Child maltreatment affects fathers' response to infant crying, not mediated by cortisol or testosterone.

ABSTRACT: Parents' ability to appropriately respond to infant crying is essential for parental care and has been found to relate to parents' own childhood experiences. Additionally, childhood experiences can affect endocrine factors, which may subsequently affect behavior. In the current study, preregistered on https://osf.io/hwgtu, we examined in expectant and new fathers (N = 152) associations between experiences of maltreatment in their own childhood, hair cortisol and testosterone concentrations and their ability to modulate handgrip force when exposed to infant crying. Cortisol and testosterone were quantified from the 1 cm of hair most proximal to the scalp using Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Participants were asked to squeeze a handgrip dynamometer at full and half st

SUBMITTER: Verhees MWFT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9216419 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature