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Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
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Emotional reactivity and parenting sensitivity interact to predict cortisol output in toddlers

Clancy Blair1, Alexandra Ursache1, Roger Mills-Koonce2

  • 1Department of Applied Psychology, New York University.

Developmental Psychology
|July 21, 2015
PubMed

Insights

Child emotional reactivity and sensitive parenting interact to influence cortisol levels. High reactivity combined with sensitive parenting predicts higher cortisol, while low reactivity predicts lower cortisol in toddlers.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Child Psychology
  • Stress Physiology

Background:

  • Early childhood stress responses are crucial for development.
  • Parenting sensitivity is a key factor in child emotional regulation.
  • Understanding cortisol's role in early life stress is vital.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To examine the relationship between emotional reactivity, sensitive parenting, and cortisol output in 24-month-old children.
  • To investigate how parenting sensitivity moderates the association between emotional reactivity and stress hormone levels.
  • To explore these dynamics in a sample of children from low-income, nonurban communities.

Main Methods:

  • Prospective longitudinal study of 1,292 children and families.
  • Emotion induction procedures (mask presentation, toy removal) to assess emotional reactivity.
  • Multilevel analysis to examine interactions between parenting and reactivity on child cortisol levels.

Main Results:

  • Emotional reactivity to mask presentation, not toy removal, interacted with sensitive parenting.
  • High sensitive parenting buffered the effect of emotional reactivity on cortisol.
  • In high sensitive parenting, high reactivity predicted high cortisol, low reactivity predicted low cortisol.
  • Low sensitive parenting showed no relationship between reactivity and cortisol.

Conclusions:

  • Sensitive parenting plays a critical role in modulating children's physiological stress responses.
  • The interaction highlights the importance of supportive caregiving in managing early life emotional challenges.
  • Findings underscore the vulnerability of children in high-poverty settings and the protective potential of sensitive parenting.

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