Charting the Physiological Time Course of Help Seeking in Late Childhood: Patterns of Individual Differences

In this study we explore whether variability in children’s respiratory sinus arrhythmia and electrodermal activity predict subsequent levels of children’s observed help seeking from their mothers during a failure task. In addition, we test whether maternal emotional availability and child fearful temperament moderate these effects. We explore these research questions within a community sample of 101 mother-youth dyads. Youth (8-12 years) undergo a repeated failure task while their respiratory sinus arrhythmia and electrodermal activity are monitored and their help-seeking behaviors are coded. Multi-level path analyses indicated that high-fearful youth increased their help-seeking following increased physiological reactivity, regardless of their perception of maternal emotion availability. Low-fearful youth showed increases in help-seeking following increased physiological reactivity only when they perceived their mothers to be highly available. This study demonstrates individual differences in the physiological underpinning of time-linked youths’ help-seeking behaviors