Cited by 56Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional DevelopmentChild Abuse and TraumaStress Responses and Cortisol

Early adversity and children's emotion regulation: Differential roles of parent emotion regulation and adversity exposure

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Milojevich, Helen M., Machlin, Laura, Sheridan, Margaret A.·2020·Development and Psychopathology

Abstract

Exposure to early life adversity (ELA) is associated with increased rates of psychopathology and poor physical health. The present study builds on foundational work by Megan Gunnar identifying how ELA results in poor long-term outcomes through alterations in the stress response system, leading to major disruptions in emotional and behavioral regulation. Specifically, the present study tested the direct effects of ELA against the role of parent socialization to shed light on the mechanisms by which ELA leads to emotion regulation deficits. Children ages 4–7 years ( N = 64) completed interviews about their experiences of deprivation and threat, a fear conditioning and extinction paradigm, and an IQ test. Parents of the children completed questionnaires regarding their own emotion regulation difficulties and psychopathology, their children's emotion regulation, and child exposure to adversity. At the bivariate level, greater exposure to threat and parental difficulties with emotion regulation were associated with poorer emotion regulation in children, assessed both via parental report and physiologically. In models where parental difficulties with emotion regulation, threat, and deprivation were introduced simultaneously, regression results indicated that parental difficulties with emotion regulation, but not deprivation or threat, continued to predict children's emotion regulation abilities. These results suggest that parental socialization of emotion is a robust predictor of emotion regulation tendencies in children exposed to early adversity.

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Authors
Milojevich, H. M., Machlin, L., & Sheridan, M. A.
Affiliations
  • University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (US)
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
Corresponding author
Milojevich, Helen M.
Venue
Development and Psychopathology
Published
2020-12
Volume
32
Issue
5
Pages
1788-1798
ISSN
  • 0954-5794 (ISSN-L)
  • 1469-2198
OpenAlex
W3119210016
Cited by
56
References
78
Citations by year
2026: 13 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 1
FWCI
2.09
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Development and Psychopathology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) (submittedVersion)
  • UNC Libraries
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health (5r01mh115004-05)
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (T32-HD07376)
  • National Institute of Mental Health (R01‐MH115004)
  • National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (T32HD007376)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
Keywords
childhood adversity, emotion regulation, parental emotion regulation, parental socialization, threat exposure, deprivation, fear conditioning, extinction, stress system, child psychopathology, early childhood
MeSH terms
Emotional Regulation, Child, Child, Preschool, Emotions, Family, Humans, Parents, Socialization

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