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Our study investigated the contribution of caregiving identity in the association between marital satisfaction and coparenting quality in fathers and mothers from a sample of opposite-sex couples of young children living in different areas of the United States. We conducted nested Actor-Partner Interdependence Models and moderation tests to examine potential differences between fathers and mothers in associations between marital satisfaction and coparenting quality, as well as the role of caregiving identity in the association. Results confirmed gender differences in the association between marital satisfaction and coparenting. Both mother's and father's caregiving identity interacted with their own marital satisfaction, but these interactions only impacted the coparenting quality reported by mothers. Additionally, caregiving identity in fathers and mothers was associated with the coparenting quality reported by their spouses. Our study highlighted the important role of caregiving identity in understanding the relation between marital satisfaction and coparenting quality in the intrafamilial processes of couples with young children.
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While parenting children with difficult behaviors can intensify stress within the entire family system, families may lean on other familial relationships to mitigate that stress. The coparenting relationship is known to play a key role within the family system for child outcomes and familial interactions, but it is not clear whether it eases the stress and challenge of raising a difficult child, nor how that plays out differently for mothers versus fathers. Ninety-six couples (89.7% married) parenting young children (Mean age = 3.22 years) were included in this study. Using cross-sectional and aggregated daily response data, actor-partner interdependence models were used to examine how mothers' and fathers' perceived coparenting support lessened or intensified parenting stress and/or daily problems with their child/children-for themselves or their parenting partner. We found that greater coparenting support reported by mothers coincided with stronger links between the mother's report of child difficulty and daily problems encountered by both mothers and fathers. In contrast, when fathers reported greater coparenting support, the intensity between reported child difficulty and daily problems decreased for mothers, and fathers reported lower parenting stress. Coparenting support also moderated associations between parents' perception of child difficulty and daily problems with their children. These results suggest that mothers incur heightened coparenting support from fathers when experiencing more difficult child behavior and that coparenting support experienced by fathers may alleviate parenting challenges for mothers. These findings further contribute to the literature by emphasizing distinct differences between mothers and fathers in coparenting associations within the family system.
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Across vertebrates, testosterone is an important mediator of reproductive trade-offs, shaping how energy and time are devoted to parenting versus mating/competition. Based on early environments, organisms often calibrate adult hormone production to adjust reproductive strategies. For example, favorable early nutrition predicts higher adult male testosterone in humans, and animal models show that developmental social environments can affect adult testosterone. In humans, fathers' testosterone often declines with caregiving, yet these patterns vary within and across populations. This may partially trace to early social environments, including caregiving styles and family relationships, which could have formative effects on testosterone production and parenting behaviors. Using data from a multidecade study in the Philippines (n = 966), we tested whether sons' developmental experiences with their fathers predicted their adult testosterone profiles, including after they became fathers themselves. Sons had lower testosterone as parents if their own fathers lived with them and were involved in childcare during adolescence. We also found a contributing role for adolescent fatherson relationships: sons had lower waking testosterone, before and after becoming fathers, if they credited their own fathers with their upbringing and resided with them as adolescents. These findings were not accounted for by the sons' own parenting and partnering behaviors, which could influence their testosterone. These effects were limited to adolescence: sons' infancy or childhood experiences did not predict their testosterone as fathers. Our findings link adolescent family experiences to adult testosterone, pointing to a potential pathway related to the intergenerational transmission of biological and behavioral components of reproductive strategies.
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Relaciones Padre-Hijo , Responsabilidad Parental , Testosterona , Adulto , Niño , Humanos , Masculino , Núcleo Familiar , FilipinasRESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Depression is a concern during pregnancy, but it is especially prevalent for pregnant adolescents. Because prenatal depression is a strong predictor of postpartum depression and other forms of psychopathology in both mothers and children, it is important to understand potential risk and protective factors for prenatal depression. OBJECTIVES: The present study examined whether social support buffered the impact of childhood trauma on prenatal depression, and whether social support exerted a stronger buffering effect for adolescents compared to adults. METHOD: Self-reported levels of childhood trauma, social support, and prenatal depression were collected in a racially and ethnically diverse sample of 682 first-time mothers, 58% were adolescents (n = 396; Mage = 17.38 years) and 42% were adults (n = 286; Mage = 26.29 years). RESULTS: Using multi-group moderation analyses, we found that pregnant adolescents with more social support were buffered from the effects of childhood trauma on prenatal depression symptoms, but pregnant adults with more social support were not. CONCLUSION: Findings support the stress-buffering model in that those with more stressors may benefit more from social support than those with fewer stressors. These results highlight the importance of social support and inform prenatal depression prevention/intervention strategies particularly with pregnant adolescents.
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Experiencias Adversas de la Infancia , Depresión , Embarazo , Adulto , Adolescente , Niño , Femenino , Humanos , Depresión/diagnóstico , Madres Adolescentes , Factores de Riesgo , Apoyo SocialRESUMEN
Little is known about human fathers' physiology near infants' births. This may represent a period during which paternal psychobiological axes are sensitive to fathers' new experiences of interacting with their newborns and that can provide insights on how individual differences in fathers' biology relate to post-partum parenting. Drawing on a sample of men in South Bend, IN (U.S.), we report results from a longitudinal study of fathers' oxytocin, cortisol, and testosterone (N = 211) responses to their first holding of their infants on the day of birth and men's reported caregiving and father-infant bonding at 2-4 months post-partum (N = 114). First-time fathers' oxytocin was higher following first holding of their newborns, compared to their pre-holding levels. Contrasting with prior results, fathers' percentage change in oxytocin did not differ based on skin-to-skin or standard holding. Drawing on psychobiological frameworks, we modeled the interactions for oxytocin reactivity with testosterone and cortisol reactivity, respectively, in predicting father-infant outcomes months later. We found significant cross-over interactions for (oxytocin × testosterone) in predicting fathers' later post-partum involvement and bonding. Specifically, we found that fathers whose testosterone declined during holding reported greater post-partum play if their oxytocin increased, compared to fathers who experienced increases in both hormones. We also observed a similar non-significant interaction for (oxytocin × cortisol) in predicting fathers' post-partum play. Fathers whose testosterone declined during holding also reported less involvement in direct caregiving and lower father-infant bonding if their oxytocin decreased but greater direct care and bonding if their testosterone increased and oxytocin decreased. The results inform our understanding of the developmental time course of men's physiological responsiveness to father-infant interaction and its relevance to later fathering behavior and family relationships.
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Relaciones Padre-Hijo , Oxitocina , Responsabilidad Parental , Testosterona , Padre , Humanos , Lactante , Recién Nacido , Estudios Longitudinales , Masculino , Conducta Paterna/fisiologíaRESUMEN
Conflict and tension in the couple relationship transfers to the parent-child relationship, amplifying the stress parents experience while parenting young children. Pinpointing moderating and individual-level factors that exist in this spillover process may identify both couple and individual areas where spillover might be mitigated. This study used a within-couple approach to test for gender differences in marital-to-parenting spillover and to examine the moderating roles of gender, parental identity, and the emotion regulation strategy cognitive reappraisal in the linkages between marital-parenting spillover. From a larger study of parenting experiences, 96 mother-father couples of young children (mean age = 3.22 years) reported on measures of marital satisfaction, cognitive reappraisal, parenting identity, and parenting stress. Using path model comparisons, we found more similarities than differences between mothers and fathers and, contrary to the hypothesis, that mothers experienced greater spillover between marital satisfaction and parental distress than fathers. Results differed between outcome measures, suggesting that parents experience more spillover from marital satisfaction to parenting in the context of parental distress than in dysfunctional interactions with their child. Importantly, we found that higher parental identity strengthened marital-to-parenting spillover for mothers in contrast to expectations based on theoretical assumptions, whereas cognitive reappraisal weakened marital-to-parenting spillover, supporting the broader emotion regulation literature. These results signify the importance of situating the marriage to parenting transfer in the context of affective experiences and intensified parenting expectations, wherein flexibility in role identity may help alleviate parenting stress.
El conflicto y la tensión en la relación de pareja se traslada a la relación entre padres e hijos, lo cual intensifica el estrés que sufren los padres mientras crían a niños pequeños. La detección de los factores moderadores e individuales que existen en este proceso de desbordamiento puede identificar las áreas tanto a nivel de la pareja como individual donde el desbordamiento podría mitigarse. En este estudio se usó un enfoque dentro de la pareja para examinar las diferencias de género en el desbordamiento del matrimonio hacia la crianza de los niños y para analizar los roles moderadores del género, la identidad parental y la revaluación cognitiva de la estrategia de regulación emocional en las asociaciones entre el desbordamiento desde el matrimonio hacia la crianza. De un estudio más extenso de experiencias de crianza, 96 parejas de madres y padres de niños pequeños (edad promedio = 3.22 años) informaron medidas de satisfacción conyugal, revaluación cognitiva, identidad parental y estrés por la crianza. Utilizando comparaciones del modelo de pautas, encontramos más similitudes que diferencias entre las madres y los padres, y, contrariamente a la hipótesis, las madres experimentaron un mayor desbordamiento entre la satisfacción conyugal y el distrés parental que los padres. Los resultados variaron entre los criterios de valoración, lo cual indica que los padres experimentan más desbordamiento desde la satisfacción conyugal hacia la crianza en el contexto del distrés parental que en las interacciones disfuncionales con su hijo. Cabe destacar que descubrimos que una mayor identidad parental fortaleció el desbordamiento del matrimonio hacia la crianza en las madres en contraste con las expectativas basadas en supuestos teóricos, mientras que la revaluación cognitiva debilitó el desbordamiento desde el matrimonio hacia la crianza, lo cual respalda la bibliografía más amplia sobre regulación emocional. Estos resultados indican la importancia de ubicar el traslado desde el matrimonio a la crianza en el contexto de las experiencias afectivas y las expectativas de crianza intensificadas, donde la flexibilidad en la identidad de roles puede contribuir a aliviar el estrés por la crianza.
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Matrimonio , Responsabilidad Parental , Preescolar , Cognición , Padre , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Relaciones Padres-Hijo , PadresRESUMEN
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Evolutionary-grounded sleep research has been critical to establishing the mutual dependence of breastfeeding and nighttime sleep proximity for mothers and infants. Evolutionary perspectives on cosleeping also often emphasize the emotional motivations for and potential benefits of sleep proximity, including for parent-infant bonding. However, this potential link between infant sleep location and bonding remains understudied for both mothers and fathers. Moreover, in Euro-American contexts bedsharing has been linked to family stress and difficult child temperament, primarily via maternal reports. We know relatively little about whether paternal psychosocial dynamics differ based on family sleep arrangements, despite fathers and other kin often being present in the cosleeping environment across cultures. Here, we aim to help address some of these gaps in knowledge pertaining to fathers and family sleep arrangements. METHODOLOGY: Drawing on a sample of Midwestern U.S. fathers (N=195), we collected sociodemographic and survey data to analyze links between infant nighttime sleep location, paternal psychosocial well-being, father-infant bonding, and infant temperament. From fathers' reports, families were characterized as routinely solitary sleeping, bedsharing, or roomsharing (without bedsharing). RESULTS: We found that routinely roomsharing or bedsharing fathers, respectively, reported stronger bonding than solitary sleepers. Bedsharing fathers also reported that their infants had more negative temperaments and also tended to report greater parenting-related stress due to difficulties with their children. CONCLUSIONS: These cross-sectional results help to highlight how a practice with deep phylogenetic and evolutionary history, such as cosleeping, can be variably expressed within communities with the potential for family-dependent benefits or strains.
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Attachment security is theorized to shape stress reactivity, but extant work has failed to find consistent links between attachment security to mothers and infant cortisol reactivity. We examined family configurations of infant-mother and infant-father attachment security in relation to infant cortisol reactivity. One-year old infants (N = 180) participated in the Strange Situation with mothers and fathers in two counterbalanced lab visits, one month apart (12 and 13 months). Infants with secure attachments only to their fathers and not their mothers had higher cortisol levels than infants with a secure attachment to mother and also exhibited a blunted cortisol response (high at baseline and then a decrease after stress). Results suggest that a secure attachment to father may not be enough to reduce infant stress reactivity when the infant-mother attachment is insecure, and future research is needed to uncover the family dynamics that underlie different family configurations of attachment security.
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Relaciones Padre-Hijo , Hidrocortisona/análisis , Relaciones Madre-Hijo , Apego a Objetos , Estrés Psicológico/epidemiología , Adulto , Relaciones Familiares , Padre , Femenino , Humanos , Lactante , Estudios Longitudinales , Masculino , Madres , Embarazo , Factores Socioeconómicos , Estrés Psicológico/fisiopatologíaRESUMEN
We assessed parents' testosterone reactivity to the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP), a moderately stressful parent-infant interaction task that pulls for parental nurturance and caregiving behavior. Parents (146 mothers, 154 fathers) interacted with their 1-year-old infants, and saliva samples were obtained pre- and post-task to assess changes in testosterone. We examined whether testosterone reactivity differed between mothers and fathers, the extent to which parents' characteristic approaches to closeness (i.e., adult attachment orientation) contributed to testosterone changes, and whether any influences of adult attachment orientation were independent of more general personality characteristics (i.e., the Big Five personality dimensions). Results revealed that mothers and fathers showed comparable declines in testosterone during the SSP, and that these declines were attenuated among fathers with a more avoidant attachment orientation (i.e., those less comfortable with closeness). Associations between fathers' avoidance and testosterone reactivity were statistically independent of broader personality traits. Our findings provide some of the first evidence for short-term changes in both mothers' and fathers' testosterone in contexts that pull for nurturance. Moreover, these findings demonstrate that individual differences in adult attachment may play an important role in understanding such changes. We discuss possible explanations for gender differences in associations between adult attachment and parents' testosterone reactivity, and the extent to which testosterone reactivity might be sensitive to changes in context for mothers versus fathers.
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Reacción de Prevención/fisiología , Padre , Apego a Objetos , Conducta Paterna/fisiología , Estrés Psicológico , Testosterona/metabolismo , Adulto , Orden de Nacimiento/psicología , Padre/psicología , Femenino , Humanos , Individualidad , Lactante , Recién Nacido , Relaciones Interpersonales , Estudios Longitudinales , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Madres/psicología , Responsabilidad Parental/psicología , Padres/psicología , Personalidad/fisiología , Embarazo , Saliva/química , Saliva/metabolismo , Conducta Social , Estrés Psicológico/fisiopatología , Estrés Psicológico/psicología , Testosterona/análisis , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
OBJECTIVES: Research on the psychobiology of partnering and fathering has focused on testosterone (T), oxytocin, and prolactin (PRL) as mechanisms that potentially mediate life history trade-offs related to those roles. Less is known about other hormones that might be responsive to life history transitions and implicated in fathering, such as estradiol (E2). We examined how E2 changed during the transition to marriage and fatherhood, its correlation with fathers' caregiving, and its joint within-individual production with other hormones (T, PRL). METHODS: Data were collected from a total of 913 Filipino men (aged 25.9 years ± 0.3 SD at follow-up) enrolled in a longitudinal cohort study. Morning saliva samples collected at baseline (2005) and follow-up (2009) were assayed for T and E2 (n = 329), dried blood spots from baseline were assayed for PRL. Fathers reported on caregiving in 2009. RESULTS: When compared with men who remained single non-fathers over the study period, men who became married residential fathers experienced larger declines in E2. This effect was non-significant when we controlled for longitudinal changes in T. E2 was not significantly related to fathers' caregiving, controlling for T. In cross-sectional analyses for PRL, T, and E2, married residential fathers exhibited within-individual profiles of reduced T and elevated PRL, whereas single non-fathers exhibited the opposite profile of elevated T and reduced PRL. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings point to the need for future research to consider the mutually regulatory dynamics and/or combinatorial implications of multiple physiological axes acting within individuals to underpin life history trade-offs and behavioral strategies.
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Estradiol/metabolismo , Padre/psicología , Prolactina/sangre , Testosterona/metabolismo , Adulto , Estudios Transversales , Humanos , Estudios Longitudinales , Masculino , Filipinas , Saliva/química , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
Human paternal behavior is multidimensional, and extant research has yet to delineate how hormone patterns may be related to different dimensions of fathering. Further, although studies vary in their measurement of hormones (i.e., basal or reactivity), it remains unclear whether basal and/or reactivity measures are predictive of different aspects of men's parenting. We examined whether men's testosterone and cortisol predicted fathers' involvement in childcare and play with infants and whether fathers' testosterone and cortisol changed during fathers' first interaction with their newborn. Participants were 298 fathers whose partners gave birth in a UNICEF-designated "baby-friendly" hospital, which encourages fathers to hold their newborns 1â¯h after birth, after mothers engage in skin-to-skin holding. Salivary testosterone and cortisol were measured before and after fathers' first holding of their newborns. Basal and short-term changes in cortisol and testosterone were analyzed. Fathers were contacted 2-4â¯months following discharge to complete questionnaires about childcare involvement. Fathers' cortisol decreased during the time they held their newborns on the birthing unit. Fathers' basal testosterone in the immediate postnatal period predicted their greater involvement in childcare. Both basal and reactivity cortisol predicted fathers' greater involvement in childcare and play. Results suggest that reduced basal testosterone is linked with enhanced paternal indirect and direct parenting effort months later, and that higher basal cortisol and increases in cortisol in response to newborn interaction are predictive of greater paternal involvement in childcare and play, also months later. Findings are discussed in the context of predominating theoretical models on parental neuroendocrinology.
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Relaciones Padre-Hijo , Padre , Hidrocortisona/metabolismo , Parto/fisiología , Conducta Paterna/fisiología , Testosterona/metabolismo , Adulto , Padre/psicología , Femenino , Estudios de Seguimiento , Humanos , Hidrocortisona/análisis , Lactante , Recién Nacido , Masculino , Madres , Responsabilidad Parental/psicología , Padres , Parto/psicología , Conducta Paterna/psicología , Embarazo , Saliva/química , Saliva/metabolismo , Parejas Sexuales , Encuestas y Cuestionarios , Testosterona/análisis , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
A major task for parents during the transition to second-time parenthood is to help their firstborn adjust to their new roles as siblings. Increased father involvement has been theorized to be protective for firstborn adjustment. Fathers, however, are under increasing pressure to balance both work and family responsibilities. Here we evaluate fathers' relative involvement in two-child families as a function of family structure, gender role beliefs, and work-family conflict in 222 dual- and single-earner families from the Midwestern region of the United States after the birth of a second child. Couples reported on father involvement with firstborns and infants when the infants were 1, 4, 8, and 12 months old. On average, fathers increased their involvement with infants but decreased their involvement with firstborns. Dual-earner fathers were more involved with their children than single-earner fathers. Although mean levels of father involvement were different between dual- and single-earners, multi-group parallel process trajectory latent growth curve models revealed more similarities than differences between dual- and single-earners in processes guiding father involvement. Both dual- and single-earner fathers engaged in juggling childcare between children and both dual- and single-earner fathers' involvement with infants was constrained by work-family conflict. Gender role beliefs predicted child care involvement for dual-earner, but not single-earner fathers: more egalitarian gender roles predicted greater involvement with the firstborn immediately after the birth of the second child. Results underscore the need for greater workplace support for fathers' caregiving roles after the birth of an infant.
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Early life cues of environmental harshness and unpredictability have been hypothesized to influence within-species variation in the timing of life history transitions and the dynamics of reproductive strategies, such as investments in mating and parenting. It is also believed that adolesence is an influential developmental period for male reproductive strategies, with those who achieve greater social and sexual success during that period maintaining faster life history strategies into adulthood. If correct, such early life and post-pubertal experiences could also help shape the psychobiological pathways that mediate reproductive strategies, including the well documented physiological shifts that occur when some men become parents. Drawing on a large sample of Filipino men (n=417), we evaluate whether men who experienced cues of harshness or unpredictability in childhood or have earlier ages at sexual debut have elevated testosterone (T) as fathers. We also test whether males who experienced a combination of early life experiences of harshness or unpredictability and had earlier ages of sexual debut during adolescence had the most elevated T as fathers. We found that fathers who experienced early life harshness and who engaged in sex at an earlier age had elevated waking T. Among men transitioning to fatherhood across the 4.5-year follow-up period of this study, those who experienced unpredictability and who engaged in sex at an earlier age showed attenuated declines in waking T between baseline and follow-up. Complementing these findings, we found that fathers who first engaged in sex at later ages had greater acute declines in T when they played with their toddlers. We suggest that these patterns could reflect programming effects of sociosexual experiences during the years following the marked biological transitions that accompany puberty, which occur along with the better-studied effects of earlier life exposures to stressors. Overall, our results support the hypothesis that early life circumstances and social and sexual experiences, from early life to young adulthood, help calibrate physiological axes as key mechanisms coordinating dynamic life history strategies.
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Adultos Sobrevivientes de Eventos Adversos Infantiles , Padre , Conducta Paterna/fisiología , Conducta Sexual/fisiología , Testosterona/metabolismo , Adulto , Adultos Sobrevivientes de Eventos Adversos Infantiles/psicología , Preescolar , Padre/psicología , Estudios de Seguimiento , Humanos , Lactante , Masculino , Modelos Biológicos , Conducta Paterna/psicología , Fotoperiodo , Juego e Implementos de Juego , Saliva/metabolismo , Conducta Sexual/psicología , Medio Social , Seno Sagital SuperiorAsunto(s)
Conducta Infantil/psicología , Desarrollo Infantil , Emociones , Relaciones entre Hermanos , Hermanos/psicología , Niño , Preescolar , Humanos , InvestigaciónRESUMEN
This study examined changes in coparenting after the birth of a second child. Mothers and fathers from 241 2-parent families reported on their spouses' coparenting cooperation and conflict with their firstborn children before (prenatal) and 4 months after the birth of a second child. Parents completed prenatal questionnaires on their gender-role attitudes, marital satisfaction, and firstborn children's temperamental characteristics. Parents also reported on their second-born infants' temperaments at 1 month of age. Coparenting conflict increased across the transition, and cooperation decreased. Couples in which fathers reported greater marital satisfaction were more cooperative 4 months after the second birth. Firstborns' difficult temperaments contributed to less cooperative coparenting by both parents. When mothers had more traditional gender-role beliefs, fathers engaged in more conflictual coparenting behavior, and when fathers had more traditional gender-role beliefs, mothers engaged in more conflictual coparenting behavior. Mothers, but not fathers, engaged in more coparenting conflict regarding the firstborn when both the firstborn and infant sibling had difficult temperaments. (PsycINFO Database Record
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Conflicto Familiar/psicología , Padre/psicología , Conducta del Lactante/psicología , Madres/psicología , Responsabilidad Parental/psicología , Esposos/psicología , Temperamento , Adulto , Orden de Nacimiento , Preescolar , Femenino , Humanos , Lactante , Estudios Longitudinales , Masculino , Relaciones Padres-Hijo , Hermanos/psicología , Encuestas y CuestionariosRESUMEN
Positive father involvement is associated with positive child outcomes. There is great variation in fathers' involvement and fathering behaviors, and men's testosterone (T) has been proposed as a potential biological contributor to paternal involvement. Previous studies investigating testosterone changes in response to father-infant interactions or exposure to infant cues were unclear as to whether individual variation in T is predictive of fathering behavior. We show that individual variation in fathers' T reactivity to their infants during a challenging laboratory paradigm (Strange Situation) uniquely predicted fathers' positive parenting behaviors during a subsequent father-infant interaction, in addition to other psychosocial determinants of paternal involvement, such as dispositional empathy and marital quality. The findings have implications for understanding fathering behaviors and how fathers can contribute to their children's socioemotional development.
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Relaciones Padre-Hijo , Individualidad , Responsabilidad Parental , Conducta Paterna/fisiología , Testosterona/metabolismo , Adulto , Femenino , Humanos , Lactante , MasculinoRESUMEN
Patterns of marital change after the birth of a second child were explored in a sample of 229 married couples, starting in pregnancy, and at 1, 4, 8 and 12 months postpartum. Five trajectory patterns that reflected sudden, persistent decline (i.e., crisis), sudden, short-term decline (i.e., adjustment and adaptation), sudden, short-term gain (i.e., honeymoon effect), linear change, and no change were examined with dyadic, longitudinal data for husbands and wives. Six distinct latent classes emerged using growth mixture modeling: (a) wife decreasing positivity-husband honeymoon (44%), (b) wife increasing conflict-husband adjustment and adaptation (34.5%), (c) wife honeymoon-discrepant spouse positivity (7.4%), (d) wife adjustment and adaptation (6.9%), (e) couple honeymoon with discrepant positivity and negativity (5.2%) and (f) husband adjustment and adaptation (1.7%). Classes were distinguished by individual vulnerabilities (i.e., depression, personality), stresses associated with the transition (i.e., unplanned pregnancy), and adaptive processes (i.e., marital communication, social support). Marital communication, parental depression, and social support emerged as important targets for intervention that can assist parents planning to have additional children.
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Few fMRI studies have investigated the brain-behavioral basis of parenting in human fathers. Ten fathers were videotaped and gave salivary testosterone samples while interacting with their 2-4 months old infants, and viewed video clips of their own infant and an unfamiliar age-, ethnicity- and sex-matched other infant during an fMRI protocol. Infant stimuli activated a network of prefrontal and subcortical brain regions. Furthermore, a subset of these regions activated significantly more to own (OWN) than other (OTHER) infants. Finally, neural responses to OWN versus OTHER were linked with paternal sensitivity, paternal reciprocity, and testosterone. In sum, our results provide a novel perspective on the links between brain, behavior, and hormones in fathers.
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Encéfalo/fisiología , Relaciones Padre-Hijo , Padre/psicología , Conducta Paterna/psicología , Testosterona/sangre , Adulto , Mapeo Encefálico , Femenino , Neuroimagen Funcional , Humanos , Procesamiento de Imagen Asistido por Computador , Lactante , Imagen por Resonancia Magnética , Masculino , Responsabilidad Parental/psicologíaRESUMEN
Hormones, and hormone responses to social contexts, are the proximate mechanisms of evolutionary pathways to pair bonds and other social bonds. Testosterone (T) is implicated in tradeoffs relevant to pair bonding, and oxytocin (OT) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) are positively tied to social bonding in a variety of species. Here, we present the Steroid/Peptide Theory of Social Bonds (S/P Theory), which integrates T and peptides to provide a model, set of predictions, and classification system for social behavioral contexts related to social bonds. The S/P Theory also resolves several paradoxes apparent in the literature on social bonds and hormones: the Offspring Defense Paradox, Aggression Paradox, and Intimacy Paradox. In the S/P Theory, we partition aggression into antagonistic and protective aggression, which both increase T but exert distinct effects on AVP and thus social bonds. Similarly, we partition intimacy into sexual and nurturant intimacy, both of which increase OT and facilitate social bonds, but exert distinct effects on T. We describe the utility of the S/P Theory for classifying 'tricky' behavioral contexts on the basis of their hormonal responses using partner cuddling, a behavior which is assumed to be nurturant but increases T, as a test case of the S/P Theory. The S/P Theory provides a comparative basis for conceptualizing and testing evolved hormonal pathways to pair bonds with attention to species, context, and gender/sex specificities and convergences.