| dc.description.abstract | Cognitive control, or the ability to voluntarily guide one's own behavior, continually improves throughout childhood (Luna et al., 2010). Over time, children move from reflexive and reactionary behaviors to greater control over volitional responses to environmental signals (Derryberry & Rothbart, 1988). Such shifts reflect developmental increases in proactive forms of cognitive control, where children are self-directed in their intentions to recruit cognitive control in anticipation of needing it for a task (Munakata et al., 2012). Better cognitive control in children positively predicts important life outcomes, such as success in school and the workplace (Blackwell & Munakata, 2014; Coldren, 2013). Postpartum anxiety syndromes, which affect 8.5% of mothers, negatively affect the development of cognitive control in offspring (Goodman et al., 2016; Reck et al., 2008). However, focus on unidirectional effects from mother to child ignores the true nature of the mother-child dyad, which comprises numerous bidirectional associations. Indeed, offspring characteristics that may make parenting more difficult can impact the course of maternal anxiety symptoms (Brooker et al., 2023), though such an association has not been investigated with regard to children’s developing cognitive control. The present study examined bidirectional associations between maternal anxiety symptoms and children’s cognitive control between children ages three and five years. During annual assessments, mothers completed surveys to measure anxiety symptoms. Scales from three separate surveys were used to form a latent variable reflecting maternal anxiety at each age. Electroencephalography (EEG) data was collected from children at each age during a computerized Go/No-Go Task. Event-related potentials were derived to assess cognitive control. We hypothesize that greater maternal anxiety will predict less cognitive control in children at subsequent assessments. We hypothesize that lower cognitive control in children will predict higher levels of maternal anxiety at subsequent assessments. This perspective offers a powerful and novel insight into the bidirectional relation between maternal and child development that can be leveraged to enhance outcomes for both members of the dyad. | |
