Raffington Laurel, Schmiedek Florian, Heim Christine, Shing Yee Lee
Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.
PLoS One. 2018 Jan 12;13(1):e0191215. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0191215. eCollection 2018.
This study investigated associations between parenting stress in parents and self-reported stress in children with children's diurnal cortisol secretion and whether these associations are moderated by known stress-regulating capacities, namely child cognitive control. Salivary cortisol concentrations were assessed from awakening to evening on two weekend days from 53 6-to-7-year-old children. Children completed a cognitive control task and a self-report stress questionnaire with an experimenter, while parents completed a parenting stress inventory. Hierarchical, linear mixed effects models revealed that higher parenting stress was associated with overall reduced cortisol secretion in children, and this effect was moderated by cognitive control. Specifically, parenting stress was associated with reduced diurnal cortisol levels in children with lower cognitive control ability and not in children with higher cognitive control ability. There were no effects of self-reported stress in children on their cortisol secretion, presumably because 6-to-7-year-old children cannot yet self-report on stress experiences. Our results suggest that higher cognitive control skills may buffer the effects of parenting stress in parents on their children's stress regulation in middle childhood. This could indicate that training cognitive control skills in early life could be a target to prevent stress-related disorders.
本研究调查了父母的育儿压力与儿童自我报告的压力之间的关联，以及这些关联是否受到已知的压力调节能力（即儿童认知控制）的调节，同时研究了这些关联与儿童昼夜皮质醇分泌之间的关系。在两个周末日，从53名6至7岁儿童醒来至晚上期间评估唾液皮质醇浓度。儿童与一名实验人员完成一项认知控制任务和一份自我报告压力问卷，而父母则完成一份育儿压力量表。分层线性混合效应模型显示，较高的育儿压力与儿童总体皮质醇分泌减少有关，并且这种效应受到认知控制的调节。具体而言，育儿压力与认知控制能力较低的儿童昼夜皮质醇水平降低有关，而与认知控制能力较高的儿童无关。儿童自我报告的压力对其皮质醇分泌没有影响，可能是因为6至7岁的儿童尚无法自我报告压力经历。我们的结果表明，较高的认知控制技能可能会缓冲父母的育儿压力对儿童童年中期压力调节的影响。这可能表明，在生命早期训练认知控制技能可能是预防与压力相关疾病的一个目标。
