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Children’s Affect Expression and Frontal EEG Asymmetry: Transactional Associations with Mothers’ Depressive Symptoms

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Abstract

Although parents and children are thought to influence one another’s affect and behavior, few studies have examined the direction of effects from children to parents, particularly with respect to parental psychopathology. We tested the hypothesis that children’s affective characteristics are associated with the course of mothers’ depressive symptoms. Children’s affect expression was observed during a series of mother–child interaction tasks, and children’s resting frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry was assessed in a psychophysiology laboratory. Mothers’ depressive symptoms were assessed at two time points, approximately one year apart, at the mother–child interaction visits. Depressive symptoms increased over time for mothers with a history of childhood-onset depression whose children exhibited right frontal EEG asymmetry. Depressive symptoms were associated with high child negative affect at both time points for mothers whose children exhibited right frontal EEG asymmetry. Cross-lagged models with a subset of participants provided some evidence of both parent-to-child and child-to-parent directions of effects. Findings suggest that akin to other interpersonal stressors, children’s affective characteristics may contribute to maternal depressive symptoms.

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Notes

  1. We have previously used the term affect regulation for this factor because we conceptualize it as a proxy, in some ways, for appropriate affect regulation in a social context. Upon reconsideration of the construct captured by this combination of behaviors in this behavioral paradigm, we have decided that affect expression is a more appropriate term.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by NIMH grants (P01 MH56193, K01 MH74769) and a NARSAD Young Investigator Award. We thank Emily Skuban, Rachel Chung, and Tonya Lane for assistance with coding, processing, and managing data. We are also grateful to the families who participated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. WPIC–Loeffler 319, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, 3811 O’Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA

    Erika E. Forbes

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Sennott Square, 210 South Bouquet Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA

    Daniel S. Shaw & Jeffrey F. Cohn

  3. University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Nathan A. Fox

  4. Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, 3811 O’Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA

    Jennifer S. Silk, Xin Feng & Maria Kovacs

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  1. Erika E. Forbes
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  2. Daniel S. Shaw
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  3. Jennifer S. Silk
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  4. Xin Feng
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  5. Jeffrey F. Cohn
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  6. Nathan A. Fox
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  7. Maria Kovacs
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Correspondence to Erika E. Forbes.

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Forbes, E.E., Shaw, D.S., Silk, J.S. et al. Children’s Affect Expression and Frontal EEG Asymmetry: Transactional Associations with Mothers’ Depressive Symptoms. J Abnorm Child Psychol 36, 207–221 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-007-9171-y

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