Maternal Emotional and Physiological Reactivity: Implications for Parenting and the Parenting–Adolescent Relationship

Objectives Parent physiology and emotion may play an important role in parenting and parent-child relationship quality, yet little research has examined these associations in parents of adolescents. This study employed a naturalistic laboratory-based approach to observe maternal reactivity (mothers' cardiovascular and negative emotional responses) during a parent-adolescent interaction task (PAIT) and associations with parenting behavior and parent-adolescent relationship quality. We also examined possible indirect effect of maternal reactivity on parent-adolescent relationship quality through parenting variables. Methods Mothers (n = 196) of 12-14 year olds completed the PAIT, a 10-minute laboratory task in which mothers and adolescents discussed a family conflict topic. Mother-rated negative emotional experience, mother heart rate (HR), and systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) responses to PAIT were collected. Additionally, observed maladaptive and positive parenting during PAIT and reported parent adolescent relationship quality were collected. Results We found that mothers' heightened negative emotional experience in PAIT was associated with heightened observed and reported maladaptive parenting and lower parent-adolescent relationship quality (p