Marital conflict and growth in children's internalizing symptoms: the role of autonomic nervous system activity

Abstract

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.

Figure 1

Unconditional fitted models for depression and anxiety symptoms; both significantly decrease over time (p < .001). TSCC = Trauma Symptoms Checklist for Children (Briere, 1996).

Figure 2

Change in depressive symptoms over time for prototypical boys and girls in the population at high and low values (M ± 1 SD) of RSA-Baseline, SCL-Baseline, and marital conflict. The four-way interaction (RSA- Baseline × SCL-Baseline × Marital Conflict × Sex) predicts the slope (p < .08). RSA = respiratory sinus arrhythmia; SCL = skin conductance level; TSCC = Trauma Symptoms Checklist for Children (Briere, 1996).

Figure 3

Depressive symptoms over time for prototypical boys and girls in the population at high and low values (M ± 1 SD) of RSA-Reactivity, SCL-Reactivity, and marital conflict. The four-way interaction (RSA-Reactivity × SCL-Reactivity × Marital Conflict × Sex) predicts the intercept (p < .05). RSA = respiratory sinus arrhythmia; SCL = skin conductance level; TSCC = Trauma Symptoms Checklist for Children (Briere, 1996).

Figure 4

Anxiety symptoms over time for prototypical boys and girls in the population at high and low values (M ± 1 SD) of RSA-Baseline, SCL-Baseline, and marital conflict. The four-way interaction (RSA-Baseline × SCL-Baseline × Marital Conflict × Sex) predicts the slope (p < .05). RSA = respiratory sinus arrhythmia; SCL = skin conductance level; TSCC = Trauma Symptoms Checklist for Children (Briere, 1996).

Figure 5

Anxiety symptoms over time for prototypical boys and girls in the population at high and low values (M ± 1 SD) of RSA-Reactivity, SCL-Reactivity, and marital conflict. The four-way interaction (RSA-Reactivity × SCL- Reactivity × Marital Conflict × Sex) predicts the slope (p < .07). RSA = respiratory sinus arrhythmia; SCL = skin conductance level; TSCC = Trauma Symptoms Checklist for Children (Briere, 1996).