Publications by Colleges and Departments (MSU - Bozeman)
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Item Infant negativity moderates trajectories of maternal emotion across pregnancy and the peripartum period(Elsevier BV, 2023-01) Brooker, Rebecca J.; Mistry-Patel, Sejal; Kiel, Elizabeth J.; Liu, Shuling; Van Lieshout, Ryan J.; Schmidt, Louis A.; John-Henderson, NehaBackground. Although the effects of maternal behavior on the development of child emotion characteristics is relatively well-established, effects of infant characteristics on maternal emotion development are less well known. This gap in knowledge persists despite repeated calls for including child-to-mother effects in studies of emotion. We tested the theory-based postulate that infant temperamental negativity moderates longitudinal trajectories of mothers’ perinatal symptoms of anxiety and depression. Method. Participants were 92 pregnant community women who enrolled in a longitudinal study of maternal mental health; symptoms of anxiety and depression were assessed during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy and again at infant age 4 months. A multimethod assessment of infants’ temperament-based negative reactivity was conducted at infant age 4 months. Results. Maternal symptoms of anxiety showed smaller postnatal declines when levels of infant negativity were high. Mother rated and observed infant negative reactivity was related to smaller postnatal declines in maternal anxiety, while infant negative reactivity, at the level of neuroendocrine function, was largely unrelated to longitudinal changes in maternal anxiety symptoms. Infant negativity was related to early levels, but largely unrelated to trajectories of maternal symptoms of depression. Limitations. Limitations of this work include a relatively small and low-risk sample size, the inability to isolate environmental effects, and a nonexperimental design that precludes causal inference. Conclusions. Findings suggest that levels of infant negativity are associated with differences in the degree of change in maternal anxiety symptoms across the perinatal period.Item Associations Between Childhood Abuse and COVID-19 Hyperarousal in Adulthood: The Role of Social Environment(Frontiers Media SA, 2021-02) John-Henderson, Neha; Counts, Cory J.; Ginty, Annie T.Background: Childhood abuse increases risk for high levels of distress in response to future stressors. Interpersonal social support is protective for health, particularly during stress, and may be particularly beneficial for individuals who experienced childhood abuse. Objective: Investigate whether childhood abuse predicts levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and test whether the perceived availability of social companionship preceding the pandemic moderates this relationship. Methods: During Phase 1, adults (N = 120; Age M[SD] = 19.4 [0.94]) completed a retrospective measure of childhood adversity along with a measure of perceived availability of opportunities for social engagement immediately preceding the pandemic. Two weeks after the COVID-19 pandemic declaration, participants completed the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) with respect to the pandemic. Hierarchical linear regression analyses examined the interaction between childhood abuse and the perceived availability of social companionship preceding the pandemic as a predictor of PTSD symptoms. Results: Adjusting for covariates, the interaction between childhood abuse and perceived availability of others to engage with before the onset of the pandemic was a significant predictor of IES-hyperarousal (β = −0.19, t = −2.06, p = 0.04, ΔR2 = 0.032, CI: [−0.31 to −0.01]). Conclusion: Levels of perceived opportunities for social companionship before the pandemic associates with levels of hyperarousal related to the pandemic, particularly for individuals who experienced high levels of childhood abuse. More research is needed to understand how to mitigate the higher levels of distress related to the pandemic for these individuals in order to reduce risk for future psychiatric disorders.