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Sketchpad Series

The effect of mindfulness on emotion regulation and theta power in parents.

Poster Session D - Monday, March 31, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Rachel Eubanks¹, Bailey Shea¹, Bridget Cho¹, Brianne Coulombe¹, Laura Jelsone-Swain¹; ¹University of South Carolina Aiken

Parenting can be highly rewarding but often includes significant stress from and lack of support for the emotional challenges parents commonly encounter. As research strongly indicates many beneficial outcomes stemming from positive parent-child relationships, it is imperative to understand ways in which to reduce parenting stress and facilitate positive parenting strategies. Emotion regulation (ER), the process of modulating and reducing negative affect, appears to be a critical skill for positive parenting. Mindfulness interventions may enhance ER capacity via neural mechanisms targeting affective systems, specifically involving midline theta activity. Therefore, we’re investigating the effect of an acute mindfulness session compared to a control session on ER and theta power in a sample of parents using EEG. Theta power and behavioral responses were measured during a computer-based emotion-regulation paradigm. Participants were shown neutral and negative images and asked to either maintain or reduce negative feelings utilizing cognitive reappraisal strategies. Using a Fast Fourier transform, theta power from electrodes F3, Fz, and F4 were averaged and compared between conditions and groups. Preliminary results indicated significantly greater theta power for all three regulation conditions (neutral, negative maintain, and negative decrease) in the mindfulness group. A large effect size was also found between groups in their behavioral reappraisal scores to the negative images, with the mindfulness reporting greater change; however, this did not reach statistical significance. Collectively our results support theta power as a potential neuromarker for induced mindfulness states, which may in turn support the role of acute mindfulness for use in parenting interventions.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions