Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences, Washington University School of Medicine, 660 South Euclid Ave, Box 8514, St. Louis, MO, 63110, USA.
Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, USA.
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2023 Nov;32(11):2303-2311. doi: 10.1007/s00787-022-02074-8. Epub 2022 Sep 5.
Deficits in emotion intelligence (EI) are a key component of early-childhood callous-unemotional (CU) traits. Children's EI may be influenced by their mother's EI through both familial genetic and environmental mechanisms; however, no study has directly tested the role of maternal EI in the development of CU traits. This study investigated whether maternal EI had a direct relationship with children's CU traits when controlling for the potential influence of parenting affect and other psychiatric diagnoses. Mothers and their 3- to 5-year-old preschoolers (N = 200) were recruited as part of a parent-child interaction-emotion development therapy treatment trial for preschool clinical depression and comorbid psychopathology. Using data collected prior to treatment, regression models tested whether maternal EI was related to children's CU traits, which specific aspects of maternal EI were most strongly associated with CU traits, and whether associations held after accounting for observed parenting affect. Maternal EI (p < 0.005), specifically the ability to understand others' emotions (p < 0.01), was significantly associated with children's CU traits. This relationship was specific, as maternal EI did not predict depression or oppositional defiant disorder. Both maternal EI and observed negative parenting affect were independently and significantly related to CU traits (p < 0.05) in a combined model. Given that maternal EI and observed negative parenting affect were independent predictors of CU traits in preschoolers with comorbid depression, findings suggest that current treatments for CU traits that focus solely on improving parenting could be made more effective by targeting maternal EI and helping mothers better model emotional competence.
情绪智力 (EI) 缺陷是幼儿冷酷无情 (CU) 特征的一个关键组成部分。儿童的 EI 可能受到母亲 EI 的影响，这种影响既通过家族遗传机制，也通过环境机制；然而，没有研究直接测试母亲 EI 在 CU 特征发展中的作用。本研究调查了在控制育儿影响和其他精神科诊断的潜在影响的情况下，母亲 EI 是否与儿童的 CU 特征直接相关。作为针对学龄前临床抑郁症和共病精神病理学的亲子互动-情绪发展治疗试验的一部分，招募了母亲及其 3 至 5 岁的学龄前儿童（N=200）。使用治疗前收集的数据，回归模型测试了母亲 EI 是否与儿童的 CU 特征相关，母亲 EI 的哪些特定方面与 CU 特征最密切相关，以及在考虑到观察到的育儿影响后，这些关联是否仍然存在。母亲 EI（p<0.005），特别是理解他人情绪的能力（p<0.01），与儿童的 CU 特征显著相关。这种关系是特定的，因为母亲 EI 不能预测抑郁或对立违抗性障碍。在综合模型中，母亲 EI 和观察到的消极育儿影响都与 CU 特征（p<0.05）独立且显著相关。鉴于患有共病抑郁症的学龄前儿童的母亲 EI 和观察到的消极育儿影响是 CU 特征的独立预测因素，研究结果表明，目前仅关注改善育儿的 CU 特征治疗方法可以通过针对母亲 EI 并帮助母亲更好地模仿情绪能力来提高其有效性。
