Daily Mood Reactivity to Stress during Childhood Predicts Internalizing Problems Three Years Later.

The mental health toll of common school problems that many children encounter every day is not well understood. This study examined individual differences in mood reactivity to naturally occurring school problems using daily diaries, and assessed their prospective associations with youth mental health, three years later. At baseline, 47 children ages 8 to 13 years described common problems at school and mood on a daily basis, for 8 weeks. Thirty-three youth returned for follow-up three years later at ages 11 to 17 years. Children and parents also completed one-time questionnaires about youth mental health at baseline and follow-up. There were individual differences in the within-person associations between school problems and same-day and next-day mood. A greater tendency to react to school problems with more negative mood or less positive mood on the same day predicted more parent-rated internalizing and externalizing problems and child ratings of depression symptoms three years later, relative to baseline levels of symptoms. Daily diaries can help to identify specific targets of psychosocial interventions in real world settings.

Chronic stress exposure and daily stress appraisals relate to biological aging marker p16INK4a.

Previous research has linked exposure to adverse social conditions with DNA damage and accelerated telomere shortening, raising the possibility that chronic stress may impact biological aging pathways, ultimately increasing risk for age-related diseases. Less clear, however, is whether these stress-related effects extend to additional hallmarks of biological aging, including cellular senescence, a stable state of cell cycle arrest. The present study aimed to investigate associations between psychosocial stress and two markers of cellular aging-leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and cellular senescence signal p16INK4a. Seventy-three adults (Mage = 43.0, SD = 7.2; 55% female) with children between 8-13 years of age completed interview-based and questionnaire measures of their exposures to and experiences of stress, as well as daily reports of stress appraisals over an 8-week diary period. Blood samples were used to assess markers of cellular aging: LTL and gene expression of senescent cell signal p16INK4a (CDKN2A). Random effects models covarying for age, sex, ethnicity/race, and BMI revealed that participants with greater chronic stress exposure over the previous 6 months (b = 0.011, p = .04), perceived stress (b = 0.020, p < .001), and accumulated daily stress appraisals over the 8-week period (b = 0.013, p = .02) showed increased p16INK4a. No significant associations with LTL were found. These findings extend previous work on the impact of stress on biological aging by linking chronic stress exposure and daily stressful experiences to an accumulation of senescent cells. Findings also support the hypothesis that chronic stress is associated with accelerated aging by inducing cellular senescence, a common correlate of age-related diseases.

Interparental conflict and child HPA-axis responses to acute stress: Insights using intensive repeated measures.

Interparental conflict is a common source of psychosocial stress in the lives of children. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between recent interparental conflict and one component of the physiological stress response system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis. Parents of 42 children (ages 8-13 years) completed daily diaries of interparental conflict for 8 weeks. At the end of the 8 weeks, youth participated in the Trier Social Stress Test for Children (TSST-C) while providing 2 pre- and 4 poststress salivary cortisol samples. Youth whose fathers reported a pattern of increasing interparental conflict over the past 8 weeks demonstrated an exaggerated HPA-axis response to acute stress. Mother-reported interparental conflict was not associated with children's HPA-axis responses without accounting for fathers' reports. When accounting for fathers' reports, the offspring of mothers reporting higher average daily interparental conflict demonstrated an attenuated HPA-axis response to the stressor. By estimating both average exposure and recent patterns of change in exposure to conflict, we address the circumstances that may prompt attenuation versus sensitization of the HPA-axis in the context of interparental conflict. We conclude that the HPA-axis is sensitive to proximal increases in interparental conflict which may be one pathway through which stress affects health across development, and that incorporating father's reports is important to understanding the role of the family environment in stress responses. This study further demonstrates the value of using intensive repeated measures and multiple reporters to characterize children's psychosocial environment. (PsycINFO Database Record

Family environments and leukocyte transcriptome indicators of a proinflammatory phenotype in children and parents.

High conflict and low warmth in families may contribute to immune cells developing a tendency to respond to threats with exaggerated inflammation that is insensitive to inhibitory signaling. We tested associations between family environments and expression of genes bearing response elements for transcription factors that regulate inflammation: nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) and glucocorticoid receptor. The overall sample (47 families) completed interviews, questionnaires, and 8-week daily diary assessments of conflict and warmth, which were used to create composite family conflict and warmth scores. The diaries assessed upper respiratory infection (URI) symptoms, and URI episodes were clinically verified. Leukocyte RNA was extracted from whole blood samples provided by a subsample of 42 children (8-13 years of age) and 73 parents. In children, higher conflict and lower warmth were related to greater expression of genes bearing response elements for the proinflammatory transcription factor NF-κB, and more severe URI symptoms. In parents, higher conflict and lower warmth were also related to greater NF-κB-associated gene expression. Monocytes and dendritic cells were implicated as primary cellular sources of differential gene expression in the sample. Consistent with existing conceptual frameworks, stressful family environments were related to a proinflammatory phenotype at the level of the circulating leukocyte transcriptome.

Children's diurnal cortisol responses to negative events at school and home.

This study examined the within-and between-person associations between daily negative events - peer problems, academic problems and interparental conflict - and diurnal cortisol in school-age children. Salivary cortisol levels were assessed four times per day (at wakeup, 30min later, just before dinner and at bedtime) on eight days in 47 youths ages 8-13 years old (60% female; M age=11.28, SD=1.50). The relative contributions of within- and between-person variances in each stressor were estimated in models predicting same-day diurnal cortisol slope, same-day bedtime cortisol, and next morning wakeup cortisol. Children who reported more peer problems on average showed flatter slopes of cortisol decline from wakeup to bedtime. However, children secreted more cortisol at wakeup following days when they had reported more peer or academic problems than usual. Interparental conflict was not significantly associated with diurnal cortisol. Findings from this study extend our understanding of short-term cortisol responses to naturally occurring problems in daily life, and help to differentiate these daily processes from the cumulative effects of chronic stress.

Daily links between school problems and youth perceptions of interactions with parents: A diary study of school-to-home spillover.

This study examined how academic and peer problems at school are linked to family interactions at home on the same day, using eight consecutive weeks of daily diary data collected from early adolescents (60% female; M age = 11.28, SD = 1.50), mothers and fathers in 47 families. On days when children reported more academic problems at school, they, but not their parents, reported less warmth and more conflict with mothers, and more conflict and less time spent around fathers. These effects were partially explained by same-day child reports of higher negative mood. Peer problems were less consistently associated with parent-child interactions over and above the effects of academic problems that day. A one-time measure of parent-child relationship quality moderated several daily associations, such that the same-day link between school problems and child-report of family interactions was stronger among children who were closer to their parents.

I just want to be left alone: Daily overload and marital behavior.

Stressful, busy days have been linked with increases in angry and withdrawn marital behavior. The process by which stressors in 1 domain, such as work, affect an individual's behavior in another domain, such as the marital relationship, is known as spillover. Using 56 days of daily diary reports in a diverse sample of 47 wives and 39 husbands, this study examined associations between daily experiences of overload and 3 marital behaviors: overt expressions of anger, disregard of the spouse's needs ("disregard"), and reductions in affection and disclosure ("distancing"). Two potential mechanisms by which daily overload spills over into marital behavior were examined: negative mood and the desire to avoid social interaction. Among husbands, negative mood mediated the association between overload and angry behavior. Associations between overload and wives' angry behavior, as well as overload and husbands' and wives' disregard of their partners' needs, were mediated by both negative mood and the desire to withdraw socially. Desire to withdraw, but not negative mood, mediated the association between overload and distancing behavior among husbands and wives. In addition, associations between marital satisfaction and spouses' typical marital behavior, as well as behavioral responses to overload, were examined. Husbands' and wives' average levels of expressed anger and disregard, and husbands' distancing, were associated with lower marital satisfaction in 1 or both partners. Both spouses reported lower marital satisfaction if husbands tended to express marital anger, disregard, or distancing on busy, overloaded days.

Change in parent-child conflict and the HPA-axis: Where should we be looking and for how long?

OBJECTIVE: Salivary cortisol is increasingly used as a longitudinal indicator of change in neuroendocrine regulation and as a predictor of health outcomes in youth. The purpose of this study was to describe which indices of HPA-axis functioning are sensitive to changes in parent-child conflict over a three week period and to explore the time course under which these changes can be measured. METHODS: Youth (n=47; ages 8-13) completed daily diaries of their conflict with parents for 56 days. On days 17-18 and 38-39, youth contributed saliva samples upon waking, 30-minutes post-waking, afternoon, and bedtime. We assessed change in average diurnal HPA-axis functioning between day 17-18 and day 38-39 as a function of the slopes of change in parent-child conflict over 3 weeks. RESULTS: Increasing parent-child conflict was positively associated with concurrent increases in total cortisol output (AUCg), flattening of the diurnal slope, and increases in cortisol at bedtime, but not with change in the cortisol awakening response (CAR). Further, associations between parent-child conflict and both AUCg and bedtime cortisol were observed with at least 14 days of daily diary reporting, whereas any additional ratings of conflict beyond 3 days of daily diaries did not improve model fit for changes in diurnal slope. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates the within-subject up-regulation of the HPA-axis across three weeks in a healthy sample of youth exposed to natural increases in family conflict. In particular, cortisol at bedtime may be the HPA-axis index that is most sensitive to change over time in parent-child conflict, above and beyond conflict occurring that day. Further, when testing associations between family stressors and diurnal cortisol, the optimal schedule for assessing parent-child conflict varies for different indices of HPA-axis functioning.

Emotions and family interactions in childhood: Associations with leukocyte telomere length emotions, family interactions, and telomere length.

Conceptualizations of links between stress and cellular aging in childhood suggest that accumulating stress predicts shorter leukocyte telomere length (LTL). At the same time, several models suggest that emotional reactivity to stressors may play a key role in predicting cellular aging. Using intensive repeated measures, we tested whether exposure or emotional "reactivity" to conflict and warmth in the family were related to LTL. Children (N=39; 30 target children and 9 siblings) between 8 and 13 years of age completed daily diary questionnaires for 56 consecutive days assessing daily warmth and conflict in the marital and the parent-child dyad, and daily positive and negative mood. To assess exposure to conflict and warmth, diary scale scores were averaged over the 56 days. Mood "reactivity" was operationalized by using multilevel modeling to generate estimates of the slope of warmth or conflict scores (marital and parent-child, separately) predicting same-day mood for each individual child. After diary collection, a blood sample was collected to determine LTL. Among children aged 8-13 years, a stronger association between negative mood and marital conflict, suggesting greater negative mood reactivity to marital conflict, was related to shorter LTL (B=-1.51, p<.01). A stronger association between positive mood and marital affection, suggesting positive mood reactivity, was related to longer LTL (B=1.15, p<.05). These effects were independent of exposure to family and marital conflict and warmth, and positive and negative mood over a two-month period. To our knowledge, these findings, although cross-sectional, represent the first evidence showing that link between children's affective responses and daily family interactions may have implications for telomere length.

Measurement reactivity and fatigue effects in daily diary research with families.

Methodological challenges associated with measurement reactivity and fatigue were addressed using diary data collected from mothers (n = 47), fathers (n = 39), and children (n = 47; 8-13 years) across 56 consecutive days. Demonstrating the feasibility of extended diary studies with families, on-time compliance rates were upward of 90% for all family members, with only minor within-person declines in weekday compliance over time. Multilevel models revealed slight decreases in mother and father daily reports of parent-child conflict and warmth across days, suggesting possible measurement reactivity. Global perceptions of parent-child involvement, measured via a 1-time survey at baseline, moderated change in parent, but not child, diary reports of conflict and warmth. Finally, weakening agreement between mother and child diary reports of conflict and strengthening of positive within-person associations between child-reported negative mood and same-diary ratings of parent-child conflict indicate potential fatigue-related declines in response accuracy. Although generally minimal, observed measurement effects highlight the need for additional methodological research in the study of everyday family life.

Daily self-disclosure and sleep in couples.

OBJECTIVE: An emerging literature provides evidence for the association between romantic relationship quality and sleep, an important factor in health and well-being. However, we still know very little about the specific relationship processes that affect sleep behavior. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine how self-disclosure, an important relational process linked to intimacy, relationship satisfaction, and health, is associated with sleep behavior. METHOD: As part of a larger study of family processes, wives (n = 46) and husbands (n = 38) from 46 cohabiting families completed 56 days of daily diaries. Spouses completed evening diaries assessing daily self-disclosure, relationship satisfaction, and mood and morning diaries assessing the prior night's sleep. Multilevel modeling was used to explore the effects of both daily variation in and average levels across the 56 days of self-disclosure on sleep. RESULTS: Daily variation in self-disclosure predicted sleep outcomes for wives, but not for husbands. On days when wives self-disclosed more to their spouses than their average level, their subjective sleep quality and sleep efficiency that night improved. Furthermore, daily self-disclosure buffered the effect of high negative mood on sleep latency for wives, but not husbands. In contrast, higher average levels of self-disclosure predicted less waking during the night for husbands, but not for wives. CONCLUSION: The association between self-disclosure and sleep is one mechanism by which daily relationship functioning may influence health and well-being. Gender may play a role in how self-disclosure is associated with sleep.

A naturalistic observational study of children's expressions of anger in the family context.

Traditional approaches to the study of children's expressions of anger rely on tightly controlled study environments to test hypotheses about outcomes and correlates of expression characteristics. An unexplored area in the study of emotion expression is a naturalistic examination of school-age children's spontaneously occurring expressions of emotion in their real, uncontrolled family contexts. This observational study describes the naturally occurring characteristics and contexts of 8- to 12-year-old children's anger expressions with family members. Thirty-one families were videotaped for 2 days at home and in community settings. Children's expressions of anger were identified and coded for angry facial, vocal and physical behaviors, and for the expressions' instigating situational contexts. The majority of anger expressions were of mild intensity and brief duration, and most often contained vocal behavioral characteristics (e.g., loud voice, whining). The most common cause of an anger expression was a verbal disagreement; other frequently occurring situational causes included homework, requests for compliance, and reprimands. Patterns in the angry behaviors children exhibited in response to specific situational causes support a functionalist perspective on emotion expression in that children engaged in behaviors that appeared to be attempts to get their needs met. Few differences were observed between mothers' and fathers' rates of instigating children's anger expressions, and between boys' and girls' expression characteristics and contexts. This study offers an ecologically valid, uniquely naturalistic methodology to describe children's observable expressions of anger as they occur in family contexts.

Pubertal timing fluctuations across middle school: implications for girls' psychological health.

The relative nature of pubertal timing has received little attention in research linking early pubertal development with psychological adjustment. The current study examines the dynamic association between pubertal timing and internalizing symptoms among an urban, ethnically diverse sample of girls (n=1,167; 50% Latina, 30% Black/African American, 11% Asian, 9% White). By relying on six waves of data, we detected substantial within-person variability in pubertal timing, which in turn related to fluctuations in depressive symptoms, global self-worth, and social anxiety in multilevel analyses. Within-person changes in the direction of more advanced development compared to peers consistently predicted more depressive symptoms; however, more advanced development was related to lower self-worth only at the beginning of middle school. By the end of middle school, less advanced development predicted social anxiety. Results challenge the notion that pubertal timing is a stable individual characteristic, with implications for studying the psychosocial correlates of pubertal development across multiple years.

The role of early maturation, perceived popularity, and rumors in the emergence of internalizing symptoms among adolescent girls.

Despite the widely reported link between early pubertal timing and internalizing symptoms among girls, less is known about the peer reputation of earlier maturing girls. The current study assesses whether early maturation is associated with perceived popularity and/or rumors, and whether these reputational factors help account for earlier maturing girls' vulnerability to emotional distress. Drawing on three waves of data collected from an ethnically diverse sample of middle school girls (n = 912), hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that more advanced development at the start of middle school predicted peer- and teacher-reported popularity as well as increased risk of being targeted for rumors. Mediation analyses suggested that popularity among boys can put earlier developing girls at risk for rumors. Finally, rumors acted as a partial mechanism through which early maturation was associated with subsequent internalizing symptoms. Knowledge of the peer mechanisms putting earlier developing girls at risk for psychosocial maladjustment can inform intervention and prevention efforts aimed at improving adolescent well-being.