Correlates of Parent-Child Physiological Synchrony and Emotional Parenting: Differential Associations in Varying Interactive Contexts

Abstract

Objectives: Parent-child synchrony during interaction might possess important features that underlie parenting processes throughout development. However, little is known regarding the association between parent-child physiological synchrony and emotional parenting behaviors during middle childhood. The main goal of the study was to examine whether emotional parenting was positively or negatively associated with parent-child physiological synchrony for school-age children. Methods: Adopting a biopsychosocial perspective, we incorporated the interbeat interval (IBI) and behavioral observation data of 150 parent-child dyads (child M age = 8.77, SD= 1.80) to explore the patterns of moment-to-moment dyadic physiological synchrony and to investigate whether these patterns were associated with two emotional parenting behaviors (psychological control and psychological unavailability). Results: Our findings provided some initial evidence that in low to moderately stressful situations that mimic daily parent-child interaction, parent-child physiological synchrony was indicative of different emotional parenting behaviors in various parent-child interactive situations. Specifically, in the collaborative context (parent-child working together to complete a task), parent-child physiological synchrony was indicative of less psychological unavailability, whereas in the competitive context (parent-child resolving disagreement with each other), parent-child physiological synchrony was indicative of less psychological control. The study implications and future research directions are discussed. Conclusions: Overall, our findings suggested that dyadic physiological synchrony, indexed by parent-child moment-to-moment matching of IBI, was associated with fewer negative emotional parenting behaviors.