Abstract
The present cross-sectional study explored the relations between fear-enhancing parenting behaviors (modeling and threat information transmission) and children’s cognitive biases and anxiety symptoms. Participants were 258 children aged 7–12 years (132 boys and 126 girls), and their mothers (n = 199) and/or fathers (n = 117). Children and parents completed the Parental Enhancement of Anxious Cognitions questionnaire, which measures parental modeling and threat information transmission, while children also filled in a scale for assessing anxiety symptoms. In addition, children conducted a number of computerized tasks for measuring confirmation and interpretation bias. The data indicated that both biases mediated the relationship between threat information transmission (of both parents) and children’s anxiety symptoms. Only interpretation bias significantly mediated the relationship between modeling (of mothers) and anxiety symptoms. These findings give partial support for the hypothesis that cognitive biases play a mediating role in the relation between fear-enhancing parental behaviors and children’s anxiety symptoms.
Highlights
Fear and anxiety are normal, mild, and transient phenomena in childhood, but in a minority of children these symptoms become so intense and invalidating that they qualify as an anxiety disorder [1]
Children conducted a number of computerized tasks for measuring confirmation and interpretation bias
This cross-sectional study explored whether parental modeling and threat information transmission would be positively related to anxiety symptoms in children
Summary
Fear and anxiety are normal, mild, and transient phenomena in childhood, but in a minority of children these symptoms become so intense and invalidating that they qualify as an anxiety disorder [1]. Heritability is thought to be involved in the etiology of childhood fear and anxiety problems, with behavioral-genetic studies showing that about 30 % of the variation in anxiety disorders can be ascribed to genetic influences [2]. This means that environmental factors play an important role in the development of fear and anxiety problems, and among these factors parenting behaviors are considered as relevant [3]. There is a steadily growing body of evidence showing that parental modeling and threat information transmission can promote fear and anxiety in children (see reviews by [8, 9])
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