Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T07:46:53.215Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Codevelopment of externalizing and internalizing symptoms in middle to late childhood: Sex, baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity as predictors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2013

J. Benjamin Hinnant*
Affiliation:
Catholic University of America
Mona El-Sheikh
Affiliation:
Auburn University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Ben Hinnant, Department of Psychology, 303 O'Boyle Hall, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC 20064; E-mail: [email protected].

Abstract

We investigated the roles of sex and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), an index of autonomic parasympathetic nervous system activity, as predictors of codeveloping externalizing and internalizing symptoms in middle childhood. We expected that sex, baseline RSA (RSA-B), and RSA reactivity (RSA-R) to two types of tasks would interact to differentiate co-occurring trajectories of symptoms. We tested these hypotheses by combining longitudinal data from two independent samples (n = 390; 210 girls, 180 boys) with repeated measures at ages 8, 9, 10, and 11. RSA-R was measured in response to a socially stressful and frustrating stressor. Indicators of growth in externalizing and internalizing symptoms were derived from multiple domain growth models and used in person-centered growth mixture analyses. Three groups of externalizing and internalizing trajectories were found. Profile membership was predicted by several two-way interactions among sex, RSA-B, or RSA-R but was not predicted by three-way interactions. Children with low RSA-B and strong RSA withdrawal, girls with low RSA-B, and girls with strong RSA withdrawal were more likely to be on a developmental trajectory of low externalizing symptoms and moderately elevated internalizing symptoms. Membership in the high externalizing and high internalizing trajectory was predicted by weak RSA withdrawal for boys and strong RSA withdrawal for girls. The type of stressor task also played a role in predicting probability of profile membership. Results are discussed in the context of developmental psychobiology and implications for the codevelopment of psychopathology symptoms in childhood.

Type
Regular Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acock, A. C. (2005). Working with missing values. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67, 10121028.Google Scholar
Angold, A., & Costello, E. J. (1993). Depressive comorbidity in children and adolescents: Empirical, theoretical, and methodological issues. American Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 17791791.Google ScholarPubMed
Angold, A., Costello, E. J., & Erkanli, A. (1999). Comorbidity. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 40, 5787.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bauer, D. J., & Curran, P. J. (2003). Distributional assumptions of growth mixture models: Implications for overextraction of latent trajectory classes. Psychological Methods, 8, 338363.Google Scholar
Bauer, D. J., & Curran, P. J. (2004). The integration of continuous and discrete latent variable models: Potential problems and promising opportunities. Psychological Methods, 9, 329.Google Scholar
Beauchaine, T. (2001). Vagal tone, development, and Gray's motivational theory: Toward an integrated model of autonomic nervous system functioning in psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 13, 183214.Google Scholar
Beauchaine, T. P. (2009). Commentary: Some difficulties in interpreting psychophysiological research with children. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 74, 8088.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beauchaine, T. P., Gatzke-Kopp, L., & Mead, H. K. (2007). Polyvagal theory and developmental psychopathology: Emotion dysregulation and conduct problems from preschool to adolescence. Biological Psychology, 74, 174184.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beauchaine, T. P., Hong, J., & Marsh, P. (2008). Sex differences in autonomic correlates of conduct problems and aggression. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 47, 788796.Google Scholar
Beauchaine, T. P., Klein, D. N., Crowell, S. E., Derbridge, C., & Gatzke-Kopp, L. (2009). Multifinality in the development of personality disorders: A Biology × Sex × Environment interaction model of antisocial and borderline traits. Development and Psychopathology, 21, 735770.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berntson, G. G., Bigger, J. T. Jr., Eckberg, D. L., Grossman, P., Kaufmann, P. G., Malik, M., et al. (1997). Heart rate variability: Origins, methods, and interpretive caveats. Psychophysiology, 34, 623648.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berntson, G. G., Cacioppo, J. T., & Grossman, P. (2007). Whither vagal tone. Biological Psychology, 74, 295300.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berthoud, H. R., & Neuhuber, W. L. (2000). Functional and chemical anatomy of the afferent vagal system. Autonomic Neuroscience: Basic and Clinical, 85, 117.Google Scholar
Bird, H. R., Gould, M. S., & Staghezzi, B. M. (1993). Patterns of diagnostic comorbidity in a community sample of children aged 9 through 16 years. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 32, 361368.Google Scholar
Blandon, A. Y., Calkins, S. D., Keane, S. P., & O'Brien, M. (2008). Individual differences in trajectories of emotion regulation processes: The effects of maternal depressive symptomatology and children's physiological regulation. Developmental Psychology, 44, 11101123.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boyce, W. T., Quas, J., Alkon, A., Smider, N. A., Essex, M. J., & Kupfer, D. J. (2001). Autonomic reactivity and psychopathy in middle childhood. British Journal of Psychiatry, 179, 144150.Google Scholar
Boylan, K., Vaillancourt, T., Boyle, M., & Szatmari, P. (2007). Comorbidity of internalizing disorders in children with oppositional defiant disorder. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 16, 484494.Google Scholar
Brendgen, M., Vitaro, F., Bukowski, W. M., Doyle, A. B., & Markiewicz, D. (2001). Developing profiles of peer social preference over the course of elementary school: Associations with trajectories of externalizing and internalizing behavior. Developmental Psychology, 37, 308320.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Butler, E. A., Wilhelm, F. H., & Gross, J. J. (2006). Respiratory sinus arrhythmia, emotion, and emotion regulation during social interaction. Psychophysiology, 43, 612622.Google Scholar
Calkins, S. D., & Dedmon, S. E. (2000). Physiological and behavioral regulation in two-year-old children with aggressive/destructive behavior problems. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 28, 103118.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Calkins, S. D., Dedmon, S. E., Gill, K. L., Lomax, L. E., & Johnson, L. M. (2002). Frustration in infancy: Implications for emotion regulation, physiological processes, and temperament. Infancy, 3, 175197.Google Scholar
Calkins, S. D., Graziano, P. A., & Keane, S. P. (2007). Cardiac vagal regulation differentiates among children at risk for behavior problems. Biological Psychology, 74, 144153.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Calkins, S. D., & Keane, S. P. (2004). Cardiac vagal regulation across the preschool period: Stability, continuity, and implications for childhood adjustment. Developmental Psychobiology, 45, 101112.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chen, E., Matthews, K. A., Salomon, K., & Ewart, C. K. (2002). Cardiovascular reactivity during social and nonsocial stressors: Do children's personal goals and expressive skills matter? Health Psychology, 21, 1624.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cicchetti, D., & Gunnar, M. R. (2008). Integrating biological measures into the design and evaluation of preventive interventions. Development and Psychopathology, 20, 737743.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cicchetti, D., & Rogosch, F. A. (2002). A developmental psychopathology perspective on adolescence. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 70, 620.Google Scholar
Crick, N. R., & Zahn-Waxler, C. (2003). The development of psychopathology in females and males: Current progress and future challenges. Development and Psychopathology, 15, 719742.Google Scholar
Curran, P. J., Stice, E., & Chassin, L. (1997). The relation between adolescent alcohol use and peer alcohol use: A longitudinal random coefficients model. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 65, 130140.Google Scholar
Dekovic, M., Buist, K. L., & Reitz, E. (2004). Stability and changes in problem behavior during adolescence: Latent growth analysis. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 33, 112.Google Scholar
Del Giudice, M., Ellis, B. J., & Shirtcliff, E. A. (2011). The adaptive calibration model of stress responsivity. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 35, 15621592.Google Scholar
Del Giudice, M., Hinnant, J. B., Ellis, B. J., & El-Sheikh, M. (2012). Adaptive patterns of stress responsivity: A preliminary investigation. Developmental Psychology, 48, 775790.Google Scholar
Duncan, S. C., Duncan, T. E., & Hops, H. (1996). Analysis of longitudinal data within accelerated longitudinal designs. Psychological Methods, 1, 236248.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, N., Valiente, C., Spinrad, T. L., Cumberland, A., Liew, J., Reiser, M., et al. (2009). Longitudinal relations of children's effortful control, impulsivity, and negative emotionality to their externalizing, internalizing, and co-occurring behavior problems. Developmental Psychology, 45, 9881008.Google Scholar
El-Sheikh, M., Harger, J., & Whitson, S. (2001). Exposure to parental conflict and children's adjustment and physical health: The moderating role of vagal tone. Child Development, 72, 16171636.Google Scholar
El-Sheikh, M., & Hinnant, J. B. (2011). Marital conflict, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and allostatic load: Interrelations and associations with the development of children's externalizing behavior. Development and Psychopathology, 23, 815829.Google Scholar
El-Sheikh, M., Hinnant, J. B., & Erath, S. (2011). Developmental trajectories of delinquency symptoms in childhood: The role of marital conflict and autonomic nervous system activity. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 120, 1632.Google Scholar
El-Sheikh, M., Kouros, C. D., Erath, S., Cummings, E. M., Keller, P., & Staton, L. (2009). Marital conflict and children's externalizing behavior: Interactions between parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system activity. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 74(1, Serial No. 231).Google Scholar
Fanti, K. A., & Henrich, C. C. (2010). Trajectories of pure and co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems from age 2 to age 12: Findings from the national institute of child health and human development study of early child care. Developmental Psychology, 46, 11591175.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flom, P. L., & Strauss, S. M. (2003). Some graphical methods for interpreting interactions in logistic and OLS regression. Instrument Validation, 29, 17.Google Scholar
Forbes, E. E., Fox, N. A., Cohn, J. F., Galles, S. F., & Kovacs, M. (2006). Children's affect regulation during a disappointment: Psychophysiological responses and relation to parent history of depression. Biological Psychology, 71, 264277.Google Scholar
Galambos, N. L., Barker, E. T., & Almeida, D. M. (2003). Parents do matter: Trajectories of change in externalizing and internalizing problems in early adolescence. Child Development, 74, 578594.Google Scholar
Gazelle, H., & Druhen, M. J. (2009). Anxious solitude and peer exclusion predict social helplessness, upset affect, and vagal regulation in response to behavioral rejection by a friend. Developmental Psychology, 45, 10771096.Google Scholar
Gentzler, A. L., Santucci, A. K., Kovacs, M., & Fox, N. A. (2009). Respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity predicts emotion regulation and depressive symptoms in at-risk and control children. Biological Psychology, 82, 156163.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilliom, M., & Shaw, D. S. (2004). Codevelopment of externalizing and internalizing problems in early childhood. Development and Psychopathology, 16, 313333.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Graziano, P. A., Keane, S. P., & Calkins, S. D. (2007). Cardiac vagal regulation and early peer status. Child Development, 78, 264278.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hankin, B. L., Wetter, E., & Cheely, C. (2008). Sex differences in child and adolescent depression: A developmental psychopathological approach. In Abela, J. R. Z. & Hankin, B. L. (Eds.), Handbook of child and adolescent depression (pp. 377414). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Hastings, P. D., Nuselovici, J. N., Utendale, W. T., Coutya, J., & Sullivan, C. (2008). Applying the polyvagal theory to children's emotion regulation: Social context, socialization, and adjustment. Biological Psychology, 79, 299306.Google Scholar
Hayes, A. F., & Matthes, J. (2009). Computational procedures for probing interactions in OLS and logistic regression: SPSS and SAS implementations. Behavior Research Methods, 41, 924936.Google Scholar
Hinnant, J. B., & El-Sheikh, M. (2009). Children's externalizing and internalizing symptoms over time: The role of individual differences in patterns of RSA responding. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 37, 10491061.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hollenstein, T., Granic, I., Stoolmiller, M., & Snyder, J. (2004). Rigidity in parent–child interactions and the development of externalizing and internalizing behavior in early childhood. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 32, 595607.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hollingshead, A. B. (1975). Four Factor Index of Social Status. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
James, E. M., Reynolds, C. R., & Dunbar, J. (1994). Self-report instruments. In Ollendick, T. H., King, N. J., & Yule, W. (Eds.), International handbook of phobic and anxiety disorders in children and adolescents (pp. 317330). New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Keiley, M. K., Bates, J., Dodge, K., & Pettit, G. (2000). A cross-domain analysis: Externalizing and internalizing behaviors during 8 years of childhood. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 28, 161179.Google Scholar
Kovacs, M., & Beck, A. T. (1977). The wish to die and the wish to live in attempted suicides. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 33, 361365.Google Scholar
Kovacs, M., Paulauskas, S., Gatsonis, C., & Richards, C. (1988). Depressive disorders in childhood III: A longitudinal study of comorbidity with and risk for conduct disorders. Journal of Affective Disorders, 15, 205217.Google Scholar
Kreibig, S. D. (2010). Autonomic nervous system activity in emotion: A review. Biological Psychology, 84, 394421.Google Scholar
Lachar, D., & Gruber, C. P. (2001). Personality Inventory for Children: Second edition (PIC-2). Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services.Google Scholar
Lane, R. D., McRae, K., Reiman, E. M., Chen, K., Ahern, G. L., & Thayer, J. F. (2009). Neural correlates of heart rate variability during emotion. NeuroImage, 44, 213222.Google Scholar
Matthews, K. A., Rakaczky, C. J., Stoney, C. M., & Manuck, S. B. (1987). Are cardiovascular responses to behavioral stressors a stable individual difference variable in childhood? Psychophysiology, 24, 464473.Google Scholar
Matthews, K. A., Woodall, K. L., & Stoney, C. M. (1990). Changes in and stability of cardiovascular responses to behavioral stress: Results from a four-year longitudinal study of children. Child Development, 61, 11341144.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mauss, I. B., & Robinson, M. D. (2009). Measures of emotion: A review. Cognition & Emotion, 23, 209237.Google Scholar
McEwen, B. S., & Stellar, E. (1993). Stress and the individual: Mechanisms leading to disease. Annals of Internal Medicine, 153, 20932102.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McLachlan, G. J., & Peel, D. (2000). Finite mixture models. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Mehta, P. D., & West, S. G. (2000). Putting the individual back into individual growth curves. Psychological Methods, 5, 2343.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Muthen, B. (2003). Statistical and substantive checking in growth mixture modeling: Comment on Bauer and Curran (2003). Psychological Methods, 8, 369377.Google Scholar
Muthen, B. (2004). Latent variable analysis: Growth mixture modeling and related techniques for longitudinal data. In Kaplan, D. (Ed.), Handbook of quantitative methodology for the social sciences. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Nagin, D. S. (1999). Analyzing developmental trajectories: A semiparametric, group-based approach. Psychological Methods, 4, 139157.Google Scholar
Nagin, D. S. (2005). Group-based modeling of development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nylund, K. L., Asparouhov, T., & Muthen, B. O. (2007). Deciding on the number of classes in latent class analysis and growth mixture modeling: A Monte Carlo simulation study. Structural Equation Modeling, 14, 535569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Obradovic, J., Bush, N. R., & Boyce, W. T. (2011). The interactive effect of marital conflict and stress reactivity on externalizing and internalizing symptoms: The role of laboratory stressors. Development and Psychopathology, 23, 101114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oveis, C., Cohen, A. B., Gruber, J., Shiota, M. N., Haidt, J., & Keltner, D. (2009). Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia is associated with tonic positive emotionality. Emotion, 9, 265270.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peng, C. J., Lee, K. L., & Ingersoll, G. M. (2002). An introduction to logistic regression analysis and reporting. Journal of Educational Research, 96, 314.Google Scholar
Porges, S. W. (1995). Cardiac vagal tone: A physiological index of stress. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 19, 225233.Google Scholar
Porges, S. W. (2003). The Polyvagal theory: Phylogenetic contributions to social behavior. Physiology & Behavior, 79, 503513.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Porges, S. W. (2007). The polyvagal perspective. Biological Psychology, 74, 116143.Google Scholar
Reynolds, C. R., & Richmond, B. O. (1978). What I think and feel: A revised measure of children's manifest anxiety. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 6, 271280.Google Scholar
Saper, C. B. (2002). The central autonomic nervous system: Conscious visceral perception and autonomic pattern generation. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 25, 433469.Google Scholar
Saul, J. P. (1990). Beat-to-beat variations of heart rate reflect modulation of cardiac autonomic outflow. News in Physiological Sciences, 5, 3237.Google Scholar
Sildberg, J., Rutter, M., Meyer, J., Maes, H., Hewitt, J., & Loeber, R. (1996). Genetic and environmental influences on the covariation between hyperactivity and conduct disturbance in juvenile twins. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 37, 803816.Google Scholar
Singer, J. D., & Willett, J. B. (2003). Applied longitudinal data analysis: Modeling change and event occurrence. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stanger, C., Achenbach, T. M., & Verhulst, F. C. (1994). Accelerating longitudinal research on child psychopathology: A practical example. Psychological Assessment, 6, 102107.Google Scholar
Steinberg, L., & Avenevoli, S. (2000). The role of context in the development of psychopathology: A conceptual framework and some speculative propositions. Child Development, 71, 6674.Google Scholar
Sterba, S. K., & Bauer, D. J. (2010). Matching method with theory in person-oriented developmental psychopathology research. Development and Psychopathology, 22, 239254.Google Scholar
Suess, P. E., Porges, S. W., & Plude, D. J. (1994). Cardiac vagal tone and sustained attention in school-age children. Psychophysiology, 31, 1722.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thayer, J. F., & Lane, R. D. (2009). Claude Bernard and the heart–brain connection: Further elaboration of a model of neurovisceral integration. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 33, 8188.Google Scholar
Ulrich-Lai, Y. M., & Herman, J. P. (2009). Neural regulation of endocrine and autonomic stress responses. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10, 397409.Google Scholar
van Goozen, S. H. M., & Fairchild, G. (2008). How can the study of biological processes help design new interventions for children with severe antisocial behavior? Development and Psychopathology, 20, 941973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vasilev, C. A., Crowell, S. E., Beauchaine, T. P., Mead, H. K., & Gatzke-Kopp, L. M. (2009). Correspondence between physiological and self-report measures of emotion dysregulation: A longitudinal investigation of youth with and without psychopathology. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50, 13571364.Google Scholar
Whisman, M. A., & McClelland, G. H. (2005). Designing, testing, and interpreting interactions and moderator effects in family research. Journal of Family Psychology, 19, 111120.Google Scholar
Wiesner, M., & Kim, H. K. (2006). Co-occurring delinquency and depressive symptoms of adolescent boys and girls: A dual trajectory modeling approach. Developmental Psychology, 42, 12201235.Google Scholar
Wirt, R. D., Lachar, D., Klinedinst, J. K., & Seat, P. S. (1990). Personality Inventory for Children—Revised. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services.Google Scholar
Zahn-Waxler, C. (1993). Warriors and worriers: Gender and psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 5, 7989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zahn-Waxler, C., Shirtcliff, E. A., & Marceau, K. (2008). Disorders of childhood and adolescence: Gender and Psychopathology. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 4, 275303.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed