Psychophysiological Assessment of Emotional Reactivity during Parent-Child Conflict As a Predictor of Reactive Aggression in Daily Life: Parental Response to Emotion As a Potential Mediator

Introduction: Reactive aggression (RA) is defined as an extreme, maladaptive response to stress (i.e., withdrawal of an expected reward or perceived provocation) and it represents a transdiagnostic indicator that permeates nearly all psychological disorders in youth. Individual variability in emotional reactivity as indexed by psychophysiology (i.e., sympathetic, parasympathetic function) is believed to underlie risk for RA and this neurobiological vulnerability is thought to be influenced by parental response to emotion. Prior research shows conflicting results regarding the directionality of associations between emotional reactivity and RA that likely reflects a failure to distinguish RA from other forms of aggression, a focus on samples with wide age ranges, and variability in the measurement of emotional reactivity. The current study sought to examine two physiological indies of emotional reactivity in response to parent-child conflict as a predictor of RA during the critical transition to adolescence. Moreover, this study examined the influence of parental response to emotion on this association, expanding on previous work that has focused primarily on this facet of parenting during childhood.

Method: Participants were 105 youth (age range=11-13; 50% female) in psychiatric treatment for any mood or behavior problem. Indices of parasympathetic (respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA) and sympathetic (pre-ejection period; PEP) function were assessed during 1) a resting baseline and 2) conflict discussion task with their parent. Parental response to their child’s emotion was behaviorally coded during the conflict discussion task and assessed via adolescent- and parent-report measures (e.g., Emotion Socialization Measure). RA, as well as other indices of behavioral dysregulation, were assessed during a 4-day Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) protocol that included 10 time-based prompts over the course of a long weekend.

Results: Results demonstrated that youth with greater sympathetic (↓PEP) relative to parasympathetic (↓RSA) activation in response to parent-child conflict were significantly more likely to engage in RA in daily life. Moreover, parental response to their adolescent’s emotion, specifically anger, was also significantly associated with RA in daily life (OR=1.74; CI=1.13-2.65) and inclusion of this construct in logistic regressions reduced the association between emotional reactivity and RA to non-significance (OR= .95; CI= .81-1.11).

Conclusions: Findings link increased emotional reactivity to conflict, as indexed by sympathetic and parasympathetic function, to heightened risk for on RA in daily life. Results also suggest that this association may be accounted for by parental response to their child’s emotion, specifically anger, pointing to potential targets for intervention. Interventions may seek to target child-focused emotion regulation strategies while also enhancing parental emotion-coaching skills among youth with heightened emotional reactivity during the critical transition to adolescence.