Herd Toria, Li Mengjiao, Maciejewski Dominique, Lee Jacob, Deater-Deckard Kirby, King-Casas Brooks, Kim-Spoon Jungmeen
Department of Psychology, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, United States.
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, United States.
Front Psychol. 2018 Feb 26;9:217. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00217. eCollection 2018.
Past research has demonstrated negative associations between exposure to stressors and quality of interpersonal relationships among children and adolescents. Nevertheless, underlying mechanisms of this association remain unclear. Chronic stress has been shown to disrupt prefrontal functioning in the brain, including inhibitory control abilities, and evidence is accumulating that inhibitory control may play an important role in secure interpersonal relationship quality, including peer problems and social competence. In this prospective longitudinal study, we examine whether changes in inhibitory control, measured at both behavioral and neural levels, mediate the association between stress and changes in secure relationship quality with parents and peers. The sample included 167 adolescents (53% males) who were first recruited at age 13 or 14 years and assessed annually three times. Adolescents' inhibitory control was measured by their behavioral performance and brain activities, and adolescents self-reported perceived stress levels and relationship quality with mothers, fathers, and peers. Results suggest that behavioral inhibitory control mediates the association between perceived stress and adolescent's secure relationship quality with their mothers and fathers, but not their peers. In contrast, given that stress was not significantly correlated with neural inhibitory control, we did not further test the mediation path. Our results highlight the role of inhibitory control as a process through which stressful life experiences are related to impaired secure relationship quality between adolescents and their mothers and fathers.
过去的研究表明，儿童和青少年接触压力源与人际关系质量之间存在负相关。然而，这种关联的潜在机制仍不清楚。慢性压力已被证明会扰乱大脑前额叶功能，包括抑制控制能力，并且越来越多的证据表明，抑制控制可能在安全的人际关系质量中发挥重要作用，包括同伴问题和社交能力。在这项前瞻性纵向研究中，我们研究了行为和神经水平上测量的抑制控制变化是否介导了压力与与父母和同伴的安全关系质量变化之间的关联。样本包括167名青少年（53%为男性），他们在13或14岁时首次被招募，每年评估三次。通过青少年的行为表现和大脑活动来测量他们的抑制控制，青少年自我报告感知到的压力水平以及与母亲、父亲和同伴的关系质量。结果表明，行为抑制控制介导了感知压力与青少年与母亲和父亲的安全关系质量之间的关联，但与同伴的关系质量无关。相比之下，由于压力与神经抑制控制没有显著相关性，我们没有进一步测试中介路径。我们的结果强调了抑制控制作为一个过程的作用，通过这个过程，压力性生活经历与青少年与其母亲和父亲之间受损的安全关系质量相关。
