Adolescents at risk of anxiety in interaction with their fathers: Studying non‐verbal and physiological synchrony

Abstract

Half of all lifetime mental health disorders emerge in childhood (Kessler et al., 2007) and continue to develop through developmental stages. The transition from childhood to adulthood is a stressful developmental period during which anxiety problems are the most common mental health disorders, with a lifetime prevalence ranging from 15% to 30% (Essau, Conradt, & Petermann, 2002; Merikangas et al., 2010). Unfortunately, despite the notable negative impact of anxiety disorders on functioning at the social, emotional, and academic level, and their huge socioeconomic costs, their etiology remains unclear (Beidel & Alfano, 2011). From the moment of a child's birth, their emotional and physiological responses will be influenced by their parents through dyadic interactions that occur thousands of times during their development (Patterson, Dishion, & Bank, 1984). Quality interactions have been shown to foster secure parent-child attachment and to contribute to a child's social, cognitive, and emotional development over the years (Harrist & Waugh, 2002; Saint-Georges et al., 2013). In contrast, poor interactions have been associated with the emergence of problematic child behaviors (e.g., Landy & Menna, 2001). Research into developmental and social psychology indicates that the presence of non-verbal synchrony in dyadic interactions is associated with higher quality relationships, conformity, and more

Adolescent girls’ intrapersonal and interpersonal parasympathetic regulation during peer support is moderated by trait and state co‐rumination

“…Healthy mother–adolescent dyads without maternal or child symptoms or history of depression display positive RSA synchrony (coupled movement in the same direction over time) during positive and conflict discussions, whereas dyads with depression history or symptoms display a lack of synchrony (Amole et al., 2017; McKillop & Connell, 2018; Woody et al., 2016) or negative synchrony (coupled movement in opposite directions) (Suveg et al., 2019). Similarly, among father–adolescent dyads, nonverbal affective behavioral synchrony was present among dyads with adolescents at low risk of anxiety, but not among dyads where adolescents are at high risk of anxiety (Roman‐Juan et al., 2020). Further, positive RSA synchrony among parent–adolescent dyads during challenging tasks and conflict discussions has been linked with adaptive traits such as more effective maternal emotional expression (Han et al., 2019) and adolescents’ lower emotional insecurity (Li et al., 2020).…”

“…Initial research on PNS synchrony has largely focused on parent–infant/toddler dyads (Palumbo et al., 2017), and more recently, among parent–child/adolescent interactions (e.g., Amole et al., 2017; Han et al., 2019; Li et al., 2020; McKillop & Connell, 2018; Oshri et al., 2020; Roman‐Juan et al., 2020; Suveg et al., 2019; Woody et al., 2016). Among adults, PNS synchrony has focused primarily on romantic couples (e.g., Helm et al., 2014).…”

Movement Synchrony in the Psychotherapy of Adolescents With Borderline Personality Pathology – A Dyadic Trait Marker for Resilience?

“…While significant movement synchrony was shown in clinical interviews with adult patients with BPD ( Ramseyer et al, 2020 ), the psychotherapeutic communication between adolescent patients and adult psychotherapists might differ from that in adults ( Zimmermann et al, 2020 ). For instance, in adolescents at risk for anxiety, movement synchrony was absent when measured in a setting with the youths’ fathers ( Roman-Juan et al, 2020 ). Similarly, synchrony might be absent in young patients with BPD and their psychotherapist.…”

Vocalization and physiological hyperarousal in infant–caregiver dyads where the caregiver has elevated anxiety

“…A small number of recent studies have looked at physiological synchrony and anxiety-related risk within parent-child dyads (Roman-Juan et al, 2020). Physiological synchrony refers to coordination or covariation between two or more partners' autonomic processes during social contact (Butler, 2011;Feldman, 2015).…”