Parent–Child Anxiety Symptoms in Emerging Adults: Moderation by Gender and Religiosity

Abstract

Although research has indicated that parent and child anxiety are connected, religiosity may serve as a protective factor and help weaken this connection. The current study asked 1,002 emerging adults (67.7% female) to report on their mothers’ and fathers’ anxiety symptoms and their own anxiety symptoms and religiosity. Structural equation modeling indicated that personal religiosity served as a moderator between the perceived anxiety symptoms of mothers and fathers and emerging adult anxiety symptoms for daughters but not sons. Participant gender also suggested a 3-way interaction among variables as the interactions occurred for daughters but not sons. Additionally, parent gender suggested a 3-way interaction, given that the results indicated that for emerging adult daughters, the interaction was stronger for mothers than fathers. Thus, emerging adult religiosity as well as parent and child gender may be contributing factors to better understanding of how offspring anxiety relates to that of their parents.