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CC BY V4.0, Open Access
Thesis
Parenting stress and frontal EEG asymmetry: The mediating role of parent-child interactions
Washington State University
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
2022
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000005147
Abstract
How a caregiver copes with stress about their parenting is crucial, as it can impact interactions with their children and their children’s social-emotional development. Previous research has implicated parent-child exchanges in child brain activity such as frontal encephalography (EEG) asymmetry; however, limited research exists examining how parenting stress may affect this, especially in novel stimuli tasks like “Masks.” To address this gap in the literature, the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between parenting stress, parent-child interactions (PCIs), and frontal EEG asymmetry. Parenting stress was hypothesized to predict frontal EEG asymmetry, with three PCIs (responsiveness/sensitivity, reciprocity/synchrony, and emotional tone) as mediators Specifically, mothers with higher parenting stress were hypothesized to exhibit lower quality PCIs, contributing to their infants exhibiting greater relative right frontal activation associated with withdrawal/avoidance and negative affectivity. Six mediation models were examined (parenting stress total and five parenting stress subscales). In each model, higher stress scores were associated with a trending significant increase in reciprocity/synchrony; however, this relationship was driven by a covariate effect of infant sex so mothers of boys used more reciprocal play than mothers of girls. In most models, parenting stress scores did not predict frontal activation. However, role restriction predicted frontal EEG asymmetry at a trending level independent of its effects on PCIs (c’ = -0.28, p = .051), so greater role restriction stress was associated with a shift toward right frontal activation, linked to negative affectivity and withdrawal. This suggests that parenting stress facets are important for understanding infant neurophysiology.
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Details
- Title
- Parenting stress and frontal EEG asymmetry
- Creators
- Victoria Jones
- Contributors
- Maria A Gartstein (Advisor)Tammy D Barry (Committee Member)Sara F Waters (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Psychology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 46
- Identifiers
- 99901019236901842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis