Cited by 81Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional DevelopmentNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesChild and Animal Learning Development

Neural responses to maternal criticism in healthy youth

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Lee, Kyung Hwa, Siegle, Greg J., Dahl, Ronald E., Hooley, Jill M., Silk, Jennifer S.·2015·Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

Abstract

Parental criticism can have positive and negative effects on children's and adolescents' behavior; yet, it is unclear how youth react to, understand and process parental criticism. We proposed that youth would engage three sets of neural processes in response to parental criticism including the following: (i) activating emotional reactions, (ii) regulating those reactions and (iii) social cognitive processing (e.g. understanding the parent's mental state). To examine neural processes associated with both emotional and social processing of parental criticism in personally relevant and ecologically valid social contexts, typically developing youth were scanned while they listened to their mother providing critical, praising and neutral statements. In response to maternal criticism, youth showed increased brain activity in affective networks (e.g. subcortical-limbic regions including lentiform nucleus and posterior insula), but decreased activity in cognitive control networks (e.g. dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and caudal anterior cingulate cortex) and social cognitive networks (e.g. temporoparietal junction and posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus). These results suggest that youth may respond to maternal criticism with increased emotional reactivity but decreased cognitive control and social cognitive processing. A better understanding of children's responses to parental criticism may provide insights into the ways that parental feedback can be modified to be more helpful to behavior and development in youth.

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  • Perceived parental warmth is negatively correlated with neural activity in the temporoparietal junction and precuneus when healthy adolescents listened to maternal criticism.

    “Lee et al. (2014) found that perceived parental warmth was negatively correlated with neural activity in the temporoparietal junction and precuneus, social cognitive processing regions, when healthy adolescents (ages 9–17) listened to maternal criticism.”

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Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Dahl, R.E. (2004). Adolescent brain development: a period of vulnerabilities and oppor- tunities. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1021, 1-22.
  2. Steinberg, L., Silk, J.S. (2002). Parenting adolescents. In: Bornstein, M.H., editor. Handbook of Parenting, Vol 1: Children and Parenting. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, pp. 103-33.

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Authors
Lee, K. H., Siegle, G. J., Dahl, R. E., Hooley, J. M., & Silk, J. S.
Affiliations
Harvard University (US)
Venue
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
Published
2014-10-22
Volume
10
Issue
7
Pages
902-912
ISSN
  • 1749-5016 (ISSN-L)
  • 1749-5024
OpenAlex
W2149899215
Cited by
81
References
91
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 2
FWCI
5.13
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH091327)
  • National Institute on Drug Abuse (R21DA024144)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
Keywords
parental criticism, maternal criticism, youth, emotional reactivity, cognitive control, social cognition, theory of mind, limbic system, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, caudal anterior cingulate cortex, temporoparietal junction, parent-child interaction, emotion regulation
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Aging, Cerebral Cortex, Child, Cognition, Emotions, Female, Gyrus Cinguli, Humans, Limbic System, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Mothers, Nerve Net, Nervous System Physiological Phenomena, Parent-Child Relations, Social Perception, Prefrontal Cortex, Self Report

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