rate of change in resting RSA slowed from Age 2 to Age 15 with a plateau around Age 10. A splined growth model indicated that the rate of RSA reactivity increased from Age 2 to Age 7 and a modest slowing and leveling off from Age 7 to Age 15. Understanding the developmental characteristics of RSA across childhood and adolescence is important to understanding the larger constructs of self- and emotion regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Otitis media (OM)--or middle-ear inflammation--is the most widely diagnosed childhood illness, with evidence implicating OM in a range of distal problems (e.g., language delays, attention problems). Polyvagal theory (Porges, 1995, 2007) posits that there also are likely important connections between middle-ear functioning and children's developing parasympathetic nervous systems (PNS). Using prospective longitudinal data from the Family Life Project (n = 748), we tested within- and between-person relations between indicators of OM (middle-ear spectral gradient angle; SGA) and children's trajectories of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA)--a marker of parasympathetic control of the heart--between the ages of 7 and 35 months. The results suggested that, irrespective of age, children with indications of chronic OM (low cumulative SGA) tended to show atypical RSA reactivity to moderate cognitive challenge, compared with the reactivity patterns of their low-OM-risk peers (mid-to-high cumulative SGA). Specifically, on average, low-OM-risk children showed RSA decreases in the context of challenge in infancy, with the magnitude of the decline weakening and eventually changing direction (i.e., RSA increase) by 35 months. In contrast, those with indicators of chronic OM evinced blunted RSA responses to challenge, irrespective of age. Within-person, temporal bouts of OM-risk were not predictive of within-person changes in RSA reactivity across early childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assessed trajectories of children's internalizing symptoms, indexed through anxiety and depression, with a focus on the role of interactions between interparental marital conflict, children's sympathetic nervous system activity indexed by skin conductance level (SCL), and parasympathetic nervous system activity indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) as predictors of growth. Children participated in 3 waves of data collection with a 1-year lag between each wave. At T1, 128 girls and 123 boys participated (M age = 8.23 years; SD = 0.73). The most important findings reveal that girls with either low RSA in conjunction with low SCL (i.e., coinhibition) at baseline or with increasing RSA and decreasing SCL in response to a challenging task (i.e., reciprocal parasympathetic activation) are susceptible to high or escalating anxiety and depression symptoms, particularly in the context of marital conflict. Findings support the importance of concurrent examinations of environmental risk factors and physiological activity for better prediction of the development of anxiety and depression symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adaptive calibration model (ACM) is an evolutionary-developmental theory of individual differences in stress responsivity. In this article, we tested some key predictions of the ACM in a middle childhood sample {N = 256). Measures of autonomie nervous system activity across the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches validated the 4-pattern taxonomy of the ACM via finite mixture modeling. Moreover, the 4 patterns of responsivity showed the predicted associations with family stress levels but no association with measures of ecological stress. Our hypotheses concerning sex differences in responsivity were only partly confirmed. This preliminary study provides initial support for the key predictions of the ACM and highlights some of the methodological challenges that will need to be considered in future research on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A burgeoning literature supports the role of autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning as an index of physiologic sensitivity to the environment, but extant research is limited in its focus on single branches of the ANS, childhood samples, and solely negative environmental factors. This study seeks to address these limitations by exploring whether reactivity in the parasympathetic (PNS) and sympathetic (SNS) nervous systems jointly moderate the prospective contributions of both positive (maternal involvement) and negative (maternal psychological control) aspects of the family environment to developmentally relevant outcomes in adolescence (depressive symptoms and emotion regulation). At Wave 1, adolescents (n = 352, 52% female, M age = 15.27, SD = 1.04; 65% White) and their parents completed a problem-solving discussion task, during which adolescent ANS activation was continuously monitored, and reports of maternal involvement, maternal psychological control, adolescent depressive symptoms, and adolescent emotion regulation were obtained. Adolescent depressive symptoms and emotion regulation were assessed again 1 year later (Wave 2). Results indicated that PNS and SNS reactivity jointly moderated the prospective contributions of maternal involvement and maternal psychological control to depressive symptoms and emotion regulation. Specifically, adolescents who exhibited reciprocal SNS activation appeared to be most sensitive to both positive and negative parenting environments. Adolescents exhibiting coinhibition or coactivation profiles of autonomic reactivity were comparatively unreactive to parenting. This study corroborates the notion that consideration of multiple physiological systems is critical to our understanding of biological processes in the development of emotional functioning in adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

Neurobiological processes are highlighted in animal and theoretical models of the development of depression, but there is mixed empirical evidence about associations between stress physiology and depressive symptoms. Adolescence has been highlighted as a period during which coordination across physiological stress response systems may be particularly important. However, most studies have focused on depressive symptoms and physiological reactivity in isolated systems. The goal of this study was to examine associations of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and autonomic nervous system (ANS; i.e., sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system [SNS and PNS, respectively]) reactivity with depressive systems, as well as the interrelatedness of reactivity across systems. Participants were adolescents (n = 153, 10-17 years) from diverse backgrounds, recruited from the community. Adolescents experienced a stressor, during which cortisol (HPA axis), skin conductance level (SCL; SNS), and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; PNS) were measured; youth also reported depressive symptoms. Some youth (n = 60) reported depressive symptoms again 1 year later as part of another study. Results from latent growth analysis embedded in a structural equation model (SEM) indicated that concurrent depressive symptoms were predicted by an interaction between cortisol reactivity and baseline RSA levels, with fewer symptoms for adolescents who had lower baseline RSA and greater cortisol reactivity. Controlling for concurrent depressive symptoms, prolonged cortisol recovery (above and beyond cortisol or ANS reactivity), was related to prospective depressive symptoms. Results support and extend theoretical arguments about the role of dysregulated stress physiology in the development of depressive symptoms, and the importance of multisystem approaches to understanding the role of stress physiology in risk and resilience. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

Although negative interparental conflict predicts elevated externalizing problems for children, there are individual differences in this association. Theoretically, children's abilities to coordinate physiological stress across response systems moderate the effects of interparental conflict on developmental outcomes. Past cross-sectional research has demonstrated that poor coordination of sympathetic (SNS) and parasympathetic (PNS) nervous systems puts children at a greater risk for externalizing behaviors in the context of interparental conflict. Our goal was to examine whether this same pattern is evident in adolescents and provide the first longitudinal test of this theoretical pathway. Participants were families with adolescents (10-17 years) from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Parents reported conflict, were observed during a conflict discussion, and reported adolescent externalizing behaviors; parents again reported externalizing behaviors 1 year later. Adolescents experienced a stressor while skin conductance level (SCL; SNS) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; PNS) were measured. Similar to past research with children, there were 3-way interactions between negative interparental conflict, SCL reactivity, and RSA reactivity in relation to adolescent externalizing behaviors, concurrently and prospectively. The overall pattern suggested that adolescents who displayed poorly coordinated responding displayed a positive association between interparental conflict and externalizing behaviors, whereas adolescents who showed well-coordinated responding displayed a nonsignificant or negative association. Coinhibition of the SNS and PNS may put adolescents particularly at risk for prospective externalizing behaviors. Autonomic nervous system coordination-particularly activation of the SNS and inhibition of the PNS during stress-may protect adolescents from experiencing adjustment problems in the context of interparental conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

Certain psychopathologies are often linked to dysregulation of specific emotions (e.g., anxiety is associated with dysregulation of fear), but few studies have examined how regulatory repertoires for specific emotions (e.g., the strategies a person uses to regulate fear) relate to psychopathology, and fewer still have examined this in childhood. A total of 106 7- to 11-year-olds (M = 9.37 years; SD = 1.30; 44% girls) participated in a multimethod investigation of emotion regulation and psychopathology. Parents reported on family characteristics and children's symptoms. Resting parasympathetic function (respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA) was measured to assess physiological regulation. Children were interviewed about past experiences that made them feel anger, fear, and sadness, and reported what they had done to make themselves feel better in each emotion context. The strategies children described were summed to create an emotion regulation strategy repertoire measure for each emotion. Children's resting RSA interacted with age to predict externalizing symptoms, such that low resting RSA was associated with more externalizing symptoms for younger children only. In contrast, the link between RSA and anxiety was qualified by both strategy repertoire for fear and age, such that higher resting RSA was most strongly associated with fewer anxiety symptoms for older children with larger strategy repertoires for fear. Contrary to our expectations, neither resting RSA nor strategy repertoire for sadness related to children's depressive symptoms. Findings underscore the importance of considering children's discrete emotion regulation strategy repertoires to more fully characterize the dysregulated affective processes associated with psychopathology in childhood. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

The present study examined sympathetic and parasympathetic indices of autonomic nervous system reactivity as moderators of the prospective association between parental management of peers via directing of youths' friendships and peer adjustment in a sample of typically developing adolescents. Participants included 246 adolescents at Time 1 (T1) [47% boys; 66% European American (EA), 34% African American (AA)] and 226 adolescents at Time 2 (T2; 45% boys; 67% EA, 33% AA). Adolescents were approximately 16 and 17 years old at T1 and T2, respectively. To address study aims, a multiinformant, multimethod longitudinal design was utilized. Skin conductance level (SCL) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were measured during a baseline period and challenge task (star-tracing). Reactivity was computed as a difference score between the task and baseline period. Results from path models revealed that higher levels of mother-reported parental directing predicted decreases in adolescent-reported peer rejection and friends' deviant behavior from T1 to T2 at relatively low levels of physiological arousal in response to challenge (i.e., low SCL reactivity, RSA augmentation). Further, exploratory analyses indicated that directing was associated with decreases in friends' deviant behavior and peer rejection particularly among boys who exhibited lower levels of physiological arousal, but increases in friends' deviant behavior among boys who exhibited higher levels of arousal reflected in RSA withdrawal only. Overall, findings are consistent with prior studies revealing the benefits of parental behavioral control for underaroused youth, contributing to the growing literature on the interplay of parenting and physiological factors in the adolescent peer domain. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).)