A biomarker of maternal vicarious reward processing and its association with parenting behavior

Parenting styles play a critical role in child well-being, yet the neural bases of parenting behaviors remain nebulous. Understanding the neural processes associated with parenting styles can both clarify etiological mechanisms underlying parenting behaviors and point us toward new targets for intervention. A novel electrocortical biomarker called the observational reward positivity (oRewP) that occurs in response to observing another receive a reward has been linked to self-reported authoritarian parenting behavior. The current study sought to replicate associations between the oRewP and self-reported and observationally-coded parenting in a sample of mothers selected to be at elevated risk for problematic parenting. Self-reported authoritarian parenting was associated with observationally-coded problematic discipline, while no other self-reported parenting scales were associated with observationally-coded scores. We replicated the previously reported association between a blunted oRewP and increased self-reported authoritarian parenting. We additionally found that an attenuated oRewP was associated with greater permissive parenting, and that only the relationship with permissive parenting was conserved after adjusting for other parenting styles and other relevant covariates. We did not find significant associations between the oRewP and observationally-coded parenting. The current findings suggest that the neural process indexed by the oRewP are relevant to parenting behavior. Further research is needed to better understand the discrepancy between self-reported and observed parenting.