Perceived control: What it is and how it impacts emotional responses to stress

Alyson Zalta, Ph.D.Rush University Medical Center

Seminar in Self-Regulation4/2/14

Outline

• What is perceived control (PC)?

• How do we develop perceived control?

• How does PC affect emotion regulation?

• Conclusions and Future Directions

I can button up my shirt Use a spoon to eat dessert

Even reach the books way high on the shelf There are so many things I can do all by myself

- Prairie Dawn, Sesame Street

Defining Perceived Control

The psychological sense that one is able to influence events and outcomes in one’s life.

Self-Mastery Scale &Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale

SAMPLE ITEMS:

• There is really no way I can solve the problems I have

• What happens to me in the future mostly depends on me

• No matter what comes my way, I’m usually able to handle it

• I am confident I could deal efficiently with unexpected events

Perceived Control ≠ Actual Control

• Correlation with IQ from .03-.11

• Correlation with SAT scores from -.04 to .01

• Task performance: • PC unrelated to anagram performance• PC unrelated to to performance on a divided attention task

• Correlation with performance on psychology exam from -.02 to -.08 • But significantly correlated with anxiety the day before the

exam at -.28 to -.29!

Zalta & Chambless, unpublished data

Perceived Control ≠ Actual Control

• Sanderson et al., 1989• Panic disorder patients administered CO2

• ½ patients told that they could reduce the amount of CO2 by turning a dial

• The dial had no effect on CO2 administration

• Patients with an illusion of control reported fewer panic symptoms, lower intensity of symptoms, lower subjective anxiety, fewer catastrophic cognitions

How do we develop PC?(Chorpita & Barlow, 1998)

Implications of PC Theory

• Early childhood learning experiences with control contribute to later PC• Without any early challenge / adversity, PC is

underdeveloped

• High levels of adversity overwhelm individuals’ ability to manage stress, undermining PC

• PC predicts emotional responses to stress

The importance of early learning experiences

• Rats initially exposed to controllable shocks as weanlings display enhanced escape behaviors as adults compared to animals with no shocks

• Infant monkeys given control over delivery of food, water, & treats show more adaptive responses to novel stimuli than monkeys without control

Childhood adversity facilitates resilience to later stress

• Seery et al., 2010: National longitudinal sample• U-shaped quadratic relationship between cumulative lifetime

adversity and mental health

• Cumulative lifetime adversity moderated the relationship between recent major adversity and subsequent mental health

• Gunnar et al., 2009: • Measured cortisol activity in 10-12 year old internationally-

adopted children and non-adopted children

• The group with moderate early life stress demonstrated the lowest cortisol activity

PC and Anxiety

• PC predicts immediate psychological and physiological responses to stress

• PC predicts anxiety in response to major life stressors: breast cancer surgery, driving cessation, caregiving, heart transplantation, HIV infection, cardiac disease

• PC predicts anxiety severity and anxiety disorders in large population and probability samples

PC impacts threat regulation(Taylor et al., 2008)

• Psychosocial resources associated with lower cortisol reactivity to stress

• Psychosocial resources associated with greater right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and lower amygdala activation during a threat regulation task

• Psychosocial resources not associated with response to threat sensitivity task

• Relationship between resources and low cortisol reactivity was mediated by lower amygdala activity during threat regulation

How do we develop PC?(Chorpita & Barlow, 1998)

Parenting: An important source of early control experiences

• Protectiveness

• Parental contingency• Punishment

• Reinforcement of independent vs. dependent behaviors

• Messages of safety

• Messages of success / failure• Reinforcement of persistence vs. abandonment following

failures

Parenting and PC in Offspring

• Adolescents who perceive their parents to be more authoritative have significantly higher internal locus of control than adolescents who see parents as permissive or authoritarian

• Parental control (particularly affectionless control) is associated with lower self-efficacy in offspring

Parenting and Anxiety

• Anxious parents use a more restrictive rearing style compared to non-anxious parents

• Children of anxious parents report more overprotection than children on non-anxious parents

• Overprotective and controlling parenting behaviors are associated with anxiety in offspring• Cross-sectional and longitudinal

Problems with existing literature on parenting

• Few attempts to establish perceived control as a mediator between parenting and offspring anxiety

• Existing research provides conflicting results

• Parental Bonding Instrument, the most widely used measure of parenting, has several limitations

PBI example items

• Liked me to make my own decisions• Did not want me to grow up • Tried to make me feel dependent on her• Felt I could not look after myself unless she was around

This questionnaire lists various attitudes and behaviours of parents. As you remember your MOTHER in your first 16 years would you place a tick in the most appropriate box next to each question.

Developing the Parental Facilitation of Mastery Scale

STUDY 1:• Develop a measure to assess parenting behaviors that

promote mastery experiences in childhood • items that would capture ways in which parents actively

foster mastery• items that are behaviorally descriptive and perhaps less

vulnerable to attributions of parents’ mental states

• Assess the validity of this measure

STUDY 2:

• Test Chorpita & Barlow’s (1998) mediational model

Participants

• Undergraduates (N = 182) recruited from dept study pool• To be eligible, students had to have a biological sibling who

was no more than 3 years apart from the student in age

• Siblings were recruited via email (N = 91)

• Mean age difference b/w the two siblings was 1.8 ± 0.7 yrs

• Siblings lived together for an average of 15.3 ± 1.9 years (range = 0 to 16) during the first 16 years of life

Measures

• Parental Facilitation of Mastery Scale (& sibling form)

• Parental Bonding Instrument (& sibling form)

• Self-Mastery Scale (SMS)

• Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE)

• Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ)

• Depression-Anxiety-Stress Scales (DASS)

Parental Facilitation of Mastery Scale (PFMS)

1. my activities were strictly supervised.*2. decisions regarding my time and activities were made for me.*3. I was encouraged to seek new experiences. 4. I was encouraged to develop a difficult skill. 5. I was encouraged to explore independently. 6. I was allowed to spend time with friends without parental supervision.7. I was protected from unknown experiences.*8. I was given freedom to make independent decisions. 9. I was encouraged to participate in physical sports.

The following questions ask about your childhood and teenage experiences. Think about the ways in which your parent(s) or primary guardian(s) helped to guide your activities and behavior during the first 16 years of your life.

During the first 16 years of life…

1=Never, 2=Rarely, 3=Sometimes, 4=Often, 5=Always

Exploratory Factor Analysis(student data)

Convergent & Discriminant Validity(student data)

00.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.8

PBI-CMother

PBI-CFather

PSWQ DASS-S DASS-A

Abs

olut

e C

orre

lati

on

PFMSLowOverprotection

PFMSChallenge

Correlations between the PFMS and PBI control scales were significantly larger than correlations between the PFMS and measures of anxiety

Anxiety Scales

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

PFMSOverprotection

PFMSChallenge

PBI-C Mother PBI-C Father

Dis

atte

nuat

ed C

orre

lati

ons

Student for self with Sibling for student

Sibling for self with Student for sibling

Convergent Validity with Informant Reports

Mediational Model

Mediational Model

Mediational Model

Mediational Model

χ2(24, N = 182) = 33.399, p = .10, CFI = .98, SRMR = .05, RMSEA = .05

Mediational Model

Partial vs. full mediation model: ∆χ2(2) = 5.327, p = .070

N.S.

N.S.

∆χ2(1) = 0.697, p=.40

Conclusions

• Both overprotection and challenge are important parenting behaviors that contribute to mastery later in life

• Data supported Chorpita and Barlow’s model in which perceived control mediates the relationship between parenting behaviors and adult anxiety

Summary

• PC is about subjective perceptions of oneself• Case examples

• Early learning experiences impact PC• Parenting is an important source of PC

• PC is an important predictor of emotional responses to stress

Implications

• Kids need to overcome some adversity to develop PC

• Perceived control can be used to identify those at risk for anxiety

• Interventions to prevent anxiety

• Target precursors such as parenting behaviors among high-risk groups

• Focus on promoting perceived control directly among high-risk groups

Questions and Future Directions

• How much challenge is enough? Too much?• Hiking in SF

• Bullying

• Are there important cultural differences?• In what builds PC

• In whether PC is important

• How can we enhance PC?• New learning!

Questions and Future Directions

• What about temperament?

• Is there such a thing as too much PC?• Perfectionism

• To what extent is PC domain specific?

Acknowledgments

• Collaborators: Dianne Chambless

• Research assistants

• Participants

• This research was supported by grants to Alyson Zalta from the National Institute of Mental Health (F31-MH87051), the American Psychological Association, and the University of Pennsylvania.

The End