Rasmussen Hannah F, Borelli Jessica L, Smiley Patricia A, Cohen Chloe, Cheung Ryan Cheuk Ming, Fox Schuyler, Marvin Matthew, Blackard Betsy
University of Southern California, Department of Psychology, 3620 S. McClintock Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
University of California, Irvine, Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, 4201 Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
Behav Brain Res. 2017 May 15;325(Pt B):203-213. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2016.12.036. Epub 2016 Dec 30.
Co-regulation of behavior occurring within parent-child attachment relationships is thought to be the primary means through which children develop the capacity to regulate emotion, an ability that is protective across development. Existing research on parent-child co-regulation focuses predominantly on parent-infant dyads, and operationalizes co-regulation as the matching of facial expressions; however, matching can occur on other behaviors, including vocal tone, body movement, and language. Studies with young children find that greater matching is associated with children's lower emotion reactivity, but with unknown impacts on parents. In this study we examine a recently-developed metric of behavioral matching, language style matching (LSM), a composite measure of the similarity of function word use in spoken or written language between two or more people. We test whether LSM between mothers and their school-aged children is associated with children's and mothers' physiological and subjective emotion reactivity. Children completed a standardized stressor task while their mothers observed; children's and mother's cortisol and cardiovascular reactivity were assessed, as were their subjective reports of emotion reactivity. Following the stressor, children and mothers completed independent interviews about the experience, later assessed for LSM. Higher mother-child LSM was associated with lower emotion reactivity (lower cortisol reactivity, lower reports of negative emotion) for children, and with higher maternal cardiovascular but not cortisol or subjective reactivity. Further, higher LSM was more strongly associated with lower child cortisol reactivity when mothers were more reactive themselves. We conclude that mother-child LSM, thought to reflect a history of co-regulated interaction, confers protective benefits for children, but heightened reactivity for mothers.
亲子依恋关系中发生的行为共同调节被认为是儿童发展情绪调节能力的主要方式，这种能力在整个发育过程中都具有保护作用。现有的关于亲子共同调节的研究主要集中在母婴二元组上，并将共同调节操作化为面部表情的匹配；然而，匹配也可能发生在其他行为上，包括语调、身体动作和语言。对幼儿的研究发现，更高程度的匹配与儿童较低的情绪反应性相关，但对父母的影响尚不清楚。在本研究中，我们考察了一种最近开发的行为匹配指标，即语言风格匹配（LSM），它是衡量两个或更多人在口语或书面语言中功能词使用相似性的综合指标。我们测试母亲与其学龄儿童之间的LSM是否与儿童和母亲的生理及主观情绪反应性相关。儿童完成一项标准化应激任务，同时其母亲进行观察；评估儿童和母亲的皮质醇和心血管反应性，以及他们对情绪反应性的主观报告。应激任务后，儿童和母亲就该经历完成独立访谈，之后评估LSM。更高的母子LSM与儿童较低的情绪反应性（较低的皮质醇反应性、较低的负面情绪报告）相关，与母亲较高的心血管反应性相关，但与皮质醇或主观反应性无关。此外，当母亲自身反应性更强时，更高的LSM与儿童更低的皮质醇反应性之间的关联更强。我们得出结论，母子LSM被认为反映了共同调节互动的历史，它为儿童带来保护益处，但会使母亲的反应性增强。
