2020/04/23 by Sara F. Waters, Helena Rose Karnilowicz, Tessa V. West +1 · 1 citation
Medicine · Psychology · #Attachment and Relationship Dynamics #Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development #Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
paper · doi:10.1037/fam0000664
openalex publication_date 2020/04/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
= 107; 47% fathers) completed a laboratory visit where we initially separated the parents and children and subjected the parent to a standardized laboratory stressor that reliably activates the body's primary stress systems. Before reuniting with their children, parents were randomly assigned to either suppress their affective state-hide their emotions from their child-or to act naturally (control condition). Once reunited, parents and children completed a conflict conversation and two interaction tasks together. We measured their sympathetic nervous system (SNS) responses and observed interaction behavior. We obtained three key findings: (a) suppressing mothers' SNS responses influenced their child's SNS responses; (b) suppressing fathers' SNS responses were influenced by their child's SNS responses; and (c) dyads with suppressing parents appeared less warm and less engaged during interaction than control dyads. These findings reveal that parents' emotion regulation efforts impact parent-child stress transmission and compromise interaction quality. Discussion focuses on short-term and long-term consequences of parental emotion regulation and children's social-emotional development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).