Intergenerational transmission of self-regulation: A multidisciplinary review and integrative conceptual framework

Abstract

This review examines mechanisms contributing to the intergenerational transmission of self-regulation. To provide an integrated account of how self-regulation is transmitted across generations, we draw from over 75 years of accumulated evidence, spanning case studies to experimental approaches, in literatures covering developmental, social, and clinical psychology, and criminology, physiology, genetics, and human and animal neuroscience (among others). First, we present a taxonomy of what self-regulation is and then examine how it develops--overviews that guide the main foci of the review. Next, studies supporting an association between parent and child self-regulation are reviewed. Subsequently, literature that considers potential social mechanisms of transmission, specifically parenting behavior, interparental (i.e., marital) relationship behaviors, and broader rearing influences (e.g., household chaos) is considered. Finally, evidence that prenatal programming may be the starting point of the intergenerational transmission of self-regulation is covered, along with key findings from the behavioral and molecular genetics literatures. To integrate these literatures, we introduce the self-regulation intergenerational transmission model, a framework that brings together prenatal, social/contextual, and neurobiological mechanisms (spanning endocrine, neural, and genetic levels, including gene-environment interplay and epigenetic processes) to explain the intergenerational transmission of self-regulation. This model also incorporates potential transactional processes between generations (e.g., children's self-regulation and parent-child interaction dynamics that may affect parents' self-regulation) that further influence intergenerational processes. In pointing the way forward, we note key future directions and ways to address limitations in existing work throughout the review and in closing. We also conclude by noting several implications for intervention work.

Figure 1. Self-Regulation Intergenerational Transmission Model

1. All pathways lead back to parent self-regulation, reflecting the starting point of the intergenerational transmission process, as articulated throughout our review. For clarity, transactional processes, described in the text, are not depicted. Importantly, the model only applies to behavioral and emotional self-regulation, and to impulsivity. Although there is some evidence that suggests similar processes underlie the intergenerational transmission of behavioral inhibition/fear, as we have noted in the body of our review, there is currently insufficient empirical evidence to warrant inclusion of this aspect of bottom-up self-regulation in the model. 2. As we have depicted, genetic and socialization influences are critical components to our integrated model. Nevertheless, we selected the labels “Genetic Only” and “Socialization Only” for these pathways to illustrate more clearly that these pathways have historically been pointed to as representing the way in which self-regulation is transmitted across generations. 3. There are two prenatal pathways – one to children’s HPA axis and allostatic processes, which then affect neurobiological mechanisms of self-regulation, and one directly to neurobiological mechanisms of self-regulation. 4. HPA axis refers to children’s hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. 5. Genetic influence refers to genetic factors that make children more or less susceptible to the processes depicted. Potentially epigenetic processes are not depicted for clarity, but are discussed in the text and can be inferred in the model. For example, epigenetic processes may be at play in neurobiological mechanisms given that the Genetic Influence arrow and the Social-Neural arrows are converging. Potential epigenetic modifications would be anticipated anyplace child Genetic Influence arrows converge with other influences.