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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
published: 06 July 2018
doi: 10.3389/fmed.2018.00196
Frontiers in Medicine | www.frontiersin.org 1July 2018 | Volume 5 | Article 196
Edited by:
Marcelo Demarzo,
Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil
Reviewed by:
Daniela Rodrigues de Oliveira,
Escola Paulista de Medicina,
Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo,
Brazil
Dana McDevitt Shai,
Academic College Tel Aviv-Yaffo, Israel
*Correspondence:
Jessica L. Borelli
jessica.borelli@uci.edu
Specialty section:
This article was submitted to
Family Medicine and Primary Care,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Medicine
Received: 29 November 2017
Accepted: 14 June 2018
Published: 06 July 2018
Citation:
Borelli JL, Ensink K, Hong K,
Sereno AT, Drury R and Fonagy P
(2018) School-Aged Children With
Higher Reflective Functioning Exhibit
Lower Cardiovascular Reactivity.
Front. Med. 5:196.
doi: 10.3389/fmed.2018.00196
School-Aged Children With Higher
Reflective Functioning Exhibit Lower
Cardiovascular Reactivity
Jessica L. Borelli 1
*, Karin Ensink 2, Kajung Hong 1, Alexandra T. Sereno 2, Robert Drury 3,4, 5
and Peter Fonagy 6
1THRIVE Laboratory, Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States, 2Department
of Psychology, University Laval, Quebec, QC, Canada, 3Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, Bainbridge Island, WA,
United States, 4University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States, 5ReThink Health, Cambridge, MA,
United States, 6Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families & University College London, London, United Kingdom
Despite extensive theorizing regarding the regulatory role of reflective functioning (RF),
few studies have explored the links between RF and physiological indices of emotion
regulation, and none have examined these associations in children. Further, while
scholars contend that RF promotes resilience via enhanced ability to process emotional
experiences, including those occurring in attachment relationships, this argument has
seldom been tested empirically in children. In the current study, we explore the
association between RF and physiological measures of emotion reactivity and regulation,
as well as the interaction of RF and attachment insecurity. We test these associations by
examining children’s (N=76; 8–12 years old) cardiovascular responses [respiratory sinus
arrhythmia (RSA)] to a standardized paradigm designed to evoke reactions regarding
the experience and expression of attachment-related needs. Children also completed a
semi-structured attachment interview, which was later coded for children’s attachment
insecurity (operationalized as attachment dismissal and preoccupation) and RF. Our
findings were largely consistent with theory and our hypotheses, suggesting that higher
RF is associated with lesser cardiovascular reactivity (higher levels of RSA) during the
stressor task and better recovery following the task. These links were especially strong for
children with greater attachment preoccupation but did not vary as a function of children’s
levels of attachment dismissal. These findings contribute to developmental theory in
suggesting that RF is closely linked to physiological emotion regulation in children.
Keywords: reflective functioning, mentalization, children, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, attachment
INTRODUCTION
Emotion serves an important role in orienting us to attend to internal or external
stimuli (1,2). Regulation of emotions, which involves conscious and unconscious
processes (3,4), is a key developmental milestone and transdiagnostic protective
factor against psychopathology (5–7). Emotion is a multifaceted construct comprised
of experiential, behavioral, and physiological components, with each factor revealing
unique information (3). Measuring these different components has the potential to
give insight into those unique streams of information. Physiological measures of
emotion can be particularly useful in measuring autonomic arousal, a metric that is less
Borelli et al. RF and Children’s Cardiovascular Reactivity
susceptible to reporting biases or social desirability effects than
other assessments (e.g., self-report). Heart rate variability (HRV),
an index of the change in time invervals between heartbeats, is
a measure of physiological reactivity that reflects the interplay
of different physiological systems that enable us to adapt
to challenges in the internal and external environment (8).
Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is a short-term measure of
HRV that reflects the vagus nerve’s influence on the slowing and
speeding of the heart. RSA captures parasympathetic nervous
system activation in response to environmental stimuli (9).
Higher levels of task-related changes in RSA indicate lower levels
of sympathetic reactivity (10–12). While the initial response to a
stimulus indexes emotion reactivity, observed recovery or return
to baseline RSA can be used to infer emotion regulation, as has
been done in prior studies (13,14).
ATTACHMENT
Attachment security, or the felt sense that others will be
responsive to one’s expression of needs for comfort and support,
is thought to develop as a result of a history of receiving
sensitive care from attachment figures (15). The internal
working model, a cognitive-affective schema that emerges from
a history of interactions between infant and caregiver, contains
important beliefs regarding the experience and expression of
emotion (15): when children’s expressions of emotional need
have been met consistently with empathy and assistance in
regulating emotion, children internalize the message that painful
emotional experiences can be experienced, expressed, and
resolved, resulting in optimal self-regulation of emotion later
in development (16). In contrast, when children’s needs have
been rejected or ignored or when caregivers have responded
inconsistently or with alarm to children’s needs, children resort
to defensive emotion regulation strategies, such as deactivation
or hyperactivation, which while adaptive in the short-term, can
result in negative outcomes over the long-term (16).
Decades of research substantiate this theorizing by
documenting links between attachment security and emotion
regulation in adults [e.g., (17,18)]. Although middle childhood
remains an understudied developmental phase with respect to
attachment and its links with emotion (19), emerging evidence
suggests that school-aged children with secure attachment have
better emotion regulation than their insecure counterparts [e.g.,
(20,21)].
The association between attachment and emotion regulation
is thought to depend on early parent-child interactions involving
physical/embodied regulation by the parent (22,23). These
interactions serve to calibrate the infant’s developing stress
regulation system so that over time, physiological self -regulation
is established (24), with the presence of the parent needed and
sought only in contexts of threat or higher levels of distress.
In addition, expectancies regarding the parent’s availability to
respond to distress are reflected at a representational level.
By middle childhood, attachment processes (1) have facilitated
emotional regulation through their early physiological impact on
the development of the stress regulation system; (2) continue
to facilitate emotional regulation through the actual availability
of, support from, and protection offered by attachment figures
in times of distress (25); and (3) promote regulation at a
representational level regarding the imagined responsiveness and
trustworthiness of attachment figures and others in times of
need (26). In line with this perspective, longitudinal evidence
suggests that the quality of early parenting, through its impact
on epigenetic regulation and DNA methylation, has long term
implications on self-regulation and interpersonal processes into
adulthood (27–29).
MENTALIZATION
As conceptualized by Fonagy et al. (24), mentalization refers
to the process of interpreting the reactions of others in terms
of psychological experience, imagining the mental states and
intentions that underlie behavior, and being cognizant of
one’s own emotional reactions and their impact on others.
Mentalization has been operationalized for research purposes as
reflective functioning (RF). RF includes a self-focused dimension
of one’s own mental states, as well as an other-focused dimension
concerning others’ experiences (30–32).
Mentalization develops alongside attachment when infants are
treated as individuals with minds and are responded to as if their
behavior communicates something about their psychological
experience (33). Through being treated as intentional agents,
children discover their minds and come to think of themselves as
having thoughts, desires, and feelings (34). Consistent with this
argument, parental mentalization predicts school-aged children’s
own mentalization (30).
People with higher RF are more likely to have secure
attachment (35), perhaps as a result of the association between
sensitive parenting and parental mentalization, but the two
constructs are not synonymous. Evidence suggests that adults
with secure attachment are more likely to have higher RF
(36–38), but the effect sizes obtained in these studies are
not large, suggesting the distinctiveness of the two constructs.
However, to date only one study has explored the links between
attachment security and RF in children, finding that lower RF is
associated with dismissing and disorganized, but not preoccupied
attachment (Bizzi et al. in press).
MENTALIZATION AND EMOTION
REGULATION
Scholars contend that there is a bidirectional association
between RF and emotion reactivity and regulation (24). Having
access to representations, metacognitive reflection, and semantic
processing regarding one’s own emotions facilitates the ability
to make sense of and modify emotional expeirence. Fonagy
et al. (24) describe a particular type of early non-verbal
communication involving marked mirroring of the infant’s
peak affects and ostensive cueing, suggesting that this type of
interaction provides the infant with an external representation
of his/her emotions that is important for the consolidation of an
early sense of self (39). Thus, mentalization is thought to serve a
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Borelli et al. RF and Children’s Cardiovascular Reactivity
powerful regulatory function, helping individuals make sense of
their own and others’ behaviors, thoughts, and feelings, and in so
doing, create an environment in which emotions are viewed as
predictable, meaningful, and controllable (24). At the same time,
mentalization is impacted by emotional arousal—higher levels of
arousal may inhibit effortful and deliberate RF (31,40).
Despite the rich theorizing regarding the regulatory role of
mentalization, the links between RF and emotion have seldom
been examined empirically, and have not yet been explored
in children. Although there is no direct evidence of the link
between children’s RF and children’s emotion regulation, several
studies provide indirect support for this association. First, there
is evidence that mentalization in parents predicts parenting
behavior that is associated with better emotion regulation in
children. For instance, parents with higher RF engage in more
sensitive (41–45) and less intrusive or frightening parenting
than parents with lower RF (41,46). We see this as consistent
with the theorized association, given that more sensitive or
controlled parenting may in and of itself be evidence of better
emotion regulation (47). Second, in a series of studies on parental
mentalization and school-aged children’s emotional adjustment
(48,49), Gottman and colleagues find that parents who show
greater awareness of their own and their children’s emotions
have children who exhibit better emotion regulation. Conversely,
lower RF confers risk for a variety of forms of psychopathology,
including autism, depression, psychosis, PTSD, eating disorders,
substance abuse [for a review see (50–55)], as well as forms of
psychopathology chiefly characterized by emotion dysregulation
[e.g., borderline personality disorder; (56,57)], suggesting that
the two may be linked. Similarly, in adolescents, lower RF is
a general risk factor for psychopathology, including borderline
and narcissistic personality traits, as well as internalizing and
externalizing symptoms (58). Finally, in children, lower RF
is associated with more depressive, externalizing, and somatic
symptoms [Bizzi et al., under revision, (59,60)].
RF AS A RESILIENCE FACTOR IN THE
CONTEXT OF ATTACHMENT
According to theory, mentalization can assist individuals
in the processing of life experiences, including those that
occur in attachment relationships (24,61). Mentalization can
help individuals understand and make sense of their past
experiences, which is thought to be central to resilience. This
conceptualization of mentalization converges with the notion of
resilience as a “reintegration of self that includes a conscious
effort to move forward in an insightful integrated positive
manner as a result of lessons learned from an adverse experience”
[(62), p. 3].
In support of this argument, research finds that among
adolescents who report having experienced parental neglect
(adverse early experience), those with higher RF were less
likely to be classified as having insecure attachment (outcome)
compared to their lower-RF counterparts (63). Similarly, another
study found that among parents with childhood experiences of
maltreatment (adverse early experience), those with higher levels
of RF regarding trauma were less likely to have infants who
were disorganized in their attachment [outcome variable; (64)].
In the current study, we examine whether the link between RF
and RSA is stronger among children with greater attachment
insecurity (more attachment preoccupation or dismissal), who
are likely to have experienced greater distress in the context of
attachment related needs than children with lesser attachment
insecurity, thereby assessing whether RF can promote resilience
in the context of attachment experiences.
CURRENT INVESTIGATION
We pursue two central aims—first, we test the concurrent
associations between school-aged children’s RF and their
physiological reactivity to and recovery following a stressor
task related to attachment needs. Second, we explore whether
RF interacts with attachment insecurity in its associations with
physiological reactivity and recovery.
To these ends, a community sample of school-aged children
completed an attachment interview, which was later coded
by independent teams of raters naïve to study hypotheses for
attachment security and RF. Approximately 1 week later, children
completed a standardized laboratory paradigm used in previous
studies of attachment (65), in which they read hypothetical
vignettes of other children encountering situations that are
likely to evoke attachment-related needs (e.g., being sick, feeling
afraid). During and following the presentation of these vignettes,
we monitored children’s RSA, which we used as measures of
reactivity and regulation, respectively.
We tested the following hypotheses. First, consistent with
prior work, we sought to replicate the association between
higher attachment insecurity (dismissal and preoccupation) and
lower RF. Second, we predicted that higher RF would be
associated with lower reactivity and regulation (higher RSA
during and following the stressor task). We followed this
prediction with an exploratory test of the pathway between RF
and emotion regulation, testing whether RSA during the stressor
(emotion reactivity) mediates the association between RF and
RSA following the stressor (emotion regulation). Third, we tested
the theory that RF buffers the effects of attachment insecurity;
we predicted that RF and attachment insecurity would interact
in their association with RSA during (emotion reactivity) and
following the stressor (emotion regulation), such that for children
higher in attachment insecurity, higher RF would be more
strongly associated with attenuated reactivity and regulation.
Similar to above, we followed this hypothesis-driven prediction
with an exploration of a moderated mediation model in which
RF moderates the link between attachment insecurity and RSA
following the stressor, as mediated by RSA during the stressor.
METHODS
Participants
The protocol for this study was approved by the Institutional
Review Board at Pomona College. Children (N=76; 50%
boys, Mage =9.82, SDage=1.47) between the ages of 8 and
12 participated in this study of children’s development. The
principal investigator calculated the targeted sample size based
on a power analysis using effect sizes obtained from her prior
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Borelli et al. RF and Children’s Cardiovascular Reactivity
work on attachment in school-aged children, which suggested
a sample size of N=70 would be sufficient to detect an effect.
The participants were recruited from the community through
advertisements posted online, flyers, and word of mouth. The
sample was racially/ethnically (40% of caregivers identified as
Hispanic, 36% Caucasian, 13% African American, 4% Other,
1% Asian, and 1% Native American) and socioeconomically
diverse (50% of families reported an annual income <$40,000;
8% >$120,000).
Procedure
The study took place over two sessions occurring ∼2 weeks
apart. Caregivers provided consent to participate in a study, while
children provided informed assent. Participants were informed
that they could choose to opt out of any portion of the study
at any time. Then children completed the Child Attachment
Interview [CAI; (66)], from which two non-overlapping teams
of coders scored children’s attachment security and RF. On
the second visit, children completed a laboratory stressor and
recovery task during which we monitored their cardiovascular
reactivity.
Measures
Attachment Security
Children completed the CAI, a semi-structured interview for 8–
13 year olds, designed to assess the quality of their attachment
to their caregivers. The interview consists of 19 questions about
children’s current and past experiences with their caregivers.
Responses are coded on 8 scales (e.g., Idealization, Preoccupying
Anger, Balance of positive/negative references to attachment
figures), as well as on the Overall Narrative Coherence scale,
a dimensional measure of attachment security (67). A certified
CAI coder coded all interviews, with reliability performed on 16
randomly-selected cases coded by a second certified coder. The
Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC) for CAI scales ranged
from 0.72 to 0.97. The average ICC across all CAI subscales was
0.87.
The CAI manual provides guidelines for using scale scores
to place children into one of four best-fitting attachment
classifications with respect to each caregiver: secure, dismissing,
preoccupied, and disorganized. However, in line with the
argument that attachment is best reflected using dimensional,
rather than categorical, metrics (68,69), we used factor
analytically-derived scales of dismissing and preoccupied
attachment. This procedure has previously been used with
studies using the CAI (70–72). The details of the factor analysis
conducted within the larger sample are reported elsewhere (73),
but in brief, the analysis revealed the presence of two factors.
Scales loading on the first factor (eigenvalue =4.83) signified
attachment dismissal, with high scores indicating high dismissal
of attachment needs and idealization of relationships with
caregivers. Scales loading on the second factor (eigenvalue =
1.86) signified preoccupation, with high scores indicating high
involving/preoccupying anger (communalities above 0.70). A
high level of inter-rater reliability was achieved on these factor
scales, dismissal ICC =0.92, preoccupation ICC =0.96.
Reflective Functioning
Children’s RF was coded from their responses to the CAI using
the Child Reflective Functioning Scale [CRFS; (30,74)]. The
CRFS is a modification of the Adult Reflective Functioning
Scale [ARFS; (75)], which is used to measure RF on the Adult
Attachment Interview [AAI; (76)]. The CRFS involves coding
children’s ability to articulate their own and others’ internal
experiences while describing current and past experiences with
their caregivers. Coders rate RF on each CAI question; these
scores are then averaged to create a global RF score. Although
relatively recently developed, the CRFS has already shown
promising psychometrics—the item-total correlations ranged
from 0.57 to 0.79, and Cronbach’s alpha was 0.94 (36). Due to our
interest in children’s general reflective capacities, in the current
study we use children’s global RF scores in analyses. In this study,
internal consistency in RF scores across items was high, α=
0.96. The coder of all of the CAIs in this sample was trained
by and was demonstrated to have excellent reliability with the
developer of the CRFS measure (ICC =0.92). The CRFS coder
was unaware of all information regarding the children in the
study (including their attachment classifications) and was not
part of the attachment coding team.
The CRFS manual contains descriptions and examples of
different levels and types of children’s RF. Children’s narratives
are coded on an 11-point scale (1–9) descriptively anchored at
six points in terms of their propensity to consider interpersonal
interactions and personal reactions in mental state terms. To
obtain a general indicator of children’s RF (CRF-G), the mean
RF of all the coded responses was used. The scale alpha was 0.94,
and item-total correlations ranged from 0.57 to 0.79, confirming
that the total score (CRF-G) could be used as a good indicator
of overall RF. Because of theoretical considerations and previous
findings with adults indicating that self- and other understanding
may have distinct implications, self and other items were treated
as separate scales. A factor analysis is not reported given that the
sample was composed in part of children with histories of sexual
abuse involving their fathers and that this may have had an effect
on their mentalization regarding fathers that may be particular
to this sample and would be unlikely to be replicated in other
samples.
Laboratory Stressor: Distress Vignettes Paradigm
Children completed a standardized laboratory stressor task in
which they were presented with multiple vignettes in text form
regarding same-sex hypothetical children experiencing mildly
emotionally and physically distressing situations (sadness, fear,
sick, and hurt) on a computer screen (65). They were asked
to reflect on their thoughts and feelings in reaction to each
vignette (e.g., [Child’s name] hurt her/his knee when (s)he was
playing basketball. It hurt all day long). We used two different
counterbalanced conditions to control for order effects of the
presentation of the different situations (Order 1: hurt, sad,
afraid, sick, neutral; Order 2: neutral, sick, hurt, sad, afraid).
For each distressing situation, three vignettes were presented
(order randomized within counterbalanced block) to represent
increasing levels of severity of distress. All stimuli were presented
using E-Prime. Prior data using this paradigm suggest that
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Borelli et al. RF and Children’s Cardiovascular Reactivity
TABLE 1 | Descriptive statistics of key variables by children’s gender.
Measures Total (N=76) Boys (n=38) Girls (n=38) Gender differences t
M(SD)M(SD)M(SD)
Age 9.82 (1.47) 9.24 (1.38) 10.39 (1.33) −3.72***
Attachment dismissala0.05 (1.00) 0.36 (1.01) −0.27 (0.88) 2.89**
Attachment preoccupationb0.11 (0.98) 0.10 (0.97) 0.12 (1.00) −0.11
RF 3.09 (0.84) 2.71 (0.69) 3.47 (0.80) −4.45***
RSA-baseline 6.85 (1.24) 6.63 (1.38) 7.08 (1.05) −1.60
RSA–stressor 6.75 (0.90) 6.68 (0.94) 6.83 (0.85) −0.70
RSA–recovery 6.79 (0.90) 6.77 (0.91) 6.80 (0.90) −0.16
RF, Reflective functioning; **p<0.01. ***p<0.001.
aAttachment dismissal, Factor analytically derived dismissing attachment score (Child Attachment Interview); Higher score means highly dismissing.
bAttachment preoccupation, Factor analytically derived preoccupied attachment score (Child Attachment Interview); Higher score means highly preoccupied.
TABLE 2 | Correlation matrix for key variables.
Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Age –
2. Gender 0.40*** –
3. Attachment dismissala−0.18 −0.32** –
4. Attachment preoccupationb0.03 0.01 −0.04 –
5. RF 0.40*** 0.46*** −0.58*** −0.10 –
6. RSA-baseline −0.01 0.18 0.02 −0.07 −0.05 –
7. RSA–stressor −0.22 0.08 −0.09 −0.02 0.10 0.58*** –
8. RSA–recovery −0.25* 0.02 −0.04 −0.06 0.13 0.53*** 0.84*** –
RF, Reflective functioning; Gender coding: 1, boys; 2, girls; *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001.
aAttachment dismissal, Factor analytically derived dismissing attachment score (Child Attachment Interview); Higher score means highly dismissing.
bAttachment preoccupation, Factor analytically derived preoccupied attachment score (Child Attachment Interview); Higher score means highly preoccupied.
children experience significant increases in self-reported negative
emotion in response to these vignettes (65).
Cardiovascular Physiology
RSA data were collected before, while, and after the laboratory
stressor was presented. Baseline RSA was collected while children
sat quietly and watched a 290 s nature video. During the
laboratory task, RSA-stressor was collected while each of the
vignette (“story”) and reflection periods were presented (60 s
for each vignette). Following each distress block (e.g., afraid),
which included the presentation of three separate vignettes
and reflection periods, children completed a 30 s RSA recovery
period during which they were asked to sit quietly and wait
until the next “story” appeared on the screen. Thus, for the
purposes of this study, we considered RSA recordings taken
during the vignettes to be measures of reactivity, whereas
we considered RSA measures taken during the recovery
periods following each block of vignettes to be measures of
regulation.
We collected HRV data using disposable Mindware 1.5-
in foam EKG electrodes with 7% chloride wet gel and
touchproof snap leads, which were connected to a BioNex 8
slot chassis equipped with an impedance cardiograph (Mindware
Technologies, Gahanna, OH). Data were collected using BioLab
2.5 acquisition software and were later edited for peak errors
and noise using BioLab HRV 2.0 application (Mindware
Technologies, Gahanna, OH). Prior to conducting data analysis,
we computed mean RSA across the baseline assessment, and the
reactivity and recovery sessions of the four distressing vignette
types.
Data Analytic Plan
To evaluate our hypotheses, we used hierarchical linear
regressions in which we controlled for children’s age
and gender on an initial step. For analyses involving
moderation, mediation, and moderated mediation, we
used Hayes’ PROCESS macro (77). In analyses in which
reactivity and recovery levels of RSA were the dependent
variables, we included baseline RSA as an additional
covariate.
RESULTS
Descriptive Statistics
Descriptive statistics for key variables, overall and by child
gender, are reported in Table 1. Independent samples t-tests
revealed that girls were significantly older, less dismissing, and
higher in RF than boys. Zero-order correlations indicated that
older children had higher RF (r=0.40, p<0.001) and higher
RSA-recovery (r= −0.25, p=0.03; see Table 2). Children with
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Borelli et al. RF and Children’s Cardiovascular Reactivity
more dismissing attachment had lower RF (r= −0.58, p<
0.001).
Based on the results of these preliminary analyses, we
controlled for children’s age and gender in all subsequent
analyses.
Hypothesis 1. Association Between
Children’s RF and Attachment Security
After controlling for children’s age and gender (R2=0.27, p
<0.001), attachment dismissal was negatively associated with
children’s RF (1R2=0.22, b= −0.40, SE =0.08, p<0.001;
see Table 3). In a subsequent analysis, when we controlled for
attachment preoccupation (R2=0.28, p<0.001), attachment
dismissal was still negatively associated with children’s RF (1R2
=0.21, b= −0.40, SE =0.08, p<0.001), but preoccupation was
not.
Hypothesis 2. Association Between
Children’s RF and RSA
Table 4 depicts the results of two hierarchical linear regressions
testing the association between children’s RF and RSA-stressor,
as well as children’s RF and RSA-recovery. After controlling for
children’s age, gender, and baseline RSA (R2=0.38, p<0.001),
children’s RF was significantly positively associated with RSA-
stressor (1R2=0.05, b=0.28, SE =0.11, p=0.01; Hypothesis
2a). Thus, in support of Hypothesis 2, higher RF was associated
with lesser reactivity.
Second, after controlling for the same set of covariates
(R2=0.34, p<0.001), children’s RF was significantly
positively associated with children’s RSA-recovery (1R2=
0.09, b=0.37, SE =0.11, p=0.002; Hypothesis 2b).
Therefore, in support of our hypothesis, higher RF was associated
with greater parasympathetic activation during the recovery
period.
Exploratory Mediation
Figure 1 presents the results of a hierarchical regression testing
the mediation model. PROCESS Model 4 revealed that after
TABLE 3 | Child attachment dismissal associated with child RF.
Dependent variable: child RF
Step bSE βCI
Step 1 R20.27***
Constant 0.79 0.57 [−0.34, 1.92]
Age 0.14* 0.06 0.25 [0.02, 0.27]
Gender 0.60** 0.18 0.36 [0.24, 0.96]
Step 2 1R20.22***
Attachment dismissala−0.40*** 0.08 −0.48 [−0.55, −0.25]
Attachment preoccupationb−0.11 0.07 −0.13 [−0.25, 0.04]
RF, Reflective functioning; *p<0.05; **p<0.01 ***p<0.001.
aAttachment dismissal =Factor analytically derived dismissing attachment score (Child
Attachment Interview); Higher score means highly dismissing.
bAttachment preoccupation =Factor analytically derived preoccupied attachment score
(Child Attachment Interview); Higher score means highly preoccupied.
controlling for children’s age, gender, and baseline RSA in the first
step (R2=0.43, p<0.001), children’s RSA-stressor acted as an
indirect effect in explaining the link between child RF and RSA-
recovery (point estimate =0.21, 95% CI [0.03, 0.42]). Controlling
for the indirect effect, the direct effect between child RF and
RSA-recovery was not significant (point estimate =0.16, 95% CI
[−0.004, 0.33]).
Hypothesis 3. Association Between
Children’s RF and RSA Moderated by
Attachment
We tested whether attachment dismissal or preoccupation
moderated the link between children’s RF and RSA-stressor
(Hypothesis 2a) or RSA-recovery (Hypothesis 2b), after
controlling for covariates. The results of these moderation
analyses revealed that neither attachment dismissal (1R2=
0.01, b= −0.13 p=0.21), nor attachment preoccupation
(1R2=0.01, b=0.09, p=0.28), moderated the link between
children’s RF and RSA-stressor. However, after controlling
for children’s age, gender, baseline RSA, and the main effects
of attachment dismissal and preoccupation (R2=0.48, p<
0.001), attachment preoccupation moderated the link between
children’s RF and RSA-recovery (1R2=0.05, b=0.21, p=
0.01). Among children with mean (b=0.43, p=0.002), and high
levels of attachment preoccupation (b=0.63, p=0.0001), RF
was positively associated with RSA-recovery. Among children
with low attachment preoccupation, the association between
children’s RF and RSA-recovery was not significant (b=0.23,
p=0.15; see Figure 2). Attachment dismissal did not moderate
the association between child RF and RSA recovery after the
stressor task (1R2=0.004, b= −0.07, p=0.52); therefore, we
elected not to examine a moderated mediation using attachment
dismissal.
Exploratory Moderated Mediation
After controlling for children’s age, gender, baseline RSA, and
attachment dismissal (R2=0.43, p<0.001), the examination of
conditional effects revealed that among children with mean (b=
0.22, p=0.02) and high attachment preoccupation (b=0.36, p
=0.002) RSA-stressor mediated the link between children’s RF
and RSA-recovery (point estimate =0.20, 95% CI [0.003, 0.39];
see Table 5 and Figure 3). Among children with low attachment
preoccupation, there was no significant mediation effect (b=0.08
p=0.45).
DISCUSSION
Despite extensive theorizing regarding the regulatory role
of RF, prior to the current investigation, extremely few
studies had explored the links between RF and physiological
reactivity or regulation, and none had examined these
associations in children. In the current study, we tested these
associations by exploring children’s physiological responses to
a standardized paradigm designed to evoke reactions regarding
the experience and expression of attachment-related needs.
Consistent with theory and hypotheses, the key findings of
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Borelli et al. RF and Children’s Cardiovascular Reactivity
TABLE 4 | Hierarchical regressions examining associations between children’s RF, RSA-stressor and RSA-recovery.
Dependent variable: RSA–stressor Dependent variable: RSA–recovery
Step b SE βCI b SE βCI
Step 1 R20.38*** 0.34***
Constant 5.22*** 0.73 [3.76, 6.67] 5.62*** 0.76 [4.10, 7.13]
Age −0.15* 0.06 −0.24 [−0.27, −0.02] −0.15* 0.06 −0.25 [−0.28, −0.02]
Gender 0.13 0.18 0.07 [−0.23, 0.50] 0.04 0.19 0.02 [−0.34, 0.42]
RSA–Baseline 0.41*** 0.07 0.56 [0.27, 0.54] 0.38*** 0.07 0.52 [0.24, 0.52]
Step 2 1R20.05* 0.09**
RF 0.28* 0.11 0.26 [0.06, 0.51] 0.37** 0.11 0.34 [0.14, 0.60]
RF, Reflective functioning. *p<0.05. **p<0.01. ***p<0.001.
FIGURE 1 | RSA-stressor as a mediator for the association between Child RF and RSA-recovery. Figure shows unstandardized bvalues. Analysis includes the
following covariates (not pictured here): child age, child gender, RSA-Baseline. RF, Reflective functioning; *p<0.05. ***p<0.001.
FIGURE 2 | Attachment preoccupation moderates the association between children’s RF and RSA-recovery, but not RSA-reactivity. RF, Reflective functioning;
Attachment preoccupation, Factor analytically derived preoccupied attachment.
this study were that higher RF was associated with lower
cardiovascular reactivity and better regulation, links that
were especially strong for children with greater attachment
preoccupation.
The findings of our first analysis revealed that greater
attachment dismissal was associated with lower RF, but that
attachment preoccupation was not significantly associated with
child RF. Thus, using ratings derived from independent
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Borelli et al. RF and Children’s Cardiovascular Reactivity
TABLE 5 | Regressions examining the moderated mediation model: attachment
preoccupation as a moderator of the mediation of the children’s RF to
RSA-recovery by RSA-stressor.
Independent variable: children’s RF
Dependent variable: RSA–recovery
Predictor variables b SE CI
Low attachment preoccupation 0.08 0.11 [−0.13, 0.30]
Mean attachment preoccupation 0.22* 0.09 [0.03, 0.41]
High attachment preoccupation 0.36** 0.11 [0.14, 0.59]
RF, Reflective functioning; Attachment preoccupation, Factor analytically derived
preoccupied attachment score (Child Attachment Interview); Higher score means highly
preoccupied. *p<0.05, **p<0.01.
FIGURE 3 | Visual depiction of the proposed moderated mediation:
Attachment preoccupation moderates the association between children’s RF
and RSA-recovery mediated by RSA-stressor. RF, Reflective functioning;
Attachment preoccupation, Factor analytically derived preoccupied
attachment score (Child Attachment Interview); Higher score means highly
preoccupied.
teams of coders, we found that children classified as having
high attachment dismissal had lower RF, demonstrating the
limitations in their abilities to hold in mind their own and
their parents’ mental states. However, our findings revealing a
unique link between dismissing attachment and RF are in line
with results from other studies finding a specific association
between dismissing attachment and lower RF in children and
parents [Bizzi et al., under revision; (73), but see (36), for an
association between lower RF with dismissal and preoccupation].
One potential reason for the lack of association between RF
and preoccupation is that preoccupied children may use more
emotion words than dismissing children, and may potentially
use comparable numbers of emotion words as secure children.
The use of emotion words constitutes part of the global RF score
and thus could inflate the RF ratings of preoccupied children,
despite their relatively infrequent use of attributions or actual
mentalization. However, for preoccupied children, the use of
mental state language may not be as emotionally regulating as it is
for secure children, or perhaps preoccupied children use mental
state language but do not achieve higher levels of mentalization
(e.g., drawing connections between mental states and behavior).
An alternate explanation is that preoccupied children, who are
likely to be more open to experiencing and expressing negative
emotion than dismissing children (16), may engage in a type
of hypermentalizing in an attempt to regulate emotion, but are
unable to use their mentalization in an organized way to regulate
and contain negative effects and anger in relation to attachment
figures (Bizzi et al., under revision).
Our central study hypotheses concerned the interrelations of
RF and physiological reactivity and regulation, operationalized
as RSA during the task and the recovery period, respectively.
RF was associated with higher RSA during the stressor and
recovery period, supporting our hypotheses and suggesting that
RF is associated with lower reactivity and better regulation.
Interpreting these findings in terms of theory would suggest
that for children with higher RF on the CAI, contemplating
attachment needs (being physically hurt, sick, sad, or frightened)
did not require as much physiological regulatory effort as this
task demanded from children with lower levels of RF. Thus, at
least in the context of the current attachment-based task, RF was
associated with superior physiological regulation. According to
mentalization theory, a child’s experience of the benign interest
of parents in their subjective experience can improve emotion
regulation, as it opens a space where they can communicate their
concerns, fears, and difficulties to their parents, allowing them to
develop a mutually elaborated understanding of themselves and
their emotions (26,33,60).
However, much remains to be understood about these effects
as, given the correlational design in which measures were
assessed at a single timepoint, causal conclusions elude us.
Further, RF could be associated with emotion reactivity and
regulation via several channels. For instance, children may
have been less reactive owing to a sense of confidence that
emotions can be safely experienced and shared. Higher RF may
in part be associated with lower stress activation because of
early experiences in which children’s subjective experience was
responded to first through marked affect mirroring when they
were young (24) and later through the parents’ creation of a
shared mental space where the children’s subjective experience
can be elaborated. Further, interactions in which the parent
actively helped the child understand affective experience could
have positively impacted the development of the child’s stress
regulation system. Alternatively, higher RF youth may not
have found the vignettes emotionally taxing, as, by virtue of
their abilities to mentalize, contemplating attachment needs
and emotions may not be as daunting. Via mentalization,
children have learned to mentally represent emotions, symbolize
subjective experience, and put these experiences into words,
a process which facilitates the understanding and regulation
of emotions. When children develop symbolic and semantic
representations of emotion, children’s neurobiological pathways
of stress regulation and mentalization may be more effectively
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Borelli et al. RF and Children’s Cardiovascular Reactivity
connected, thus promoting the effective regulation of emotion.
We tentatively suggest that the outcome of interpersonally
developed mentalization about self and others, evident at the
level of physiological regulation, may reflect an integration of
symbolic and affective processes that are likely evident at the level
of neurobiology but may also be seen from the perspective of self
and identity. At this level of development, higher RF may be seen
as an index of the child’s emerging sense of self and attachment
figures, and as central to identity.
Finally, we found that attachment preoccupation, but not
attachment dismissal, moderated the link between RF and
RSA during recovery, but not RSA reactivity. Specifically, the
positive association between RF and RSA was only statistically
significant among children with mean or higher attachment
preoccupation, and not among children with low levels of
attachment preoccupation. Children who are low in attachment
preoccupation may not need RF to regulate themselves when
considering attachment needs and feelings, as contemplating
these topics may have evoked less intense reactions. On
the other hand, for preoccupied children, for whom the
contemplation of attachment needs may have caused higher
reactivity, RF appears to have helped in their recovery. We have
previously speculated whether the higher measured RF found
among preoccupied children was indicative of hypermentalizing
(repetitive, unproductive contemplating about mental states),
but the current findings suggest that RF does in fact facilitate
regulation among preoccupied children.
This finding can be understood in terms of its contribution to
the notion that RF promotes resilience—children whose mental
representations are characterized by preoccupation, who were
nonetheless simultaneously engaged in the process of making
sense of these experiences (evidenced by high RF), demonstrated
superior physiological recovery from the stressor task. As
resilience can be conceptualized as the capacity of a system to
adjust to disturbances that could threaten it, or the attempt
to continually derive meaning and insight from experiences
(62), it aptly characterizes the process of mentalization co-
occurring with preoccupied attachment. The link between RF
and physiological reactivity did not vary as a function of
dismissing attachment; at all levels of dismissing attachment,
higher RF was associated with better emotion reactivity and
regulation. Thus, no matter how low the attachment dismissal,
RF confers regulatory protection.
Strengths and Limitations
As the first empirical test of the links between RF and
physiological reactivity in children, we believe that this study
contributes to the literature in significant ways. By using robust
observational measures of attachment and RF, and by employing
a standardized laboratory stressor designed to present to children
situations in which attachment needs are evoked, we offer an
important, highly controlled examination of research hypotheses.
Further, our use of a highly racially and ethnically diverse sample
of children increases the generalizability of the findings we report.
However, it is also important to contextualize the
contributions of this study in light of its limitations. One
limitation of the study is that the assessment occurred at a single
timepoint, leaving open the possibility that lower physiological
reactivity or better regulation could cause higher levels of RF,
or that a shared third variable drives the association between
RF and emotion reactivity and regulation. Longitudinal designs
will be able to identify whether RF predicts emotion regulation
later in development, which would strengthen the argument
that children’s RF promotes resilience. Further, we examined
attachment and RF using the same instrument (CAI). Although
we used non-overlapping coders who were blind to all participant
information, the fact that these indices were derived from the
same measure may limit the extent to which we can accurately
conceptualize them as separable constructs.
Further, measuring children’s RSA in response to the distress
vignettes task did not permit us to examine the types of
negative emotion reactivity and regulation that are associated
with RF (e.g., we cannot make an argument regarding discrete
emotions), nor can we speak to children’s subjective emotional
experience more generally; this is an area ripe for future
inquiry. Relatedly, for the purposes of this study, we attempted
to distinguish between physiological measures of reactivity
(RSA measured during the presentation of the vignettes) and
regulation (RSA measured during the 30 s following each
vignette block); however, this distinction contains some error
in that children can employ regulation before and during the
presentation of the distress vignettes. Thus, it is impossible to
conclude that these measures indexed reactivity and regulation,
but we can state that they assessed early and later measures
of cardiovascular activation. In terms of the use of RSA, we
note that some researchers suggest that greater decreases in RSA
during a demanding task connote greater activation to stimuli
and thus more optimal use of coping strategies (78–80), while
others suggest that higher RSA during a stressor signifies lower
emotional reactivity, which serves an adaptive function (10–
12). Thus, it is important to note that our interpretation that
lower stressor- and recovery-RSA signifies greater reactivity is
consistent with one way of conceptualizing task-related changes
of RSA, but this view is not universally held.
In addition, we did not measure or control for children’s
reading or learning abilities, which leaves open the possibility
that the effects found here are biased to some extent by children’s
cognitive functioning. Finally, in future studies, it would be
informative to measure task-specific or state-like RF regarding
the laboratory task, as has been done in at least one other
investigation (46), as this would enable us to get closer to
identifying the processes occurring during the stressor task for
high RF children.
CONCLUSIONS
This study provides new physiological evidence that children’s
mentalization is associated with more efficient stress regulation,
as higher RF was associated with less physiological reactivity
during and more efficient recovery from a stressor. When
confronted with attachment stress, children with higher RF
regulated their autonomic nervous systems with less effort than
children with lower RF. Consistent with the argument that
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Borelli et al. RF and Children’s Cardiovascular Reactivity
RF promotes resilience, the association between RF and higher
RSA was only significant among children with higher levels of
attachment preoccupation.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
JB designed the study, developed the hypotheses, oversaw the
data collection, conducted data analyses, and was the chief
contributor to the writing of the manuscript. KE developed
the coding system for children’s reflective functioning, oversaw
the coding of the data, and contributed to the writing and
editing of the manuscript. KH assisted with data analyses,
editing and writing of the manuscript, and the preparation
and checking of references. ATS conducted the coding of
the reflective functioning data and assisted with the literature
review of the manuscript. RD provided conceptual guidance
regarding the framing of the manuscript. PF assisted with
the conceptual framing of the mentalization aspect of the
manuscript.
FUNDING
PF is in receipt of a National Institute for Health Research
(NIHR) Senior Investigator Award (NF-SI-0514-10157) and was
in part supported by the NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in
Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) North Thames at
Barts Health NHS Trust. The views expressed are those of the
authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, or the
Department of Health.
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Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors declare that the research was
conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could
be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
The reviewer DRO and handling Editor declared their shared affiliation.
Copyright © 2018 Borelli, Ensink, Hong, Sereno, Drury and Fonagy. This is an
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