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Dyadic Attunement and Physiological Synchrony During Mother-Child Interactions: An Exploratory Study in Children With and Without Externalizing Behavior Problems

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Abstract

We investigated whether synchrony at a physiological level (i.e., real-time correspondence of biological indices between two individuals) related to observed levels of dyadic attunement (i.e., levels of connectedness, joint attention, and reciprocity), and whether these measures could distinguish between mother-child dyads with and without clinical levels of externalizing behavioral problems. Eighty-three clinical and 35 nonclinical dyads (7–12 years-old) discussed a contentious topic preceded and followed by a positive topic while their heart rates were recorded. Changes in dyadic attunement from the last discussion relative to the first were taken as an index of how well dyads ‘repaired’ their relationship. Results showed that clinical dyads had lower levels of dyadic attunement across all discussions compared to nonclinical dyads. Evidence that physiological synchrony could distinguish clinical from nonclinical dyads, however, was merely suggestive. Physiological synchrony was sensitive to the emotional context of the discussions as more dyads demonstrated physiological synchrony in the last compared to the first discussion. Moreover, dyads who demonstrated physiological synchrony also showed higher levels of repair. The outcomes of this study suggest that physiological synchrony between mothers and their children is sensitive to emotional context during interactions, and particularly during periods of repair when dyads more actively reconnect with each other after a negative interaction.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Michael McAssey for his help with the physiological synchrony analysis. The measures of dyadic attunement were originally developed by Alice Vaughan and Arland O’Hara. We also acknowledge Arland O’Hara for managing the observational coding process. Furthermore, this paper would not have been possible without the unrelenting assistance of our young and hardworking students, such as Chantal Valiquette and Aryan Heidari, who helped with the data processing, referencing, as well as the figures (and never required any chocolate briberies…). Last, we want to thank the two eagle-eyed reviewers for their constructive and insightful comments. These data were collected as part of a grant funded by the National Institutes of Health (Application #R01 MH076946-01A1).

Conflict of Interest

Steven Woltering, Victoria Lishak, Brittney Elliott, Leonardo Ferraro and Isabela Granic declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Experiment Participants

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research ethics board committee at the University of Toronto and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Funding

This research was supported by funds from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Educational Psychology, Texas A&M University, 718B Harrington Office Building, 77843-4225, College Station, USA

    Steven Woltering

  2. Applied Psychology and Human Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    Steven Woltering, Victoria Lishak & Leonardo Ferraro

  3. Psychology, McMasters University, Hamilton, Canada

    Brittney Elliott

  4. Developmental Psychopathology Department, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Isabela Granic

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  1. Steven Woltering
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Correspondence to Steven Woltering.

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Woltering, S., Lishak, V., Elliott, B. et al. Dyadic Attunement and Physiological Synchrony During Mother-Child Interactions: An Exploratory Study in Children With and Without Externalizing Behavior Problems. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 37, 624–633 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-015-9480-3

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