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http://hdl.handle.net/11375/23320
Title: | Maternal History of Childhood Adversity and Emotion Regulation: Associations with Cortisol Reactivity, Attention Bias, and Offspring Behaviour Problems |
Authors: | England-Mason, Gillian |
Advisor: | Gonzalez, Andrea |
Department: | Neuroscience |
Publication Date: | 2018 |
Abstract: | Using cross-sectional data from two larger longitudinal research projects, this dissertation seeks to examine the enduring influence of childhood experiences on maternal emotion regulation capacity, and the implications of this association for maternal responsivity profiles and offspring behaviour. The first cross-sectional design included 140 mothers who were recruited as part of a larger longitudinal study examining the associations between postpartum mood and biological factors. During a home-visit at 6-months postpartum, mothers completed questionnaires which assessed their self-report of childhood trauma, postpartum depressive symptomology, emotion regulation, and sociodemographic variables. Additionally, women completed a challenging Emotional Stroop task, and provided three (baseline, 20-minutes post challenge, and 40-minutes post challenge) salivary samples which were anchored around this task. The salivary samples were later assayed for cortisol and the Emotional Stroop paradigm was scored for attention bias. Structural equation models were constructed to examine if a latent variable of maternal emotion regulation capacity served as a moderating variable in the associations between maternal history of childhood trauma and i) cortisol reactivity, and ii) attention bias. The results revealed that maternal difficulties with emotion regulation significantly moderated the aforementioned associations, such that mothers reporting greater exposure to childhood trauma and more difficulties with emotion regulation displayed i) decreased cortisol reactivity, and ii) attentional avoidance of negative and attachment-related emotional stimuli. The second cross-sectional design included 105 mothers who were recruited as part of a longitudinal study examining the associations between maternal executive processes and parenting. During a home-visit at 38-months postpartum, mothers completed questionnaires which assessed their self-report of childhood adversity, depressive symptomology, emotion regulation, and child behaviour problems. Latent variable mediated structural equation models were constructed to examine if maternal emotion regulation capacity served as a mediating variable in the association between maternal history of childhood adversity and offspring i) internalizing behaviour problems, and ii) externalizing behaviour problems. The results indicated that the latent variable of maternal difficulties with emotion regulation fully mediated the associations between maternal exposure to childhood adversity and offspring behaviour problems. Specifically, mothers reporting greater exposure to childhood adversity and more difficulties with emotion regulation had young children with greater i) internalizing behaviour problems, and ii) externalizing behaviour problems. These collective results indicate that difficulties with emotion regulation are likely to manifest in mothers as a long-term sequelae of greater exposure to childhood adversity, and demonstrate the need for research evaluating the effectiveness of interventions targeting emotion regulation for families exposed to early adversity. |
URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/11375/23320 |
Appears in Collections: | Open Access Dissertations and Theses |
Files in This Item:
File | Description | Size | Format | |
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England-Mason_Gillian_E_August2018_PhD.pdf | 1.15 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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