Maternal Stress Effects on Mother-Child Dyadic Interactions

A study of 62 mother-child dyads examines how induced maternal stress shapes facial affect and cardiovascular activity during interaction. The dataset includes pre- and post-stress comparisons of positive/negative facial expressions, inter-beat intervals (IBIs), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and synchrony measures. It was created by M. Nikolic to analyze the roles of child age and maternal emotion regulation.

Use Cases

• Analyze the correlation between maternal emotion regulation difficulties and the expression of negative facial affect in mother-child interactions.
• Model physiological synchrony by comparing inter-beat interval (IBI) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) data from mothers and children pre- and post-stress.
• Investigate how child age moderates stress-induced changes in positive facial expressions and cardiovascular arousal across the dyad.
• Examine the relationship between maternal stress induction and synchrony in facial affect between mothers and their 6-38 month-old children.

Strengths

• Includes data from 62 mother-child dyads, providing a basis for statistical analysis.
• Contains multi-modal measures: facial affect (positive/negative), cardiovascular activity (IBI, RSA), and calculated synchrony metrics.
• Features a controlled experimental design with pre- and post-stress observations for within-dyad comparison.
• Explicitly tags key research domains: Child Development, Facial Affect, Cardiovascular Activity, and Maternal Stress.

Limitations

• Small sample size of 62 dyads limits the power for detecting subtle effects or conducting complex subgroup analyses.
• Child age range of 6-38 months is broad, potentially masking developmental stage-specific effects without careful stratification.
• Data scope is limited to a specific laboratory stress induction context, which may not generalize to naturalistic, chronic stress settings.

Provenance

Source

M. Nikolic via figshare.

Collection Method

Experimental study measuring facial affect and cardiovascular activity in mother-child dyads before and after a maternal stress induction.

Freshness

Last updated March 2026.