Abstract
This study was designed to examine the effects of maternal rearing attitudes and depression on children’s compulsive-like behavior, mediated by children’s emotional traits. A questionnaire was completed by 116 mothers of 3 - 6-year-old children. There were no significant correlations between maternal factors and compulsive-like behavior in children. However, structural equation modeling using children’s emotional traits as the mediating variable indicated that maternal rearing attitudes influence children’s compulsive-like behavior via children’s anger trait. This finding suggests that mothers’ behavior does not lead directly to compulsive behavior in children, but that it influences children’s behavior through the process of shaping fundamental properties of emotion in children. While no association was found between compulsive-like behavior and the anxiety trait, which has been considered the core of compulsion, the findings suggest that the anger trait plays a principal role in the genesis of compulsive-like behavior. We suggest new possibilities in obsession-compulsion research.
Highlights
According to the World Health Organization, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is one of the most disruptive psychological disorders in terms of the difficulties it causes in daily life
Compulsive-like behavior is a phenomenon that appears during the course of normative development in children
Investigation of the mechanisms behind the genesis of compulsive-like behavior in children may contribute to increased understanding of OCD
Summary
According to the World Health Organization, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is one of the most disruptive psychological disorders in terms of the difficulties it causes in daily life. Progress in understanding OCD from a biological psychiatry perspective has accelerated (Camfield, Sarris, & Berk, 2011) because of good reactivity to pharmaceutical agents (Ravizza, Barzega, Bellino, Bogetto, & Maina, 1996; Pigott & Seay, 1999), studies pointing to associations with brain structures, functional abnormalities elucidated by methodological advances in neural science (Kellner, Jolley, Holgate, Austin, Lydiard, Laraia et al, 1991; Gehring, Himle, & Nisenson, 2000), and clarification of the genetic factors that contribute to OCD (Lin, 2007; Pauls, Alsobrook, Goodman, Rasmussen, & Leckman, 1995). Recent studies have revealed that the organic dysfunctions behind various mental disorders can be precipitated by psychosocial factors. There are many cases of OCD in which onset are attributed to psychosocial mechanisms; some case studies indicate the involvement of psychological factors. The psychosocial factors contributing to OCD have not yet been empirically verified
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