Child Effortful Control Moderates the Link Between Parenting Stress and Child Parasympathetic Regulation: Interactions Across Contexts and Measures

Figures

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  FIGURE 1. Summary of four path models testing combinations of parenting stress and child effortful control (EC) interactions and their associations with children's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during parent–child interaction (PCI) tasks and tasks completed independently (Solo). All estimates are depicted with standardized coefficients. Model 3 depicts a re‐specified model with freely estimated parameters to address poor fit. Covariation is depicted with curved double‐headed arrows. Solid single‐headed arrows indicate statistical significance. Dashed single‐headed arrows indicate nonsignificance. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

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  FIGURE 2. Plotted interactions (a) and regions of significance (b) for the association between parenting stress and children's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during dyadic parent–child tasks at levels of children's parent‐reported effortful control (EC) in Model 1 and levels of task‐assessed EC in Model 2. The Johnson–Neyman regions of significance are plotted for each respective model. The slope of parenting stress reached significance (p < 0.05) when parent‐reported EC was outside the interval [−1.00 SD, +1.10 SD] in Model 1 and when task‐assessed EC was <0.22 SD below the mean in Model 2. Parenting stress and both EC measures have been standardized for interpretability. n.s. = nonsignificant.

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  FIGURE 3. Plotted interactions (a) and regions of significance (b) for the association between parenting stress and children's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during independently completed tasks at levels of task‐assessed EC in Model 4. The plotted Johnson–Neyman regions of significance show that the slope of parenting stress was significant when task‐assessed EC was outside the interval [−0.52 SD, +1.37 SD]. Parenting stress and EC have been standardized for interpretability. n.s. = nonsignificant.