Abstract
This longitudinal study explored the relations between fear-enhancing parenting behaviors (modeling and threat information transmission) and children’s cognitive biases and anxiety symptoms on three subsequent time points over a one-year period. Participants were 216 children aged 7–12 years (114 boys and 102 girls), and their mothers (n = 199) and/or fathers (n = 117). On each time point, children and parents completed the Parental Enhancement of Anxious Cognitions scale, which measures parental modeling and threat information transmission. Furthermore, children filled in a measure of anxiety disorder symptoms. In addition, confirmation bias and interpretation bias were measured by means of a number of computerized tasks. The results yielded support for a circular model in which cognitive biases enhanced anxiety symptoms, which in turn promoted cognitive biases on each of the three time points. However, no evidence was found for longitudinal effects of cognitive biases on anxiety or vice versa. In contrast to what we expected, cognitive biases and anxiety appeared to promote parental modeling and threat information rather than the other way around. These findings extend research on the relations between parenting behaviors, cognitive biases, and childhood anxiety symptoms, and suggest valuable leads for assessment and intervention.
Highlights
Epidemiological studies show that anxiety disorders are among the most common mental disorders in childhood [1,2,3]
The results indicated that both types of cognitive biases mediated the relationship between threat information transmission and children’s anxiety symptoms, while only interpretation bias significantly mediated the relationship between modeling and children’s anxiety symptoms
Threat-related cognitive biases as well as fear-enhancing parenting behaviors are assumed to be involved in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety pathology in children
Summary
Epidemiological studies show that anxiety disorders are among the most common mental disorders in childhood [1,2,3]. Child Psychiatry & Human Development (2019) 50:631–646 level of threat or indicate how they would respond in such situations From both types of responses one can reliably infer whether children interpret the ambiguous scenarios as dangerous, a tendency that has been demonstrated to be present in high-anxious non-referred children [12,13,14] as well as in children with anxiety disorders [15, 16]. The family discussions strengthened this pattern of results, showing significant increases in anxious children’s avoidant action plans and oppositional-defiant children’s aggressive action plans These findings are relevant for multiple types of psychopathology, they clearly demonstrate that in the case of anxiety problems, a threat-related cognitive style may develop within the context of anxiety-enhancing family processes
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