Parents' Past Bonding Experience with Their Parents Interacts with Current Parenting Stress to Influence the Quality of Interaction with Their Child

Parent-child dyads with greater parenting stress exhibit less synchrony in posterior areas and more synchrony in frontal areas of the prefrontal cortex during shared play

Parent-child dyads who are mutually attuned to each other during social interactions display interpersonal synchrony that can be observed behaviorally and through the temporal coordination of brain signals called interbrain synchrony. Parenting stress undermines the quality of parent-child interactions. However, no study has examined synchrony in relation to parenting stress during everyday shared play. The present fNIRS study examined the association between parenting stress and interbrain synchrony in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of 31 mother-child and 29 father-child dyads while they engaged in shared play for 10 min. Shared play was micro-analytically coded into joint and non-joint segments. Interbrain synchrony was computed using cross-correlations over 15-, 20-, 25-, 30- and 35-s fixed-length windows. Findings showed that stressed dyads exhibited less synchrony in the posterior right cluster of the PFC during joint segments of play, and, contrary to expectations, stressed dyads also showed greater synchrony in the frontal left cluster. These findings suggest that dyads with more parenting stress experienced less similarities in brain areas involved in emotional processing and regulation, whilst simultaneously requiring greater neural entrainment in brain areas that support task management and social-behavioral organization in order to sustain prolonged periods of joint interactions.

The impact of parenting styles on undergraduate students' emotion regulation: The mediating role of academic-social student-faculty interaction

Based on the survey data of 4,462 undergraduate students in Zhejiang Province, mainland China, this study investigated the influence of parenting styles on emotion regulation and the mediating role of student-faculty interaction. The study found that: (1) Male students scored significantly higher than female students on emotion regulation, overprotective parenting style and student-faculty interaction. (2) Parenting style has a direct positive effect on emotion regulation, and warm parenting style has a much greater effect on emotion regulation than overprotective parenting style. (3) The mediating effect of student-faculty interaction in the relationship between parenting style and emotion regulation holds true, with the mediating effect of academic student-faculty interaction being much higher than that of social student-faculty interaction. (4) The influence of warm parenting style on emotion regulation relies more on the direct effect, while the influence of overprotective parenting style on emotion regulation relies more on the mediating effect of student-faculty interaction.

Asymmetric Prefrontal Cortex Activation Associated with Mutual Gaze of Mothers and Children during Shared Play

Mother–child shared play provides rich opportunities for mutual symmetrical interactions that serve to foster bond formation in dyads. Mutual gaze, a symmetrical behaviour that occurs during direct eye contact between two partners, conveys important cues of social engagement, affect and attention. However, it is not known whether the prefrontal cortical areas responsible for higher-order social cognition of mothers and children likewise exhibit neural symmetry; that is, similarity in direction of neural activation in mothers and children. This study used functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning on 22 pairs of mothers and their preschool-aged children as they engaged in a 10-min free-play session together. The play interaction was video recorded and instances of mutual gaze were coded for after the experiment. Multivariate linear regression analyses revealed that neural asymmetry occurred during mother–child mutual gaze, where mothers showed a deactivation of prefrontal activity whereas children showed an activation instead. Findings suggest that mothers and children may employ divergent prefrontal mechanisms when engaged in symmetrical behaviours such as mutual gaze. Future studies could ascertain whether the asymmetric nature of a parent–child relationship, or potential neurodevelopmental differences in social processing between adults and children, significantly contribute to this observation.

Parenting and Children's Behavior During the COVID 19 Pandemic: Mother's Perspective

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many parents have felt anxious, overwhelmed, and stressed out due to the changes in education and family and working routines. This work aimed to (a) describe three dimensions of perceived parenting (positive parenting, parenting stress, and parental school support) in the COVID-19 pandemic context, (b) describe possible changes perceived by mothers in their children's behavior during the social isolation phase, (c) analyze if behavioral changes vary according to the dimension of perceived parenting, and (d) analyze whether the characteristics of perceived parenting dimensions vary with mother's age, number of children and number of work hours. The purposive sample consisted of 646 mothers of school-aged children in Argentina. Questionnaires on sociodemographic and work-related data, and on children's behavior were administered, as well as an instrument (Vargas Rubilar et al., 2021) that assessed the three parenting dimensions (positive parenting, parenting stress, and parent-school support). The sociodemographic and work-related variables of the study were described using descriptive statistics: measures of central tendency, frequencies, and percentages. The changes perceived in children's behavior according to the reports given by the mothers regarding positive parenting, parenting stress, and school support were compared using the Mann Whitney's U test, respecting the qualitative nature of the evaluated indicators. A factorial MANOVA was conducted to analyze the effect of mother's age, ä number of children, and the number of work hours on parenting perceived by mothers. Parenting dimensions influenced the perceived children's behavior. Mothers with higher positive parenting perceived more changes in their children's behavior. In addition, those mothers who were more stressed out perceived more problems in almost all the measured behaviors than less stressed mothers. The mothers who reported to have provided more school support to their children perceived that they adapted better to online classes. Finally, mothers' age and the number of children I parenting, particularly on parenting stress and school support, whereas work hours did not. A number of children affected stress and school support, and age only affected parenting stress. The only significant interaction regarding parenting was observed between the number of children and the number of work hours, which specifically affected parenting stress. Although social isolation due to COVID-19 affected children's behavior, according to mothers, this might be partially linked to the number of children, mothers' age, and the mothers' parenting style. These initial findings may allow the identification of some protective factors and some risk factors of parenting in the Argentine context of a pandemic, and the design of preventive psychoeducational interventions to optimize the psychological wellbeing of families.

The impact of COVID-19 on experiences of pregnancy and/or early parenting in Chile

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has impacted families' mental health around the globe. In June 2020, 1163 parents of high (43%), middle (47%), and low socioeconomic status (SES) (10%) participated in an online survey developed to explore how daily life changes and restrictions that came with COVID-19 affected the experiences of pregnancy and/or parenting children under the age of 5 in Chile. The survey's design had an exploratory and descriptive scope, with a mix of qualitative and quantitative questions. With the aim of exploring differences before and after COVID-19, two time periods were established, and the 47-item questionnaire covered participants' sociodemographic information, support networks, health concerns, mood changes, self-regulation, adult and children's perceived well-being, parental competencies and parents' perceptions of the unborn baby and/or their children's needs. The results relative to retrospective reporting of pre-pandemic levels, showed an increase in children's crying and tantrums as well as in parental irritability and sadness. Additionally, decreases in the ability to calm down and sleep quality in both parents and children were identified. Finally, at a qualitative level, COVID-19 stands out both as an opportunity to get to know their children better and as a stressor related to parental burn-out and discomfort.

Assessing Computational Methods to Quantify Mother-Child Brain Synchrony in Naturalistic Settings Based on fNIRS Signals

Mother-child brain-to-brain synchrony captures the temporal similarities in brain signals between dyadic partners, and has been shown to emerge during the display of joint behaviours. Despite the rise in the number of studies that investigate synchrony in naturalistic contexts, the use of varying methodological approaches to compute synchrony remains a central problem. When dyads engage in unstructured social interactions, the wide range of behavioural cues they display contribute to the use of varying lengths of signals to compute synchrony. The present functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) study investigates how different methods to quantify brain signals during joint and non-joint portions of dyadic play affect the outcome of brain-to-brain synchrony. Three strategies to cope with unstructured data are tested and different signal lengths of 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45s were used to determine the optimal method to sensitively capture synchrony. Results showed that using all available portions of the signals generated a greater number of less conservative results compared to the other two strategies, which were to compute the average synchrony for the joint and non-joint signals portions and to compute the difference between the average synchrony of joint and non-joint portions. From the different signal durations, only length portions of 25s to 35s generated significant results. These findings demonstrate that differences in computational approaches and signal lengths affect synchrony measurements and should be considered in naturalistic synchrony studies.

Influences of Social Distancing and attachment styles on the strength of the Halo Effect

The Halo Effect is a widely studied phenomenon that interests multiple disciplines. The relationship between Aesthetics Appearance and perceived Trustworthiness has especially gathered the attention of social scientists. While experimental works compared the strength of the Halo Effect in different situations (e.g. different genders' faces), little is known about the stability of the Halo. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been urged to distance ourselves from others. Similar suggestions may alter the relationship between Aesthetic Appearance and Perceived Trustworthiness. Moreover, previous works reported that individuals' attachment styles affected their emotional responses to the pandemic. Individuals' attachment styles may influence the magnitude of change of the Halo. Here we investigate how priming (Social Distancing or Contact with others) affects the strength of the Halo Effect, with respect to individuals' attachment styles. Participants (N = 298) rated the Aesthetics and Perceived Trustworthiness of strangers' faces (N = 96) presented twice, before and after the presentation of a prime. Results revealed that individuals' attachment styles affect the strength of the Halo. However, we found no evidence supporting the fact that different attachment styles lead to differences in the magnitude of changes after priming. Results help shed light on how attachment styles influence individuals' impression formation.

Father-child dyads exhibit unique inter-subject synchronization during co-viewing of animation video stimuli

Inter-subject synchronization reflects the entrainment of two individuals to each other's brain signals. In parent-child dyads, synchronization indicates an attunement to each other's emotional states. Despite the ubiquity with which parents and their children watch screen media together, no study has investigated synchronization in father-child dyads during co-viewing. The present study examined whether father-child dyads would exhibit inter-subject synchronization that is unique to the dyad and hence would not be observed in control dyads (i.e., randomly paired signals). Hyperscanning fNIRS was used to record the prefrontal cortex (PFC) signals of 29 fathers and their preschool-aged children as they co-viewed children's shows. Three 1-min videos from "Brave", "Peppa Pig" and "The Incredibles" were presented to each dyad and children's ratings of video positivity and familiarity were obtained. Four PFC clusters were analyzed: medial left, medial right, frontal left and frontal right clusters. Results demonstrated that true father-child dyads showed significantly greater synchronization than control dyads in the medial left cluster during the emotionally arousing conflict scene. Dyads with older fathers displayed less synchrony and older fathers, compared to younger ones, exhibited greater activity. These findings suggest unique inter-subject synchronization in father-child dyads during co-viewing which is potentially modulated by parental age.

Parents' Past Bonding Experience with Their Parents Interacts with Current Parenting Stress to Influence the Quality of Interaction with Their Child

Healthy dyadic interactions serve as a foundation for child development and are typically characterised by mutual emotional availability of both the parent and child. However, several parental factors might undermine optimal parent-child interactions, including the parent's current parenting stress levels and the parent's past bonding experiences with his/her own parents. To date, no study has investigated the possible interaction of parenting stress and parental bonding history with their own parents on the quality of emotional availability during play interactions. In this study, 29 father-child dyads (18 boys, 11 girls; father's age = 38.07 years, child's age = 42.21 months) and 36 mother-child dyads (21 boys, 15 girls; mother's age = 34.75 years, child's age = 41.72 months) from different families were recruited to participate in a 10-min play session after reporting on their current parenting stress and past care and overprotection experience with their parents. We measured the emotional availability of mother-child and father-child play across four adult subscales (i.e., sensitivity, structuring, non-intrusiveness, non-hostility) and two child subscales (i.e., involvement and responsiveness). Regression slope analyses showed that parenting stress stemming from having a difficult child predicts adult non-hostility, and is moderated by the parents' previously experienced maternal overprotection. When parenting stress is low, higher maternal overprotection experienced by the parent in the past would predict greater non-hostility during play. This finding suggests that parents' present stress levels and past bonding experiences with their parents interact to influence the quality of dyadic interaction with their child.