Exploring the Transactional Effects of Maternal and Paternal Emotion Socialization on Children’s Anxiety Trajectories

• In Event: Poster Session 05
  In Poster Session: PS 05 Topic - Family Context & Processes

Abstract

Parent-child relationships are thought to play an essential role in children’s development of anxiety. Traditional models have proposed directional links from parenting behaviours (e.g., rejection, overcontrol/protection, anxious modelling) to children’s later anxiety (Moller et al., 2016). However, previous studies have largely focused on the mother-child relationship, neglecting to acknowledge the dynamic relationships that exist within the family that may influence children’s anxiety trajectories. The spillover hypothesis (Erel & Burman, 1995) suggests that behaviours generated in one parent-child subsystem may be expressed in or influence the other parent-child subsystem. Although this hypothesis has been explored considerably within the attachment literature (e.g., Bradford et al., 2016; Burns et al., 2019), less is known about how maternal and paternal perceptions and parenting behaviours simultaneously influence each other in the context of their child’s anxiety across time. Therefore, the goal of the current study was to examine the dyadic influence of mother and father perceptions of their children’s anxiety and their behavioural responses to children’s expressed anxiety across childhood. A longitudinal actor-partner interdependence model was used to simultaneously examine a parent’s influence on themselves and their partner.

Participants were 208 co-residing mother-father dyads recruited from a larger community-based longitudinal study. Mothers and fathers participated in three waves of data collection, when their children were approximately 4 years old (“T1”), 8 years old (“T2”), and 11 years old (“T3”). Mothers and fathers reported on children’s anxiety at T1 using the Spence Preschool Anxiety Scale and at T2 and T3 using the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale. They reported on their magnification and overriding responses to children’s anxiety using the Emotions as a Child Scale at T2 and T3. Lastly, they reported on their own anxiety using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale at T2.

Results are presented in Figure 1. Paternal reports of children’s anxiety at T1 positively predicted maternal magnifying responses at T2, but maternal reports did not influence paternal behaviours. Maternal magnifying responses at T2 positively predicted paternal magnifying responses at T3, but paternal magnifying responses did not predict maternal magnifying responses. Paternal anxiety moderated the link between paternal reports and paternal magnifying responses (see Figure 2). When fathers were more anxious, they reported more magnification responses at T3 when they viewed their children as more anxious at T2. Maternal anxiety moderated the link between maternal reports and paternal magnifying responses (see Figure 2). When mothers were more anxious, they reported less magnification responses at T3 when they viewed their children as more anxious at T2. These results suggest different mechanisms for how mothers and fathers influence each other in the context of their children’s anxiety. Paternal awareness of child anxiety, but not paternal behaviours, appears to have an influence on maternal behavioural responses to children’s anxiety. In contrast, maternal responses, but not maternal awareness, appears to have an influence on paternal behavioural responses to children’s anxiety. Results are discussed in terms of the implications that these differential patterns of influence have on children’s anxiety trajectories.

Authors

• Alison Kirkpatrick, Concordia University
  Presenting Author

• Rosemary S. Mills, University of Manitoba
  Non-Presenting Author

• Paul David Hastings, University of California - Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Dale M Stack, Concordia University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lisa A Serbin, Concordia University
  Non-Presenting Author