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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2023 Feb 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Fam Psychol. 2021 May 24;36(1):92–101. doi: 10.1037/fam0000877

Maternal Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Contextualizes the Relation between Maternal Anxiety and Overprotective Parenting

Lauren B Jones 1, Sydney M Risley 1, Elizabeth J Kiel 1
PMCID: PMC8795692  NIHMSID: NIHMS1725597  PMID: 35084875

Abstract

This current study examined maternal characteristics that predict the use of overprotective parenting in mothers of toddlers. Maternal respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity was tested as a moderator of the relation between maternal anxiety and overprotective parenting. Mothers (n=151) and their 2-year-old toddlers participated in a laboratory visit and returned for a follow-up visit 1 year later. At child age 2, mothers reported on their own anxiety. Mothers’ RSA reactivity was measured between a resting baseline and a standardized laboratory task, and overprotective parenting was observed in that task. Toddler fearful temperament (FT) was observed in a separate standardized task as well as reported by mothers. At child age 3, mothers’ overprotective parenting behaviors were observed according to the same procedures so change from age 2 could be measured. Results revealed that maternal anxiety and maternal RSA at age 2 interacted to predict relative increases in overprotective parenting behaviors at age 3. At low levels of RSA reactivity, reflecting RSA suppression, maternal anxiety predicted lower levels of overprotective parenting. At high levels of RSA reactivity, reflecting RSA augmentation, maternal anxiety predicted higher levels of overprotective parenting. Our results suggest that RSA suppression may protect mothers with anxiety symptoms from engaging in overprotective parenting, whereas RSA augmentation may put mothers with anxiety symptoms at risk for engaging in overprotective parenting. Findings indicate that the interaction of multiple parental traits should be considered when working with parents and families on parenting behavior.

Keywords: autonomic nervous system, anxiety, mother-child relations, overcontrol

Introduction

Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental health disorders in childhood (Ghandour et al., 2019). Biological and environmental factors, such as fearful temperament (FT) and parenting, are linked to the development and maintenance of child anxiety (e.g., McLeod et al., 2007). Specifically, the literature identifies overprotection as a predictor of child anxiety-spectrum outcomes (e.g., McLeod et al., 2007). Theory suggests that overprotective parenting can communicate to children that the world is a dangerous place with insurmountable challenges, which can contribute to the development and maintenance of child anxiety (Chorpita & Barlow, 1998). Thus, it is important to identify characteristics that contribute to overprotection.

Maternal anxiety may place mothers at risk for engaging in overprotection (Coplan et al., 2008; Root et al., 2016). This may be because anxious mothers experience distress in situations that make their children uneasy, and as such, may try to protect or comfort the child as a way to alleviate their own anxiety. Some studies, though, have shown no significant relation between maternal anxiety and overprotection (Ginsburg et al., 2004; Turner et al., 2003), indicating that another variable may moderate this relation. Maternal emotion regulation (ER) may be an important determinant of when maternal anxiety relates to overprotection, such that mothers who have ER difficulties are more likely to use maladaptive parenting behaviors such as higher control (Borelli et al., 2015). Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is an index of parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) regulation that may underlie ER (Porges, 2007) and thus may serve as a moderator in the relation between maternal anxiety and overprotective parenting (Root et al, 2016). The current study tested whether maternal anxiety interacts with maternal RSA to predict change in overprotective parenting across one year of toddlerhood.

Overprotective Behaviors

Overprotective parenting is defined as unnecessarily warm and supportive parenting behaviors that limit children’s opportunities to cope independently (Chorpita & Barlow, 1998). Children start building independence as early as toddlerhood. Although warm and supportive behaviors are adaptive in many situations, these behaviors can become overprotective in environments where children are faced with developmentally appropriate challenges that offer opportunities to practice independent coping. Overprotection can contribute to the development of child anxiety by limiting the development of coping strategies necessary to face anxiety, thereby increasing avoidance of new situations and reinforcing dependence on the caregiver (Chorpita & Barlow, 1998; McLeod et al., 2007; Wu et al., 2020). Additionally, overprotective parenting limits a child’s ability to develop an accurate detection of danger in his or her environment, creating hypervigilance (Knappe et al., 2012).

Although overprotection can be enacted with high levels of warmth, it is different than sensitive parenting. Sensitive parenting has been defined as a parent’s ability to accurately detect and interpret their infant’s behavior and respond in an efficient and appropriate manner (Lohaus et al., 2004) and has been linked with better infant ER (Leerkes et al., 2009). In other words, sensitive parenting can be conceptualized as a caregiver’s ability to recognize and adapt their parenting behavior based on the compatibility between an infant’s temperament and their environment (see “goodness of fit”; Thomas & Chess, 1977). Overprotective parenting, on the other hand, can be considered a type of insensitive parenting due to the context-inappropriate levels of warmth and support when responding to the child. For instance, in a novel situation providing developmentally appropriate opportunities for infants to practice independent coping, Crockenberg and Leerkes (2004) found that infant fearful distress decreased when mothers maintained infant engagement with the stimulus but increased when mothers engaged in soothing behaviors. Additionally, in Kiel et al. (2016) for toddlers high in inhibited temperament, separation anxiety increased over time when mothers displayed high comforting/protection or high intrusiveness but decreased when mothers refrained from interaction or provided gentle encouragement towards approach. Finally, Arcus (2001) found that mothers who contingently responded to high reactive infants’ distress with comforting had children who were more likely to be classified as inhibited. Thus, because the levels of warmth and support used in overprotection are inappropriate for the context, overprotection contributes to family processes of risk for toddler anxiety.

Differences in measuring overprotection may contribute to the conflicting results in the literature. Many studies test overprotection through self-report (Clarke et al., 2013; Root et al., 2016) or child-report (Knappe et al., 2012; Wu et al., 2020). Other studies use observed overprotection, typically during novel tasks (Kiel & Buss 2012) or routine activities and structured play (Turner et al., 2003). Additionally, overprotective parenting can look different depending on the age of the child. For the current study, we used an observational measure of overprotective parenting during a novel task in toddlerhood (i.e., friendly clown episode) in line with previous studies in the literature (Kiel & Buss, 2012). In a study of six novel situations, including the clown episode used in the current study (Buss, 2011), differences were found in fear and approach behaviors for toddlers. Toddlers demonstrated the lowest amount of fear in the clown and puppet show episodes compared to episodes involving exposure to strangers (i.e., moderate amount of fear) or a robot and a spider (i.e., high amount of fear). Therefore, the clown episode is conceptualized as a low-threat context (Buss, 2011). Given the low threat episode used in the current study, high levels of observed comforting and protective behaviors (e.g., shielding the child from the stimulus) putatively reflect overprotection. Indeed, high levels of comforting and protective behavior have been linked to greater risk for anxiety when displayed in low-threat contexts, but not higher-threat contexts (Kiel & Buss, 2012).

As not all mothers engage in overprotective parenting during developmentally appropriate challenges, it is important to examine factors that determine the use of these behaviors. Although overprotection is relevant for both mothers and fathers (Hastings et al., 2008), consistent with the majority of the literature, the current study focuses on mothers because mothers are typically the primary caregiver for toddlers (Umemura et al., 2013). Furthermore, research supports that although mothers tend to be more sensitive and responsive to their toddlers, they also tend to value and emphasize protection of their toddlers (and thus can be more prone to engaging in overprotection) more than fathers (Möller et al., 2013). It therefore remains imperative to more fully understand maternal overprotection.

Maternal Anxiety

Maternal anxiety symptoms have been linked to greater use of self-reported overprotection (Clarke et al., 2013; Root et al., 2016) above and beyond child anxiety (Bögels & van Melick, 2004). High levels of maternal anxiety are thought to interfere with mothers’ coping skills, leading to greater use of anxiety-promoting parenting behaviors (for review see Ginsburg et al., 2004). This may be due to higher distress when watching their children face challenges, as Turner et al. (2003) found that parents with a range of anxiety disorders reported higher levels of distress while watching their children engage in age appropriate activities compared to controls. Additionally, mothers with anxiety disorders have a greater tendency to perceive threats to their children in the environment (Lindhout et al., 2006), which may lead them to exhibit overprotective parenting. Anxiety may make it difficult for mothers to differentiate situations their children could handle independently from situations requiring parental intervention. Instead, they may use increased control in order to avoid situations perceived as threatening. Finally, mothers with anxiety may be more likely to view anxiety as something to be avoided, resulting in a desire to protect their children from anxiety-provoking experiences (Ginsburg et al., 2004). Of note, it is important to study the influence of anxiety on overprotection over time, as Cooklin et al. (2013) found that mothers with high levels of anxiety during infancy engaged in higher levels of overprotection 2 years later, potentially due to sustained vigilance overtime.

Factors other than maternal traits account for variance in overprotection as children actively contribute to the parenting they receive. Specifically, overprotective parenting occurs more frequently when a child has FT (Kiel & Buss, 2012), characterized by fearful, hesitant, and avoidant behavior in the presence of unfamiliarity (Kagan et al., 1984). A cycle may develop in which children with FT solicit overprotection in novel situations, and children’s avoidant behaviors are reinforced when parents respond accordingly by engaging in overprotective parenting (Silverman & Field, 2011). As the current study is interested in the unique contribution of maternal characteristics to overprotective parenting, we will control for children’s FT.

Maternal RSA

Maternal ER capacity is a trait that has been examined in relation to parenting and may moderate the relation between maternal anxiety and overprotection. Research shows that mothers who have difficulty regulating their emotions are more likely to engage in maladaptive parenting behavior, such as overcontrol, as a way to regulate their emotions (Borelli et al., 2015). Emotion theories suggest that our emotional responses stem from neurobiological processes, including the central and peripheral nervous system responses (Swain et al., 2007). Individual differences in these systems are consistently linked to emotion reactivity and regulation (e.g., Kreibig, 2010). Given the importance of ER to parenting, and the neurophysiological underpinnings of emotion reactivity and regulation, additional research on emotional and physiological reactivity in parenting is necessary.

The current study focuses on RSA, which is conceptualized as the pattern of rhythmic changes (i.e., increases and decreases) in beat-to-beat heart rate related to respiratory inhalation and exhalation (Lane et al., 1992). RSA is theorized to have an important influence on ER abilities in social situations (Beauchaine, 2001). The PNS is critical for the body’s homeostasis and “rest and digest” processes. Specifically, the PNS slows the heart rate down through activating the vagus nerve (Porges, 2007). RSA is typically assessed in the literature through either RSA during a resting baseline or RSA change between baseline and a challenging task. Baseline RSA is theorized to represent the ability to return to homeostasis following arousal (Porges, 2007) and is associated with adaptive ER, healthy social engagement, and emotional flexibility (Thayer & Lane, 2000).

Change in RSA from baseline to task, or RSA reactivity, is measured by taking the difference score from baseline to tasks or by using the residual from regressing task RSA onto baseline RSA (Alkon et al., 2003; Burt & Obradović, 2013). A decrease in RSA from the baseline in response to a stressor (i.e., RSA suppression) indicates vagal withdrawal, which allows more engagement of the sympathetic nervous system. During RSA suppression, the vagus nerve withdraws control over the heart and resources are mobilized for a flight or fight response. This physiological process allows an individual to shift from managing internal demands to generating coping strategies (Porges, 2007) and reflects one’s ability to effectively regulate oneself during emotion eliciting tasks. RSA suppression has been related to mothers’ assessments of their children’s needs (Leerkes et al., 2016). An increase in RSA from baseline to task (augmentation), on the other hand, reflects increased input from the vagal nerve and increased control over the heart. There is mixed literature on whether RSA augmentation is adaptive or maladaptive depending on the context. DiPietro et al. (1992) found that vagal augmentation is adaptive when completing cognitive tasks that need high attention and emotional control. However, during emotion eliciting tasks, RSA augmentation has most often been associated with emotion dysregulation (Scarpa & Raine, 2004).

For mothers with anxiety symptoms, RSA reactivity may serve as a moderator in predicting parenting behavior, as physiological regulation may buffer against the negative effects of psychopathology on parenting behaviors, and physiological dysregulation may exacerbate the effects of psychopathology symptoms on parenting behaviors. Mothers with anxiety are more likely to detect threats in the environment (Lindhout et al., 2006), which may lead them to interpret developmentally appropriate challenges for their child as a threat and engage in overprotection to decrease their own distress (Turner et al., 2003). However, if mothers with anxiety symptoms can regulate their emotions and generate coping strategies, they may be able to appropriately respond to the situation and refrain from engaging in overprotection.

Current Study

The current study tests overprotective parenting in an episode characterized by low perceived threat (i.e., interacting with a friendly clown). Mothers with anxious symptoms are more likely to interpret ambiguous situations as threatening and RSA suppression is typically thought to be adaptive in threatening contexts, so we hypothesized that when mothers showed RSA suppression, high maternal anxiety would predict lower engagement in overprotection one year later. RSA augmentation, on the other hand, has been linked to maladaptive ER in stressful tasks. We therefore hypothesized that when mothers showed RSA augmentation, higher maternal anxiety would predict greater overprotection one year later. Through testing this relation, the current study contributes knowledge on how mothers’ anxiety and physiological responses to novel situations interact to predict their parenting behaviors.

Method

Participants

The current study is part of a larger longitudinal study of mother-toddler dyads. All study procedures were completed in English. Mother-child dyads (N = 165) participated in the current study, but 14 toddlers were siblings of other participants. An a priori decision was made to include the sibling who demonstrated more anxious behaviors (e.g., FT) or, in the absence of a difference, who participated first. Thus, only 151 dyads were included. Mothers ranged in age from 19 to 45 years of age (M=32.35, SD=5.51). Toddlers ranged in age from 23 to 33 months (M=26.86, SD=2.00) and included 58.9% (n=89) males and 41.1% (n=62) females. Mothers’ reports of their own and their toddlers’ race/ethnicity revealed that our sample was 93.8%/86% European American, 3.5%/1.4% Asian, Asian American, or Pacific Islander, 0.7%/1.4% Black or African American, 0.7%/1.4% Latina, 0.7%/0% Native American, and 0.7% “other race/ethnicity” for mothers and 9.8% multiracial for toddlers. Mean and median values of household gross annual income were within the range of $51,000 – 60,000, with 22.6% of participants reporting less than $20K/year. Mothers were college-educated on average (M=15.29 years, SD=2.61); 18.6% of participants reported a high school education or less.

Procedure

All study procedures were approved by the campus’s institutional review board.

Age 2 laboratory visit.

Mothers were recruited from flyers at local establishments (farmers’ markets, pediatrician’s offices, daycare centers), through the mail based on birth announcements in local newspapers, and in person at a local Women, Infants, and Children office in a small Midwestern city. Some mothers had previously participated in an earlier time point and were invited to return for the age 2 visit, and others were newly recruited. After indicating interest, the dyad was scheduled for a visit and sent a consent form and a battery of questionnaires assessing toddler temperament, maternal emotions, and maternal level of worry.

Mother-toddler dyads then came into the laboratory for a 2.5 to 3 hour visit. First, the primary research assistant (E1) oriented the mother and toddler to the laboratory and explained the procedures. E1 consented the dyad by explaining the risks and benefits of participating in the study and emphasizing the voluntary nature of participation and the option to discontinue at any point without affecting compensation. E1 encouraged mothers to share any concerns that arose during the visit. E1 then explained how to apply the wireless heart rate monitor and the electrodes using the traditional 3-lead formation. Mothers also wore a respiration belt. After time to apply the equipment in privacy, the primary research assistant ensured that the ECG and respiration signals were received by a Biopac MP150 system, and the mother sat until 5 full minutes of clean data was recorded. The mother was seated at a table and asked to limit her movement during the baseline recording. Then the mother-child dyad participated in a battery of activities to assess parenting behaviors, toddler temperament, and responses to novelty, which were all recorded for later scoring. The mother wore the ECG monitor and respiration belt throughout the laboratory visit. Of important note, the dyads were given a small break in between tasks to reduce any possible carry-over effects from previous episodes. This consisted of the dyad returning to the waiting room for several minutes where toddlers could play with the toys in the waiting room, and mothers could interact with their child and/or relax in a comfortable chair while the research assistants set up for the next task in the adjacent room.

The laboratory activities were designed to elicit individual differences in toddlers’ reactions to novel situations and were modeled after standardized protocols from the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (Lab-TAB; Buss & Goldsmith, 2000) and additional studies in the literature (e.g., Buss, 2011). Although the mother-child dyads engaged in a large battery of tasks (in a standardized order), only two tasks will be detailed as part of the current study. The first episode, Risk Room, provided the observational measure of FT. The room contained a tunnel, trampoline, balance beam, black box with a face and cut-out mouth with teeth, and a lion mask on a pedestal. Mothers were asked to minimize their interactions with their toddlers, and toddlers were told that they could play freely. After 3 minutes, E1 returned and asked the toddler to engage with each activity. For the Clown episode, from which overprotection was scored, mothers were told that they could act naturally for the entirety of the episode. Toddlers were invited to engage with a friendly clown, played by a second experimenter (E2), for a 5-minute period. This episode followed a standardized script in which the friendly clown (dressed in a clown outfit with a wig and a red nose) would offer the toddler a chance to play with bubbles, a beach ball, and musical instruments, lasting 1 min each. She invited the toddler to clean up the toys with her before leaving. This episode occurred approximately half-way through the larger laboratory visit. After completing remaining episodes, toddlers were given a small gift, and mothers were compensated $50 for their time and debriefed.

Separate teams of coders scored FT from Risk Room and overprotective parenting from clown. Coders reach a minimum threshold of reliability (kappa or intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC]≥ .80) with a master coder before coding independently. The master coder double-scored 20% of cases and met regularly with coders to maintain coder reliability.

Age 3 Laboratory Visit.

Approximately one year after their age 2 visit, participants returned to the laboratory for a follow-up visit involving questionnaires and a similar battery of tasks. We currently include only the clown episode, following the age 2 procedure and coding.

Measures

Maternal anxiety.

Mothers completed the 21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) to assess anxiety symptoms. The DASS has adequate construct validity and good test-retest reliability (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995). The anxiety scale measures subjective experiences of anxious arousal, situational anxiety, and autonomic arousal (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995). Mothers were asked to indicate how often each statement applied to them over the past week on a 0 (did not apply to me at all) to 3 (applied to me very much) scale. Only the 7-item anxiety subscale (alpha=.84; e.g., “I felt scared without any good reason) was used in the current study. Following standard scoring procedures, relevant items were summed and multiplied by two to derive the final scores.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia

Mother’s ECG data was recorded using AcqKnowledge software (Bates, 1991) at a sample rate of 1000 Hz. Text files of raw ECG data for the baseline and clown episode were extracted and then cleaned using the QRSTool program (Allen et al., 2007). Log RSA values were calculated in 1-minute intervals for baseline and clown via the partnered CMetX program. The algorithm calculating RSA within CMetX results in a 12-second data loss on either end of the selected interval, so 1 minute was selected to ensure that there were at least 30 seconds of analyzable data for each interval. Intervals that contained greater than 10% of beats missing or two adjacent missing heartbeats were not analyzed. Log RSA values were averaged across epochs, separately for baseline and clown.

Overprotective behaviors.

Mothers were scored for overprotective and comforting behaviors during the clown episode. After achieving reliability with a master coder, trained coders recorded mothers’ protective (i.e., shielding child from stimulus) and comforting (i.e., soothing and physically affectionate behaviors) behaviors on a 0 (no display) to 3 (intense/prolonged display) scale each 10-sec epoch of the episode. Examples of comforting behaviors included touching the child (scored a 1), rubbing the child’s back (scored a 2), and giving the child a hug or a kiss (scored a 3). Examples of protective behaviors included shielding (scored a 1), pointedly physically guiding the child away from the clown (scored a 2), and picking up the child or backing away from the clown (scored a 3). Other maternal behaviors were coded, such as intrusiveness (e.g., pushing the child towards the stimulus when it is clear the child may be hesitant to approach), but were not utilized in the current study. Inter-rater reliability between coders and a master coder was calculated at the level of epoch and was found to be excellent (comforting ICC=.94; protective ICC=.90). Comforting and protective behaviors were each averaged across epochs. The mean of comforting and protective averages (age 2: r = .41, p < .001; age 3: r = .49, p < .001) yielded the overprotection variable at ages 2 and 3. Of note, change over time in overprotection was investigated in the analyses.

Child fearful temperament.

The Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire - Short Form (ECBQ; Putnam et al., 2006) measured mothers’ perceptions of toddler FT. The measure consists of 107 items evaluating 18 domains of temperament relevant to toddlers between the ages of 18 and 36 months. Mothers rated how frequently a specific behavior occurred during the previous 2 weeks on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (always). Of the 18 subscales, only the 5-item Shyness subscale (e.g., “In situations where s/he is meeting new people, how often did your child turn away”) and 8-item Fear subscale (e.g., “During everyday activities, how often did your child seem frightened for no apparent reason”) were used. This instrument has shown adequate reliability and construct validity (Putnam et al., 2006), and both scales showed adequate internal consistency in the current study (Shyness α = .78, Fear α = .77). A composite between toddler shyness and fear (r = .42, p < .001) was created to use as a measure of FT.

An observational measure of child FT was derived from behaviors scored in the Risk Room episode. Toddlers were coded for four inhibited behaviors including latency to touch the first object (ICC= .99), the number of objects touched, ranging from 0 to 5 (kappa = .87 to 1.00), time (in seconds) spent playing (ICCs = .85 to .95), and time (in seconds) spent within two feet of their mothers while not playing (ICCs= .96 to .99). These behaviors were coded continuously, frame by frame, using Interact coding software (Mangold, 2017). These variables were standardized and (after reversing time spent playing and number of objects touched) averaged (alpha= .83), with higher scores representing higher FT.

Analysis Plan

Maternal RSA reactivity was calculated by residualizing clown RSA on baseline RSA (Alkon et al., 2003). While a difference score between baseline and task can be interpretated as positive scores reflecting increases in activity from baseline to stressor and negative scores reflecting decreases in activity from baseline to stressor, a residual score reflects whether a person’s RSA during a task is higher or lower than expected, given the person’s baseline score (Cronback & Furby, 1970). The residual score cannot be interpreted directly as an increase or decrease in RSA from baseline to stressor, because the true meaning of the score depends on the predicted values given the baseline scores. The benefit of calculating the residual score for RSA reactivity is that it accounts for variability in observed baseline scores, thus representing a “baseline-corrected” change score (Burt & Obradović, 2013). Despite these differences in interpretation, difference scores and residual scores are typically highly correlated (Burt & Obradović, 2013) and were in our sample (r = .97). Additionally, baseline RSA was highly related to clown RSA in the regression used to get the residualized scores (ß = 0.73, t = 10.82, p <.001), suggesting that the RSA residual scores used in this sample can be interpreted similarly to RSA difference scores. Therefore, in our data a positive standardized residual score suggests clown RSA is higher than expected given the baseline value (i.e., RSA augmentation) whereas a negative standardized residual score indicates clown RSA was lower than expected given the baseline value (i.e., RSA suppression). Next, we followed Enders et al. (2014) to test interactions in the context of multiple imputation. Main effects and the interaction term were included in the imputation algorithm. Then, terms were re-centered within each imputation set. This provides a consistent zero point for probing of interactions (Enders et al., 2014). Using the imputed dataset, we tested the hypothesized interaction using a top-down approach, such that the interaction, with main effects in the model, was investigated first. We planned that if the interaction was significant, it would be probed at ± 1 standard deviation, and if the interaction was not significant, it would be dropped, and the main effects would be interpreted. Both the self-report measure of child FT and the observational measure of child FT were included as covariates to test relations above the established association between child FT (an indicator of anxiety risk) and overprotection. Age 2 overprotection was also included as a covariate to test change over time in overprotection. All analyses were computed in SPSS.

Results

Preliminary Analyses

Descriptive statistics for all variables are presented in Table 1. The dependent variable for primary analyses (age 3 overprotective behavior) demonstrated a normal distribution (skew <3.00). Several demographic variables that could relate to level of maternal overprotective behaviors at age 3 (family income, maternal education, number of siblings of the target child, child age, maternal age, child race, and maternal race) were investigated as possible covariates. Prior to imputation, none of these variables were related to the outcome variable, and thus were not used in further analyses (except for maternal education – see below).

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics for Predictors, Moderators, Covariates and Outcome Variables

Variable M SD Range
Maternal Education 15.29 2.61 9.00–21.00
Age 2 Maternal Overprotective Behaviors 0.10 0.14 0.00–0.66
Observed Child FT 0.02 0.84 −1.23–2.63
Maternal Report of Child FT 3.08 0.92 1.15–5.69
Maternal Anxiety 3.37 6.07 0.00–34.00
Maternal RSA Reactivity 0.00 1.02 −2.85–2.87
Maternal Baseline RSA 5.33 0.99 2.44–7.94
Maternal Clown RSA 5.78 1.12 2.76–8.68
Age 3 Maternal Overprotective Behaviors 0.07 0.13 0.00–0.63
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Note. Descriptive statistics were obtained using raw data. Maternal education was measured using number of years of education. RSA reactivity represented standardized residuals and was mean centered. Maternal overprotective behaviors for age 2 and age 3 were scored on a 0 to 3 scale with averages taken across 10s epochs of the clown episode, yielding weighted proportion scores. Higher scores represent a higher proportion of overprotection. FT = fearful temperament.

†

p <.10,

*

p <.05,

**

p <.01

Missing Data

Of the 151 dyads, 15 (9.9%) were missing anxiety, 47 (31.1%) were missing RSA data, and 46 (30.5%) were missing age 3 overprotective behaviors. For the RSA data, participant values were missing because participants completed the study before we had our biopac system (i.e., n = 21), the dyad did not come into the lab for a visit (n = 8), RSA data was too messy to clean (n = 8), there were technological problems with the heart rate monitor and/or recording system (n = 7), the dyad did not complete the clown episode (n = 2), and the participant declined to wear the heartrate monitor (n = 1). Little’s MCAR (missing completely at random) test revealed that the pattern of missing data did not deviate significantly from the MCAR pattern (χ2[61] = 59.96 p = .623). Participants missing age 3 observed overprotective behaviors differed in maternal years of education (t[138] = −3.16, p = .002, Cohen’s d = 0.54) and in age 2 observed overprotective behavior (t[110.26] = −2.48, p = .015, Cohen’s d = 0.47), but no other demographic or primary variables. On average, participants that were missing age 3 observed overprotective behavior had lower maternal years of education and lower age 2 overprotective behavior. Therefore, these variables were included in the imputation algorithm and all primary analyses. Although physiological data is less typically imputed, there is growing precedence for multiple imputation of physiological data (Morales et al., 2015; Zhang & Wang, 2019). Multiple imputation with 20 imputations was performed (Graham et al., 2007) and pooled estimates of statistics are reported, representing the weighted averages across the 20 imputations. Bivariate relations were calculated from the imputed dataset with a final sample size of 151 (Table 2).

Table 2.

Bivariate Correlations for Predictors, Moderators, Covariates and Outcome Variables

Variable 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Maternal Education −.05 −.05 −.10 −.24† −.11 −.11
2. Age 2 Maternal Overprotective Behaviors - .25** .29** .08 −.09 .21*
3. Observed Child FT - - .15† .01 −.08 .19†
4. Maternal Report of Child FT - - - .30** −.12 .18†
5. Maternal Anxiety - - - - −.24* −.04
6. Maternal RSA Reactivity - - - - - −.03
7. Age 3 Maternal Overprotective Behaviors - - - - - -
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Note. N=151. FT = fearful temperament. Observed child FT represented the average of four standardized variables. RSA reactivity represented standardized residuals.

†

p<.10,

*

p <.05,

**

p <.01

Moderation Analysis

It was hypothesized that the relation between maternal anxiety and maternal overprotective behaviors would be dependent on maternal RSA reactivity. To test this hypothesis, maternal anxiety, maternal RSA, and the cross-product of maternal anxiety and maternal RSA reactivity were entered as predictors of age 3 overprotective parenting behaviors in a multiple linear regression, along with the covariates of maternal education, observed child FT, maternal report of child FT, and age 3 overprotective behaviors. We found that the interaction term was significant (see Table 3)1. Probing revealed that there was no relation between maternal anxiety symptoms and RSA reactivity at mean levels of RSA reactivity (b = 0.00, SE = 0.003, 95% CI = [−0.00, 0.01], t(150) = 1.54, p = .126, sr2 = .02). However, a positive relation between maternal anxiety and age 3 overprotective behaviors occurred at +1 SD of maternal RSA reactivity (b = 0.01, SE = 0.01, 95% CI = [0.00, 0.02], t(150) = 2.71, p = .009, sr2= .09) and a negative relation occurred between maternal anxiety and age 3 overprotective behaviors at −1 SD of maternal RSA reactivity (b = −0.01, SE = 0.002, 95% CI = [−0.01, −0.00], t(150) = −2.44, p = .016, sr2= .04). There was indeed an interaction between maternal anxiety and RSA reactivity predicting maternal overprotective behavior. In line with hypotheses, at high levels of RSA reactivity (i.e., augmentation), higher levels of maternal anxiety predicted relative increases in overprotective parenting. At low levels of RSA reactivity (i.e., RSA suppression), higher levels of maternal anxiety predicted relative decreases in overprotective parenting.

Table 3.

Summary of Regression Models with Age 3 Overprotective Behaviors as the Outcome and RSA as the Moderator

Variable b (SE) 95% CI t p sr 2
Intercept 0.19(0.09) 0.02, 0.36 2.23 .03* -
Maternal education −0.01(0.01) −0.02, 0.00 −1.37 .18 .02
Age 2 maternal overprotective behaviors 0.11(0.09) −0.07, 0.29 1.24 .22 .01
Observed child FT 0.01(0.02) −0.02, 0.05 0.78 .44 .01
Maternal report of child FT 0.02(0.01) −0.01, 0.05 1.44 .15 .01
Maternal anxiety 0.00(0.003) −0.00, 0.01 1.54 .13 .02
Maternal RSA −0.00(0.01) −0.03, 0.02 −0.07 .95 .00
Maternal anxiety X maternal RSA 0.01(0.003) 0.00, 0.02 3.32 .00** .17
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Note. N=151. Statistics were derived from pooled estimates of parameters in line with the recommendations of (Enders et al., 2014). Continuous predictors were centered at their means post imputation. FT = fearful temperament.

*

p <.05,

**

p <.01

Discussion

The current literature identifies maternal anxiety as a predictor of overprotective parenting (Bögels & van Melick, 2004; Root et al., 2016). However, other studies have shown conflicting results (e.g., Moore et al., 2004), suggesting that maternal anxiety may be most relevant to overprotective parenting only in certain contexts. Maternal RSA reactivity, a marker of physiological regulation, has been associated with parenting (Mills-Koonce et al., 2009; Moore et al., 2009) and may serve as moderator of the relation between maternal anxiety and overprotective parenting. The current study sought to test maternal RSA as a moderator of the relation between maternal anxiety and overprotective parenting.

Results of this study showed that maternal anxiety and maternal RSA reactivity interacted to predict overprotective parenting behaviors. At low levels of RSA reactivity (i.e., RSA suppression), high maternal anxiety predicted relative decreases in overprotection. At high levels of RSA reactivity (i.e., augmentation), high maternal anxiety predicted relative increases in overprotection. In other words, when mothers with higher levels of anxiety augmented during the clown task, they engaged in more overprotection one year later. RSA augmentation generally reflects the maintenance of homeostasis rather than allowing for the mobilization of resources to help the body behaviorally respond to a challenge (Porges, 2007; Thayer & Lane, 2000). Our findings are in line with literature suggesting that RSA augmentation reflects emotion dysregulation in the context of threatening situations (Graziano & Derefinko, 2013). In the current study, the clown episode presents a novel environment, and it is likely that mothers with anxious symptoms were more likely to view the episode as threatening, despite the episode being conceptualized as low-threat for the child (Buss, 2011). It would be in line with theory to interpret that in our sample, when mothers had high levels of anxiety symptoms and RSA augmentation, they were showing emotion dysregulation that may have led to overprotection.

When mothers with anxiety symptoms suppressed during the clown task, they engaged in lower levels of overprotective parenting one-year later. If mothers are interpreting the clown task as threatening, RSA suppression may have helped them to regulate their emotions and refrain from engaging in maladaptive parenting. This is because RSA suppression typically relates to adaptive coping in the face of potentially threatening or difficult challenges (Porges, 2007). When there is a challenge, RSA suppression prepares the body by allocating metabolic resources away from maintaining homeostasis and towards mobilizing resources to help the body to behaviorally respond to the challenge (Porges, 2007; Thayer & Lane, 2000). Along these lines, RSA suppression during challenging tasks is a marker of self-regulatory processes, and it has been associated with more adaptive parent reported ER (Porges, 2007; Thayer & Lane, 2000). Our findings are in line with these theories. In response to the novel situation in the current study, mothers with anxiety symptoms that showed RSA suppression may have been showing greater self-regulation, which may have kept them from engaging in overprotective parenting. Our findings also fit with studies on RSA reactivity from the parenting literature that have found that RSA suppression during stressful parent-child interactions was related to less intrusive (Mills-Koonce et al., 2009) and more sensitive parenting behaviors (Moore et al., 2009). Although we are unable to interpret the amount that the mothers in the current study felt threatened by the clown episode, measuring the effects of RSA reactivity on overprotective parenting behaviors across different levels of threat is an important direction for future research.

Limitations and Future Directions

Limitations in the current study should be acknowledged. First, the sample consisted of predominately European American, middle-class families, with traditional two-parent households. Future studies should investigate how results may generalize to more diverse backgrounds, such as across various ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses, and family structures. Additionally, given the role child temperament plays in soliciting overprotective behaviors from caretakers (Kiel & Buss, 2012), the current study aimed to understand the unique contribution maternal characteristics play in overprotective parenting by controlling for child influences. Future studies should focus on understanding the bidirectional influences maternal characteristics (e.g., maternal physiology and maternal anxiety) and child temperament play in maternal overprotective parenting behavior. Additionally, the current study did not distinguish between solicited and unsolicited overprotective behaviors, which may have differential effects on child outcomes. Comforting behaviors elicited by the child (i.e., solicited comforting) relates to anxiety development for fearful children (Kiel & Buss, 2012) but unsolicited comforting behaviors relate to a cortisol response in children, above and beyond solicited comforting and toddlers’ level of fear (Kalomiris & Kiel, 2016). When comforting is solicited it can reinforce to the child that his or her fear is warranted, but when comforting is unsolicited, the unpredictability of the behavior may induce stress in the child. In future research it will be important to test maternal characteristics in relation to solicited versus unsolicited comforting behaviors, due to the differential effects of these behaviors on child outcomes.

Another limitation was the incorporation of only self-reported measures of maternal anxiety. The presence of anxiety has been theorized to introduce reporter bias of behavior (De Los Reyes et al., 2013). As such, relying solely on self-reported measures may not provide the most accurate measure of anxiety in mothers, such that some may over-report while others may underreport their experiences and behavior. Utilizing a more multimethod approach (e.g., father’s report on mother’s anxiety, diagnostic interview of maternal anxiety) in addition to maternal self-report may help more holistically conceptualize these maternal characteristics.

Another limitation is we used multiple imputation for missing physiological data in addition to other variables. Although missing data is common in datasets with observational and survey data, physiological data is less typically imputed. Perhaps mitigating some concern, the percentage missing in the current dataset was within the percentage recommended for imputation by Graham (2009), and there is growing precedence for multiple imputation of physiological data (Zhang & Wang, 2019). Also related to missing data, participants that were missing age 3 observed overprotective behavior had lower age 2 overprotection. Given that we are likely missing a second time point from many mothers that engaged in lower overprotection at age 2, it is possible that our data is biased towards results for mothers engaging in higher overprotection, rather than mothers engaging in a wider spectrum of overprotective behaviors. However, inclusion of age 2 overprotection in the imputation algorithm and in primary analyses using imputed data mitigates the negative effect of this relation.

Best practices for measuring RSA recommends minimal motion, which was not feasible while observing RSA reactivity, as mothers were moving during the episodes. However, it is also best practice not to have confounds in the difference between the baseline and the task (i.e., child presence, talking; Burt & Obradović, 2013). Therefore, we made sure that our baseline resembled our task by having the child present and the mother being allowed to talk during both, in order to avoid confounds. Further, while cleaning the RSA data, the current study removed artifacts predicted to be related to movement and/or poor signal. Lastly, the current study only utilized one measure of maternal physiology, through testing RSA, a measure of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Studies commonly test the stress response through examining either the ANS or the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis (Rotenberg & McGrath, 2016). However, the ANS and HPA axis are interconnected and have highly coordinated processes (Rotenberg & McGrath, 2016). In response to a stressor in the environment, activation of the ANS and HPA axis occurs in a coordinated sequence and these two processes work together to prepare the body to respond adaptively. Thus, examination of the ANS in isolation limits the ability to interpret findings. Future research is needed to test the interplay between the ANS and the HPA axis.

Conclusion

The current study tested maternal RSA as a moderator of the relation between maternal anxiety and overprotective parenting. Results indicated that maternal RSA reactivity predicted greater overprotection under the condition of high RSA reactivity and predicted lower overprotection under the condition of low RSA reactivity. Our results contribute to the literature by indicating that multiple maternal characteristics should be considered in testing factors that contribute to parenting. Additionally, results suggest that RSA suppression may protect against overprotection for mothers with anxiety symptoms, while RSA augmentation may put these mothers at risk for overprotection. Parenting interventions for child anxiety prevention should target mothers at risk for overprotection due to traits such as anxiety and RSA reactivity. Many parenting interventions for child anxiety involve psychoeducation for overprotection. However, because maternal anxiety and RSA reactivity may contribute to greater use of these behaviors, parenting interventions should consider providing resources and incorporating components of mental health care for parents in addition to providing psychoeducation about overprotection.

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

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Maternal RSA reactivity moderated the relation between maternal anxiety and overprotective parenting behaviors.

*p < .05

Footnotes

Declaration of Interest Statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to report.

1

We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting we include the outcome of age 2 overprotective parenting. Using the unimputed data set, the interaction between maternal anxiety and maternal RSA reactivity was not significant in relation to age 2 overprotective parenting behavior (b = −.002; SE = .004, t = −0.76, p = .654, CI = [−.01, .01]).

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