Biological Sensitivity to Context: The Interactive Effects of Stress Reactivity and Family Adversity on Socioemotional Behavior and School Readiness

Abstract

This study examined the direct and interactive effects of stress reactivity and family adversity on socio-emotional and cognitive development in 338 five-to-six-year-old children. Neurobiological stress reactivity was measured as respiratory sinus arrhythmia and salivary cortisol responses to social, cognitive, sensory, and emotional challenges. Adaptation was assessed using child, parent, and teacher reports of externalizing symptoms, prosocial behaviors, school engagement, and academic competence. Results revealed significant interactions between reactivity and adversity. High stress reactivity was associated with more maladaptive outcomes in the context of high adversity but with better adaption in the context of low adversity. The findings corroborate a reconceptualization of stress reactivity as biological sensitivity to context by showing that high reactivity can both hinder and promote adaptive functioning.

Future Directions in Emotion Dysregulation and Youth Psychopathology

“…In contrast to findings just described in which children, adolescents, and adults with clinical levels of conduct problems, delinquency, and related externalizing behaviors exhibit excessive RSA withdrawal to emotion evocation (e.g., Beauchaine, Hong, & Marsh, 2008;Beauchaine et al, 2001Beauchaine et al, , 2007de Wied et al, 2012;Mezzacappa, Kindlon, Earls, & Saul, 1994), in both normative and high risk samples, externalizing symptoms are often correlated with higher tonic RSA, less RSA withdrawal during lab tasks, or no RSA withdrawal (e.g., Dietrich et al, 2007;Graziano & Derefinko, 2013;Obradović, Bush, Stamperdahl, Adler, & Boyce, 2010), especially when stimulus conditions are not emotionally evocative. For example, less RSA reactivity to positive film clips has been reported among those who score higher on externalizing symptoms compared with controls (Fortunato, Gatzke-Kopp, & Ram, 2013).…”

“…This reflects the emotion dysregulation aspect of externalizing behavior (see Beauchaine et al, 2007;Beauchaine et al, 2009;Beauchaine & Gatzke-Kopp, 2012). In contrast, less RSA withdrawal is found among externalizing samples than controls during attention demanding, executive function, and problem-solving tasks (e.g., Dietrich et al, 2007;Hinnant & El-Sheikh, 2009;Obradović et al, 2010). This likely reflects attentional difficulties among externalizers (see Beauchaine, 2001;Rash & AguirreCamacho, 2012).…”

“…In contrast, in both normative and high-risk samples, symptoms of psychopathology are often correlated with greater tonic RSA, less RSA withdrawal during lab tasks, or no RSA withdrawal, especially when stimulus conditions are attention demanding and not emotionally evocative (e.g., Dietrich et al, 2007;Graziano & Derefinko, 2013;Obradović, Bush, Stamperdahl, Adler, & Boyce, 2010). Given considerable confusion associated with such discrepant findings, we expand on this topic in the Directions for Future Research section.…”

Gene–environment interplay inDrosophila melanogaster: Chronic food deprivation in early life affects adult exploratory and fitness traits

“…Some genotypes may be more sensitive to environmental conditions than others. This can be manifested as differences in behavior or health outcomes within low-and high-adversity contexts (61)(62)(63). The adversity exposures characterizing low socioeconomic status have been linked to a variety of developmental risk factors, including heightened sympathetic and adrenocortical reactivity, in some children but not in others (64,65).…”

Emotion: The self-regulatory sense

“…365 It is now well documented that environmental factors such as maltreatment, family adversity, marital conflict, maternal depression, and even financial distress are been linked with cognitive deficits and socio-emotional behavioral problems in children. [366][367][368][369][370][371][372][373][374][375][376][377][378][379] The mechanism of such biological embedding has been called "time dependent sensitization," 380 "neural sensitization," 381 "sensory hyper-arousal," 382 "central sensitization," 383 "central nervous system sensitization," 384 and "sensitivity to context," 385 but by any name, they reflect the self-regulatory feedback dynamics-and epigenetic and immune manifestations-of the emotional sense.…”