Child Anxiety and Parental Anxiety Sensitivity are Related to Parent Sick Role Reinforcement

Abstract

SYNOPSISObjective. Parents can facilitate offspring anxiety in response to bodily arousal via “sick role reinforcement,” a process that may be important during adolescence. Although a sizeable body of work has examined the role of parent behavior in this process, no study to date has examined child-driven effects on parental sick role reinforcement. Furthermore, little work has examined whether parental factors are related to sick role reinforcement, including anxiety sensitivity. Design. The current study investigated the associations among these variables using a set of vignettes in which 225 parents were asked to imagine their adolescent offspring describing somatic sensations in either an anxious or non-anxious manner. Results. Effects of offspring descriptions, parental AS, and an interaction between the two emerged on parental sick role reinforcement behavior. Conclusions. These findings lay the groundwork for future work targeted at improving our understanding of the unique and interactive roles parents and offspring play in the sick role reinforcement process.