Parental Expressions of Anxiety and Child Temperament in Toddlerhood Jointly Predict Preschoolers’ Avoidance of Novelty

Abstract

This study investigated the link between (a) parents' social trait and state anxiety and (b) children's fear and avoidance in social referencing situations in a longitudinal design and considered the modulating role of child temperament in these links. Children were confronted with a stranger and a robot, separately with their father and mother at 1 (N = 122), at 2.5 (N = 117), and at 4.5 (N = 111) years of age. Behavioral inhibition (BI) was separately observed at 1 and 2.5 years. Parents' social anxiety disorder (SAD) severity was assessed via interviews prenatally and at 4.5 years. More expressed anxiety by parents at 4.5 years was not significantly linked to more fear or avoidance at 4.5 years. High BI children were more avoidant at 4.5 years if their parents expressed more anxiety at 2.5 years, and they were more fearful if the parents had more severe forms of lifetime SAD. More severe lifetime forms of SAD were also related to more pronounced increases in child fear and avoidance over time, whereas parents' expressions of anxiety predicted more pronounced increases in avoidance only from 2.5 to 4.5 years. High BI toddlers of parents with higher state and trait anxiety become more avoidant of novelty as preschoolers, illustrating the importance of considering child temperamental dispositions in the links between child and parent anxiety. Moreover, children of parents with more trait and state anxiety showed more pronounced increases in fear and avoidance over time, highlighting the importance of early interventions targeting parents' SAD.

Intergenerational transmission of attentional bias and anxiety

“…challenging parenting: Lazarus et al, ) and of environmental exposure to parental anxiety (e.g. through social learning: Aktar et al., ) may shape children's attentional biases more directly.…”

“…We assessed attentional bias in a sample of mothers, fathers, and their 7.5‐year‐old children who were part of a longitudinal study on the intergenerational transmission of anxiety (Aktar, Majdandžić, De Vente, & Bögels, ; Nikolić, Aktar, Bögels, Colonnesi, & de Vente, ). We addressed three research questions (see Figure for an overview): First, we investigated the concurrent and predictive associations between anxiety and attentional bias, and tested whether these associations differed across parents and children.…”

Parenting Characteristics among Adults With Social Anxiety and their Influence on Social Anxiety Development in Children: A Brief Integrative Review

“…For example, during a task where mothers created a narrative about starting school, Murray et al ( 55 ) demonstrated that socially anxious mothers displayed more negative (e.g., higher threat attribution) and less supportive (e.g., lower encouragement) narratives compared to controls, which was associated with childhood SA symptoms. In addition, high expression of parental anxiety in parents with lifetime SAD during early stages of childhood predicts increased fear and avoidance in children over time ( 59 ). In sum, children learn to form worries and threats about their environment by observing parents' own expressions of anxious thoughts or behaviors ( 57 , 60 ).…”

The social learning of threat and safety in the family: Parent‐to‐child transmission of social fears via verbal information

“…Following a social performance task with the two strangers (not used in the current study), the social interaction task was conducted with each of the strangers individually. This task was adapted from Aktar et al (2017). The stranger and the child were seated in two adjacent chairs facing the camera, turned toward each other.…”