Lecture 17 - Current Big Findings

“Baby exposure to air pollution is linked with increased mental health risks in adolescence” What was it asking?

Is exposure to air and noise pollution in pregnancy, childhood, and adolescence associated with the development of psychotic experiences, depression, and anxiety between 13 and 24 years of age?

What was the design of the air pollution study?

• longitudinal

• Linkage analysis: home address from

  pregnancy - 12 years of age, linked to fine

  particulate matter (PM2.5) and noise

  pollution.

• 9000 involved in the study

• mostly white

What were the results of the baby air pollution study?

• Mean exposure levels are well above the WHO thresholds for air.

• Over 2/3 of the population were exposed to high or very high noise pollution

• Higher PM2.5 in pregnancy and childhood was associated

  with greater odds of experience a psychotic disorder

  between 13-24 years of age

• Higher PM2.5 in pregnancy was associated with greater

  odds of experiencing a depressive disorder between 13-24

  years of age

• Higher noise pollution in childhood was associated with

  greater odds of experiencing an anxiety disorder between

  13-24 years of age

What are concepts fro class that relate to the baby air pollution study?

➤ Prenatal programming

➤ Sensitive periods

➤ Impact of neighborhoods and environment on the child

Emotional regulation and ADHD: What was it asking?

Do self-regulation symptoms result from problems with

cognition and motivation? Or are they independent of these?

• Comorbidity with depression (1/50 cases) and anxiety (1/4

  cases)

• Suggests some people with ADHD also have self-regulation

  difficulties

What was the design of the ADHD and self regulation study?

• ABCD data set - adolescent brain cognitive development

• 350 individuals in the cohort of 6,053 who were above the clinical cutoff

  for ADHD

• Parents answered questions like:

  ➤ When my child is upset, he/she has difficulty controlling his/her

  behaviours.

  ➤ When my child is upset, he/she knows that he/she can find a way to

  eventually feel better.

  ➤ When my child is upset, he/she starts to feel very bad about him/

  herself.

What were the results of the ADHD and regulation study?

• 50% of the high symptom group showed signs of emotional dysregulation

• Pathway to future ADHD if emotion dysregulation high but ADHD low

How is the ADHD and emotional regulation study connected to concepts we learned in class?

• Cascading impacts: Emotion dysregulation is linked to inability to attend and hyperactivity later on

• Heterogenous profiles in mental health disorders

• There is much to be learned in developmental psychology

“Family stress processes underlying economic insecurity impact

children’s mental health” study: What was it asking?

What are the family-level processes through which COVID-19

financial impacts might affect children’s mental health?

What was the design of the family affects of stress on the child study?

Online Prolific study

• Research panels like Prolific are being used more in Psychology research

➤ Launched in March 2020

➤ US nationality 18 years of age or older (N 259 parents)

• Follow up 1 - April 14 2020

• Follow up 2 - April 30 2020

➤ Low income were oversampled for the follow ups

What were the finding on the study about the effects on family stress on a child?

Economic hardship -> parental depressive symptoms -> interparental conflict -> harsh parenting -> child maladjustment.

How does the study about the effects on family stress on a child relate to concepts from class?

• Developmental effects can cascade over time to result in outcomes.

• Parent processes are tightly linked to and buffer children’s exposure to larger economic events.

• Family support can have a large impact on children.

• Bronfenbrenner and family systems

• Interventions

“Parental Burnout in the West - can granny help ?” What was this study asking about?

• Parental Burnout: “intense exhaustion related to parenting, emotional distancing from one’s children, a loss of pleasure and efficacy in one’s parental role, and a contrast between previous and current parental self”

  • linked to increased parental involvement, intensive

    parenting, child overprotection, child optimization

• Does parental burnout differ across cultures?

• Does grandparental investment reduce emotional and behavioral problems in children resulting from facing multiple adverse early life experiences?

  • Cooperative breeding - such as grandparental care in humans and some other mammal species, is believed to have evolved partly in order to cope with challenging environments

What was the design of the parental burnout study?

• 17,409 parent participants across 42 countries

• Measured parental burnout and cultural values: power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation, indulgence

The cooperative parenting one:

• English and Welsh adolescents (N= 817 to 1197)

What were the findings of the parental burnout study?

• Prevalence of parental burnout differed dramatically across cultures

  • Most associated with individualistic cultures

    • More than economic inequalities or other individual and family characteristics

Of the cooperative parenting:

• maternal grandma acts as a buffer between adverse events an its negative impact on a child

How does the study about parentla burnout and cooperative parenting relate to topics from class?

• Extended family networks

• Evolutionary psychology

• Development is probabilistic, not deterministic