TY - JOUR
T1 - Emotions and family interactions in childhood
T2 - Associations with leukocyte telomere length emotions, family interactions, and telomere length
AU - Robles, Theodore F.
AU - Carroll, Judith E.
AU - Bai, Sunhye
AU - Reynolds, Bridget M.
AU - Esquivel, Stephanie
AU - Repetti, Rena L.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by a Research Grant (9333) from the William T. Grant Foundation , a UCLA Academic Senate Faculty Research Grant, and the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology ; preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by T32MH015750 . We would like to thank Paul Chung, Richard Slatcher, and Gayla Margolin for their invaluable contributions to the project. Most of all, we want to thank the parents and children in the UCLA Families and Health study for their participation, and the graduate students, laboratory staff, and undergraduate research assistants for their efforts. The financial sponsors had no role in the study design, collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data, writing of the report, or decision to submit the article for publication.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd.
PY - 2016/1/1
Y1 - 2016/1/1
N2 - Conceptualizations of links between stress and cellular aging in childhood suggest that accumulating stress predicts shorter leukocyte telomere length (LTL). At the same time, several models suggest that emotional reactivity to stressors may play a key role in predicting cellular aging. Using intensive repeated measures, we tested whether exposure or emotional "reactivity" to conflict and warmth in the family were related to LTL. Children (N= 39; 30 target children and 9 siblings) between 8 and 13 years of age completed daily diary questionnaires for 56 consecutive days assessing daily warmth and conflict in the marital and the parent-child dyad, and daily positive and negative mood. To assess exposure to conflict and warmth, diary scale scores were averaged over the 56 days. Mood "reactivity" was operationalized by using multilevel modeling to generate estimates of the slope of warmth or conflict scores (marital and parent-child, separately) predicting same-day mood for each individual child. After diary collection, a blood sample was collected to determine LTL. Among children aged 8-13 years, a stronger association between negative mood and marital conflict, suggesting greater negative mood reactivity to marital conflict, was related to shorter LTL (B = -1.51, p< .01). A stronger association between positive mood and marital affection, suggesting positive mood reactivity, was related to longer LTL (B = 1.15, p < .05). These effects were independent of exposure to family and marital conflict and warmth, and positive and negative mood over a two-month period. To our knowledge, these findings, although cross-sectional, represent the first evidence showing that link between children's affective responses and daily family interactions may have implications for telomere length.
AB - Conceptualizations of links between stress and cellular aging in childhood suggest that accumulating stress predicts shorter leukocyte telomere length (LTL). At the same time, several models suggest that emotional reactivity to stressors may play a key role in predicting cellular aging. Using intensive repeated measures, we tested whether exposure or emotional "reactivity" to conflict and warmth in the family were related to LTL. Children (N= 39; 30 target children and 9 siblings) between 8 and 13 years of age completed daily diary questionnaires for 56 consecutive days assessing daily warmth and conflict in the marital and the parent-child dyad, and daily positive and negative mood. To assess exposure to conflict and warmth, diary scale scores were averaged over the 56 days. Mood "reactivity" was operationalized by using multilevel modeling to generate estimates of the slope of warmth or conflict scores (marital and parent-child, separately) predicting same-day mood for each individual child. After diary collection, a blood sample was collected to determine LTL. Among children aged 8-13 years, a stronger association between negative mood and marital conflict, suggesting greater negative mood reactivity to marital conflict, was related to shorter LTL (B = -1.51, p< .01). A stronger association between positive mood and marital affection, suggesting positive mood reactivity, was related to longer LTL (B = 1.15, p < .05). These effects were independent of exposure to family and marital conflict and warmth, and positive and negative mood over a two-month period. To our knowledge, these findings, although cross-sectional, represent the first evidence showing that link between children's affective responses and daily family interactions may have implications for telomere length.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2015.10.018
DO - 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2015.10.018
M3 - Article
C2 - 26551267
AN - SCOPUS:84949818996
SN - 0306-4530
VL - 63
SP - 343
EP - 350
JO - Psychoneuroendocrinology
JF - Psychoneuroendocrinology
ER -
