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Physiological Reactivity During Parent-Adolescent Discussions: Associations with Scaffolding Behaviors and Relationship Quality

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Annals of Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Background

Parents and adolescents commonly discuss stressful experiences. However, little is known about the features of these conversations that may have implications for health.

Methods

One hundred five adolescents and their parents engaged in conversations about two challenging events, with parental contributions to the discussions coded for four scaffolding behaviors (reiterations, negations, move alongs, and new interpretations). Systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and heart rate were measured in both participants at baseline and throughout the conversation. Parent-reported relationship quality was also assessed.

Results

For both parents and adolescents, negative scaffolding behaviors were associated with increased physiological reactivity, whereas positive scaffolding behaviors were associated with decreased reactivity. Furthermore, children in higher quality parent-child relationships showed greater reactivity to reiterations and lower reactivity to new interpretations, but those in lower quality relationships demonstrated the opposite patterns.

Conclusions

Specific aspects of parent-child interactions appear to contribute to physiological responses to challenging events, which in turn may have implications for health.

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Notes

  1. One reason why parents may not have shown significant increases in cardiovascular reactivity is that the discussion task is not a traditional conflict task as used in many reactivity tasks with family members (e.g., [63]), but rather a discussion of challenging life events. Significant decreases in reactivity, however, are consistent with work suggesting that providing social support is associated with lower ambulatory blood pressure [26].

  2. Due to the low base rate frequency of three of the scaffolding behaviors in each memory, secondary analyses were also conducted examining the associations between the simple presence/absence of those behaviors with physiological reactivity during the discussion task, using univariate ANCOVAs. The reactivity patterns relating to reiterations and move alongs remained significant; however, use of new interpretations during the shared memory and use of negations during the child memory were no longer significantly associated with parent reactivity when examining presence/absence. All interactions with relationship quality remained significant.

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Authors’ Statement of Conflict of Interest and Adherence to Ethical Standards

The procedures followed in the present study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the American Psychological Association and Northwestern University, as well as with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, including (but not limited to) oversight by the Institutional Review Board. All participants provided written informed consent prior to inclusion in the study. Ms. Manczak, Dr. McLean, Dr. McAdams, and Dr. Chen declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Swift Hall Suite 102, 2029 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL, 60208-0001, USA

    Erika M. Manczak M.S, Dan P. McAdams Ph.D & Edith Chen Ph.D

  2. Department of Psychology, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA, USA

    Kate C. McLean Ph.D

Authors
  1. Erika M. Manczak M.S
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  2. Kate C. McLean Ph.D
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  3. Dan P. McAdams Ph.D
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  4. Edith Chen Ph.D
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Erika M. Manczak M.S.

Additional information

Support for this project was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, grant funding reference number 97872. We wish to thank the individuals who participated in this research, as well as Sarah Morrison-Cohen for her help with coding.

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Manczak, E.M., McLean, K.C., McAdams, D.P. et al. Physiological Reactivity During Parent-Adolescent Discussions: Associations with Scaffolding Behaviors and Relationship Quality. ann. behav. med. 49, 522–531 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-014-9680-1

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