Parenting Behavior and Child Inflammation: The Effect of Parental Attributions
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Date
2021-11-23
Authors
Lyons, Emma
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
The proximal family environment has been identified as a critical factor implicated in childhood illness, with research pointing to chronic inflammation as a mechanism by which early social stress engenders risk for poor mental and physical health. While research has documented that aversive parenting behavior exerts a measurable impact on biomarkers of children’s stress responding and downstream chronic health problems, no research to date has explored the role that parental attributions may play in whether and how parenting processes effect children’s health. The current study examines whether and how parents (a) think about and (b) behave toward their child influences levels of chronic inflammation in their young children.
Participants (parents and their 3 to 7-year-old children; N = 187) were drawn from a randomized clinical trial of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) for families involved with child welfare. Relationships among child inflammation concentrations and sociodemographic variables, risk variables, and parenting factors (e.g., attributions and behaviors) were explored to understand how elevations in CRP may emerge in early childhood, specifically in high-risk children exposed to adversity. Mediation analyses were used to test the hypothesis that parenting behavior would emerge as a mediator of parental attributions and child inflammation. To test a competing hypothesis, moderation analyses were used to test if parental attributions instead served as a moderator of a relationship between parenting behavior and child inflammation.
Results indicated that child inflammation was not significantly related to sociodemographic variables, indices of adversity, parental attributions, or parenting behavior. However, the moderation model examining parental perceived control attributions as a moderator of harsh parenting behavior and child inflammation emerged at p = .05. In the presence of high perceived control attributions (i.e., parents attributing responsibilities of negative parent-child interactions to themselves, rather than their child) harsh parenting behavior was related to higher concentrations of child CRP (p = .05). The results of this study suggest that targeting attributions may offer a useful protective factor for children, however more research is needed to establish whether these social cognitive factors exert causal influences on children’s immune development and downstream physical health into adulthood.