Authoritarian parenting predicts reduced electrocortical response to observed adolescent offspring rewards

Corporal Punishment Is Uniquely Associated With a Greater Neural Response to Errors and Blunted Neural Response to Rewards in Adolescence

BACKGROUND

Although corporal punishment is a common form of punishment with known negative impacts on health and behavior, how such punishment affects neurocognitive systems is relatively unknown.

METHODS

To address this issue, we examined how corporal punishment affected neural measures of error and reward processing in 149 adolescent boys and girls of ages 11 to 14 years (mean age [SD] = 11.02 [1.16]). Corporal punishment experienced over the lifetime was assessed using the Stress and Adversity Inventory. In addition, participants completed a flankers task and a reward task to measure the error-related negativity and reward positivity, respectively, as well as measures of anxiety and depressive symptoms.

RESULTS

As hypothesized, participants who experienced lifetime corporal punishment reported more anxiety and depressive symptoms. Experiencing corporal punishment was also related to a larger error-related negativity and blunted reward positivity. Importantly, corporal punishment was independently related to a larger error-related negativity and a more blunted reward positivity beyond the impact of harsh parenting and lifetime stressors.

CONCLUSIONS

Corporal punishment appears to potentiate neural response to errors and decrease neural response to rewards, which could increase risk for anxiety and depressive symptoms.

A biomarker of maternal vicarious reward processing and its association with parenting behavior

Parenting styles play a critical role in child well-being, yet the neural bases of parenting behaviors remain nebulous. Understanding the neural processes associated with parenting styles can both clarify etiological mechanisms underlying parenting behaviors and point us toward new targets for intervention. A novel electrocortical biomarker called the observational reward positivity (oRewP) that occurs in response to observing another receive a reward has been linked to self-reported authoritarian parenting behavior. The current study sought to replicate associations between the oRewP and self-reported and observationally-coded parenting in a sample of mothers selected to be at elevated risk for problematic parenting. Self-reported authoritarian parenting was associated with observationally-coded problematic discipline, while no other self-reported parenting scales were associated with observationally-coded scores. We replicated the previously reported association between a blunted oRewP and increased self-reported authoritarian parenting. We additionally found that an attenuated oRewP was associated with greater permissive parenting, and that only the relationship with permissive parenting was conserved after adjusting for other parenting styles and other relevant covariates. We did not find significant associations between the oRewP and observationally-coded parenting. The current findings suggest that the neural process indexed by the oRewP are relevant to parenting behavior. Further research is needed to better understand the discrepancy between self-reported and observed parenting.

Cultural Values Influence Relations Between Parent Emotion Socialization and Adolescents' Neural Responses to Peer Rejection

Adolescents' responses to negative social experiences can be influenced by parenting behaviors. This includes how parents react to their child's expression of emotions, an aspect of parenting referred to as emotion socialization. Emotion socialization may intersect with cultural values, particularly collectivism, a socially-relevant attitude that emphasizes the importance of interpersonal relationships. Examination of a neural measure called the feedback-related negativity (FRN), thought to reflect the degree to which feedback is experienced as aversive, could help elucidate neural contributions to and consequences of the role of collectivism in such family dynamics. Thus, this study examined whether adolescents' endorsement of collectivism moderated the association of parents' dismissive emotion socialization responses (called override responses) and FRN following peer rejection. A community sample of 83 Latinx (n = 32), Asian American (n = 20), and non-Latinx White (n = 31) adolescents ages 13-17 completed a computerized peer feedback task while continuous electroencephalogram was recorded. Their parents completed a battery of self-report questionnaires. Regression analyses demonstrated that adolescents' endorsement of collectivism moderated the association of override responses and FRN following peer rejection, such that FRN was enhanced as override responses increased for adolescents endorsing low and moderate levels of collectivism. Results suggest that there is cultural variation in the association of the emotion socialization strategy of override and adolescents' neural responses to socially-salient events. Findings have implications for parenting interventions designed to enhance adolescents' emotion regulation abilities.

Overprotective/authoritarian maternal parenting is associated with an enhanced error-related negativity (ERN) in emerging adult females

Error monitoring is crucial for survival and adaptation, and can be indexed by the error-related negativity (ERN), a fronto-centrally located negative deflection in the event-related potential (ERP) waveform that differentiates erroneous from correct responses within 100 ms of a response. The ERN is seen as an early neural signal indicating the need to adjust performance and increase executive control. Previous findings indicate that punishing errors increases ERN magnitude, and that punitive parenting predicts an enhanced ERN in children. If punitive parenting can in fact sensitize children to error commission over the long term, an enhanced ERN should be seen in adults who experienced harsh parenting as children. The present study thus sought to establish whether punitive parenting is associated with an enhanced ERN in emerging adulthood. A sample of 70 emerging adult females reported on their mothers' and fathers' parenting styles separately and performed a flanker task to elicit the ERN. Higher reported overprotective/authoritarian maternal behavior was associated with an enhanced ERN. These results provide further support for the hypothesis that punitive parenting may lead to long-term sensitization of neural networks involved in performance monitoring.