Department of School Psychology,University of California,Riverside,Riverside,CA,USA.
Department of Psychology,University of Oregon,Eugene, OR,USA.
Dev Psychopathol. 2019 Aug;31(3):989-997. doi: 10.1017/S0954579419000452. Epub 2019 Apr 30.
Adverse caregiving, for example, previous institutionalization (PI), is often associated with emotion dysregulation that increases anxiety risk. However, the concept of developmental multifinality predicts heterogeneity in anxiety outcomes. Despite this well-known heterogeneity, more work is needed to identify sources of this heterogeneity and how these sources interact with environmental risk to influence mental health. Here, working memory (WM) was examined during late childhood/adolescence as an intra-individual factor to mitigate the risk for separation anxiety, which is particularly susceptible to caregiving adversities. A modified "object-in-place" task was administered to 110 youths (10-17 years old), with or without a history of PI. The PI youths had elevated separation anxiety scores, which were anticorrelated with morning cortisol levels, yet there were no group differences in WM. PI youths showed significant heterogeneity in separation anxiety symptoms and morning cortisol levels, and WM moderated the link between caregiving and separation anxiety and mediated the association between separation anxiety and morning cortisol in PI youth. Findings suggest that (a) institutional care exerts divergent developmental consequences on separation anxiety versus WM, (b) WM interacts with adversity-related emotion dysregulation, and (c) WM may be a therapeutic target for separation anxiety following early caregiving adversity.
例如，不良养育方式，如以往的机构化（PI），通常与情绪调节障碍有关，这会增加焦虑风险。然而，发展的多效性概念预测了焦虑结果的异质性。尽管存在这种众所周知的异质性，但仍需要更多的工作来确定这种异质性的来源，以及这些来源如何与环境风险相互作用，从而影响心理健康。在这里，工作记忆（WM）在儿童后期/青少年时期被作为一种个体内部因素来减轻分离焦虑的风险，因为分离焦虑特别容易受到养育逆境的影响。对 110 名青少年（10-17 岁）进行了改良的“物体在位”任务测试，这些青少年中有经历过 PI 的，也有没经历过 PI 的。PI 青少年的分离焦虑评分较高，与早晨皮质醇水平呈负相关，但 WM 没有组间差异。PI 青少年在分离焦虑症状和早晨皮质醇水平上表现出显著的异质性，WM 调节了养育和分离焦虑之间的联系，并介导了 PI 青少年中分离焦虑与早晨皮质醇之间的关联。研究结果表明：（a）机构化护理对分离焦虑和 WM 产生了不同的发展后果；（b）WM 与与逆境相关的情绪调节障碍相互作用；（c）WM 可能是早期养育逆境后分离焦虑的治疗靶点。
