Maternal psychological control and child internalizing symptoms: vulnerability and protective factors across bioregulatory and ecological domains.

BACKGROUND We examined ecological (family socioeconomic status (SES)) and bioregulatory (sleep duration, sleep efficiency) moderators of the link between maternal psychological control and children's vulnerability to internalizing symptoms. METHOD A large socioeconomically diverse sample of third graders (N = 141) and their mothers participated. Sleep was examined via actigraphy for one week. Psychological control and internalizing symptoms (depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, pre-sleep arousal) were examined through children's reports. RESULTS For children with poorer sleep, lower SES, or a combination of the two, maternal psychological control was positively related to depressive symptoms; this association was not evident for children with both better sleep and higher SES. Further, maternal psychological control, sleep efficiency, and SES interacted to predict both anxiety symptoms and pre-sleep arousal. Children were protected from the negative effects of psychological control when they were from higher SES families and had higher sleep efficiency; for all other groups of children, psychological control was associated with anxiety symptoms. A similar but less robust pattern of results was found for pre-sleep arousal. CONCLUSIONS Findings highlight the importance of children's bioregulatory processes within the socioeconomic context for an enhanced understanding of children's vulnerability to internalizing problems in the context of maternal psychological control.