Child Effortful Control Moderates the Link Between Parenting Stress and Child Parasympathetic Regulation: Interactions Across Contexts and Measures

Abstract

Parenting stress-psychosocial challenges from the parental role-is strongly tied to children's self-regulatory abilities. Although cognitive and physiological facets of self-regulation are integrated, research on parenting stress and children's parasympathetic activity is virtually absent. Additionally, few studies have examined changes in children's parasympathetic regulation across settings with and without a parent present. This study examined whether parenting stress is differentially associated with children's parasympathetic activity, indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), as a function of their effortful control (EC). We tested whether interactions varied across EC measures (parent-reported vs. task-assessed) and the context of children's physiology assessment (child vs. parent-child). Parents (N = 67, M = 38.01 years) and children (N = 70, M = 51.41 months) provided data during a 2-h lab visit. Results showed that parent-reported EC moderated the association only in the parent-child context, whereas the task-assessed EC moderation effect was present in both contexts. However, the effect of parenting stress on child RSA at levels of task-assessed EC differed across contexts. Parallels in patterns of findings are discussed with reference to ecological affinity and whether a similar adaptive process emerges when both cognitive and physiological self-regulation are assessed under comparable contextual demands.

Keywords: adaptation; context‐specificity; effortful control; parasympathetic regulation; parenting stress; respiratory sinus arrhythmia; self‐regulation.

FIGURE 1

Summary of four path models testing combinations of parenting stress and child effortful control (EC) interactions and their associations with children's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during parent–child interaction (PCI) tasks and tasks completed independently (Solo). All estimates are depicted with standardized coefficients. Model 3 depicts a re‐specified model with freely estimated parameters to address poor fit. Covariation is depicted with curved double‐headed arrows. Solid single‐headed arrows indicate statistical significance. Dashed single‐headed arrows indicate nonsignificance. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

FIGURE 2

Plotted interactions (a) and regions of significance (b) for the association between parenting stress and children's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during dyadic parent–child tasks at levels of children's parent‐reported effortful control (EC) in Model 1 and levels of task‐assessed EC in Model 2. The Johnson–Neyman regions of significance are plotted for each respective model. The slope of parenting stress reached significance (p < 0.05) when parent‐reported EC was outside the interval [−1.00 SD, +1.10 SD] in Model 1 and when task‐assessed EC was <0.22 SD below the mean in Model 2. Parenting stress and both EC measures have been standardized for interpretability. n.s. = nonsignificant.

FIGURE 3

Plotted interactions (a) and regions of significance (b) for the association between parenting stress and children's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during independently completed tasks at levels of task‐assessed EC in Model 4. The plotted Johnson–Neyman regions of significance show that the slope of parenting stress was significant when task‐assessed EC was outside the interval [−0.52 SD, +1.37 SD]. Parenting stress and EC have been standardized for interpretability. n.s. = nonsignificant.