Borelli Jessica L, Hong Kajung, Rasmussen Hannah F, Smiley Patricia A
Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine.
Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Dev Psychol. 2017 Sep;53(9):1680-1693. doi: 10.1037/dev0000371. Epub 2017 Jun 22.
Theorists argue that parental reflective functioning (PRF) is activated in response to emotions, potentially supporting parenting sensitivity even when arousal is high. That is, when parents become emotionally reactive when interacting with their children, those who can use PRF to understand their children's mental states should be able to parent sensitively, which, in turn, should promote children's ability to understand their own mental states. We test this theory by examining whether, in the face of physiological reactivity, mothers' PRF inhibits one form of parenting insensitivity, overcontrol (OC), and whether this process in turn predicts children's RF. A diverse sample of school-age children (N = 106, Mage = 10.27 years) completed a standardized failure paradigm while their mothers were asked to passively observe. Following the stressor, mothers and children independently completed interviews regarding the task, which were later coded for RF with respect to children's mental states. Mothers provided saliva samples before and after the stressor, and after the interview, which were later assayed for cortisol reactivity; maternal behavior during the stressor task was coded for OC. Among mothers with low levels of RF, greater increases in cortisol were associated with more displays of OC, whereas among mothers with high PRF, greater cortisol reactivity was associated with fewer OC behaviors. For low PRF mothers, higher reactivity and OC predicted lower children's PRF for their own experiences. The findings provide initial evidence for a protective function of PRF, and may point toward the importance of promoting PRF in intervention programs to reduce parental OC. (PsycINFO Database Record
理论家认为，父母反思功能（PRF）会因情绪而被激活，即使在唤醒水平较高时也可能支持养育敏感性。也就是说，当父母在与孩子互动时产生情绪反应时，那些能够运用PRF来理解孩子心理状态的父母应该能够敏感地养育孩子，而这反过来又应该促进孩子理解自己心理状态的能力。我们通过检验在面对生理反应时，母亲的PRF是否会抑制一种养育不敏感的形式——过度控制（OC），以及这一过程是否反过来预测孩子的反思功能（RF），来验证这一理论。一个多样化的学龄儿童样本（N = 106，平均年龄Mage = 10.27岁）完成了一个标准化的失败范式，同时要求他们的母亲进行被动观察。在压力源之后，母亲和孩子分别完成了关于该任务的访谈，之后对访谈内容进行编码，以了解孩子心理状态方面的反思功能。母亲们在压力源前后以及访谈后提供了唾液样本，之后对样本进行皮质醇反应性检测；压力源任务期间母亲的行为被编码为过度控制。在反思功能水平较低的母亲中，皮质醇水平的更大升高与更多的过度控制表现相关，而在父母反思功能较高的母亲中，更高的皮质醇反应性与更少的过度控制行为相关。对于父母反思功能较低的母亲来说，更高的反应性和过度控制预示着孩子对自身经历的反思功能较低。这些发现为父母反思功能的保护作用提供了初步证据，并可能表明在干预项目中促进父母反思功能对于减少父母过度控制的重要性。（《心理学文摘数据库记录》
