Parental Investment Patterns in a Shifting Economy

University Of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project examines the effects of national and personal economic factors on the functioning of families. The welfare of the young is influenced by the economic resources available to their parents. That is, parental access to economic resources influences the ways parents invest their time, attention, and financial resources in the care of the young. The proposed research will test the hypothesis that parental investment strategies shift in response to parents' current access (or expected future access) to economic resources. As a novel prediction, the proposed studies will measure the ways in which those investment patterns differ based on the risk level of the child. For example, the child's preterm status serves as a potential risk factor for adverse health outcomes. Past work has shown that at risk children are the recipients of either (1) parental neglect/abuse, or (2) exceptionally high levels of care. This research tests the basis for these polarized outcomes of such children. Although parents experiencing or projecting a poor economic outlook are predicted to invest more in low risk than high risk children, parents experiencing or projecting a strong economic outlook are predicted to invest more in high risk than in low risk children. This pattern presumably has an evolutionary origin, but is still observed across cultures or families that differ in national or personal wealth. Higher levels of parental investment are expected to pose an important compensatory pattern in the future outcomes of children -- in particular, the future outcomes of at-risk children. The proposed studies will measure the route by which such outcomes occur, that is, the influence of parental investment patterns on children's physiological responses. Specifically, the project will assess changes in children's hormones and enzymes that are known to react to stress. Such physiological changes, in turn, should predict adverse or positive health outcomes for these children. The research is concerned with the investment patterns shown by both mothers and fathers. Although many of the responses are expected to be similar, others may differ. The research also tests investment patterns for Anglo and Latino families. However, no differences are anticipated across groupings due to the universal nature of parental investment patterns. The research will make use of different approaches in testing predictions: (1) a cross-sectional study will measure parents' initial investment strategies soon after children are born, (2) a longitudinal study will assess children's outcomes across the first 3 years of life, and (3) an experiment will test the ways parents change their future projections about parenting when exposed to media images that suggest positive or negative future economic outcomes. This research assesses the effects of economic factors on the well-being of at-risk children. Predictions are relevant to the selective consequences of national and family economic variables on the outcomes of more vulnerable children. Findings will also provide the groundwork for the development of theory-based interventions that promote paternal investment in at-risk children, thus extending the investigator's past work documenting the effectiveness of an early intervention for increasing maternal investment in very young at-risk children. Findings will also have implications for the similarities or differences in the potential effectiveness of early interventions for families from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.