Inhibitory Control Mediates the Association between Perceived Stress and Secure Relationship Quality.

Toria Herd,Mengjiao Li,Brooks King-Casas,Jacob Lee,Jungmeen Kim-Spoon,Kirby Deater-Deckard,Dominique Maciejewski

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00217

Abstract

Past research has demonstrated negative associations between exposure to stressors and quality of interpersonal relationships among children and adolescents. Nevertheless, underlying mechanisms of this association remain unclear. Chronic stress has been shown to disrupt prefrontal functioning in the brain, including inhibitory control abilities, and evidence is accumulating that inhibitory control may play an important role in secure interpersonal relationship quality, including peer problems and social competence. In this prospective longitudinal study, we examine whether changes in inhibitory control, measured at both behavioral and neural levels, mediate the association between stress and changes in secure relationship quality with parents and peers. The sample included 167 adolescents (53% males) who were first recruited at age 13 or 14 years and assessed annually three times. Adolescents’ inhibitory control was measured by their behavioral performance and brain activities, and adolescents self-reported perceived stress levels and relationship quality with mothers, fathers, and peers. Results suggest that behavioral inhibitory control mediates the association between perceived stress and adolescent’s secure relationship quality with their mothers and fathers, but not their peers. In contrast, given that stress was not significantly correlated with neural inhibitory control, we did not further test the mediation path. Our results highlight the role of inhibitory control as a process through which stressful life experiences are related to impaired secure relationship quality between adolescents and their mothers and fathers.

Highlights

Though adolescence can be a difficult transitional period in which risks to both physical and mental health, including depression, substance abuse, and suicide increase (Dahl, 2004), adolescents who have secure relationships with both their parents and peers may be able to navigate this period more successfully (Nickerson and Nagle, 2005)
Given sex differences in the brain, including volumetric differences in areas related to executive functions and in interpersonal relationships that suggest that females are more sensitive to interpersonal cues (e.g., Rose and Rudolph, 2006; Gur and Gur, 2016), we explored differences in the patterns of the associations among perceived stress, inhibitory control, and secure relationship quality between males and females
Results indicated that rate of participation was not significantly predicted by demographic variables (p = 0.86 for age, p = 0.49 for income, p = 0.05 for sex, p = 0.20 for race, contrasted as White vs. non-White) or study variables at Time 1 (p = 0.40 for perceived stress, p = 0.49 for inhibitory control, p = 0.62 for mother relationship quality, p = 0.60 for father relationship quality, p = 0.87 for peer relationship quality)

Summary

Introduction

Though adolescence can be a difficult transitional period in which risks to both physical and mental health, including depression, substance abuse, and suicide increase (Dahl, 2004), adolescents who have secure relationships with both their parents and peers may be able to navigate this period more successfully (Nickerson and Nagle, 2005). With respect to peer relationships, children who have been rejected by their peers are more likely than non-rejected children to have been exposed to multiple chronic stressors, including financial strain, living with a single parent, violence in the home, parental divorce, and family illness (Bonn, 1995; Baldry, 2003; Mohr, 2006) These stressors seem to create cumulative risk for adverse peer relations, suggesting that these difficulties are visible to children’s peer groups and predictive of adjustment difficulties within that peer group (Bonn, 1995). Studies examining stressful life events on attachment outcomes indicate that caregiver stressful life events (e.g., abuse, neglect, divorce, caregiver death, and caregiver substance use) are associated with changes in attachment style over time (Waters et al, 2000; Weinfield et al, 2000)

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