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Dimensions of parenting among mothers and fathers in relation to social anxiety among female adolescents
Journal of Adolescence 60 (2017) 11e15
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Adolescence journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jado
Brief report
Dimensions of parenting among mothers and fathers in relation to social anxiety among female adolescents Teah-Marie Bynion a, *, Heidemarie Blumenthal b, Sarah A. Bilsky a, Renee M. Cloutier b, Ellen W. Leen-Feldner a a b
University of Arkansas, USA University of North Texas, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 4 January 2017 Received in revised form 10 July 2017 Accepted 11 July 2017
Social anxiety is the most common anxiety disorder among youth; theoretical and empirical work suggest specific parenting behaviors may be relevant. However, findings are inconsistent, particularly in terms of maternal as compared to paternal effects. In the current study, we evaluated the indirect effects of perceived psychological control on the relation between anxious rearing behaviors and child social anxiety among 112 community-recruited girls (ages 12e15 years). In addition to self-report, adolescent participants completed a laboratory-based social stress task. In line with hypotheses, results indicated indirect effects of psychological control on the relation between anxious rearing behaviors and child social anxiety in maternal but not paternal models. Findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical and empirical implications for clarifying the role of parental relations in adolescent social anxiety. © 2017 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Social anxiety Anxious parenting Adolescents
Social anxiety disorder is a common and often debilitating condition that typically emerges during adolescence (Kessler et al., 2005). Parental anxious rearing behaviors, which involve articulation of fears and anxieties, particularly those relevant to child activities (e.g., doing something independently; Muris, Meesters, & van den Berg, 2003), may play a role. Little is known, however, about pathways through which anxious rearing behaviors may relate to child social anxiety. Although parents' own anxiety is weakly related to controlling behavior (e.g., Hudson, Doyle, & Garr, 2009), theoretical accounts link anxious rearing style, characterized by child-oriented anxious apprehension, and efforts to control the child's behavior (Ginsburg & Schlossberg, 2002). In other words, parents' worries about the activities and welfare of their child may correlate with the use of psychologically controlling tactics. Indeed, extant work suggests that parental characteristics like separation anxiety are linked to child well-being via psychological control (Soenens, Vansteenkiste, Duriez, & Goossens, 2006). Soenens, Vansteenkiste, and Luyten (2010) contend that self-determination is promoted by “autonomy-supportive” environments (e.g., freedom to make choices). In contrast, psychologically controlling parenting behavior (e.g., guilt induction), may incite children to behave in ways that do not accord with their true desires, which negatively impacts social functioning. Evidence links parental psychological control with child social anxiety (Greco & Morris, 2002; Morris & Oosterhoff, 2016.) Thus, indirect effects of psychological control on the relation between anxious rearing and adolescent social anxiety may be expected.
* Corresponding author. Department of Psychological Science, 216 Memorial Hall, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, 72701, USA. E-mail address: [email protected] (T.-M. Bynion). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2017.07.004 0140-1971/© 2017 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
12
T.-M. Bynion et al. / Journal of Adolescence 60 (2017) 11e15
Further, adolescent perception of maternal versus paternal parenting behavior as it relates to social anxiety requires more € gels, van Oosten, Muris, and Smulders (2001; age range 8e18 years) found that maternal overprotectiveness investigation. Bo was more predictive of child social anxiety than paternal factors, but no differences in coded parenting behaviors between mothers and fathers of socially anxious children have also been observed (Hummel & Gross, 2001; age range 9e12 years). Mixed findings may be due to limited paternal participation, inconsistent measures of psychological control, and differences in the way psychological control is expressed by mothers and fathers (Soenens et al., 2010). This study was designed to evaluate hypothesized indirect effects of psychological control on the relation between anxious rearing behavior and child social anxiety as measured by social anxiety symptoms and anxious reactivity to a social stress task. A real-time social stress task was utilized to reduce retrospective self-report biases (e.g., memory; affect; Nisbett & Ross, 1980).
1. Method 1.1. Participants The sample included 112 girls (12e15 years; Mage ¼ 14.38, SD ¼ 1.15) locally recruited from a Southwest region of the United States. Table 1 summarizes demographic information.
1.2. Measures All measures utilized are psychometrically strong. Psychological control was assessed via the Psychological Control ScaleYouth Self-Report (Barber, 1996). Anxious parenting was indexed using the Anxious Parenting Scale (Muris et al., 2003), which included items such as “Your parents are afraid when you do something on your own” and “Your parents warn you of all possible dangers”. Social anxiety symptoms were assessed via the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression e Social Phobia subscale (RCADS e SP; Chorpita, Yim, Moffitt, Umemoto, & Francis, 2000). Participants rated anxiety elicited by the social stress task by rating current anxiety from 0 (Not at all) to 10 (A lot) immediately pre- and post-task.
1.3. Procedure Written guardian consent/child assent were obtained, and participants completed a self-report battery and a Modified Trier Social Stress Test (Kudielka, Hellhammer, & Kirschbaum, 2007; Yim, Quas, Cahill, & Hayakawa, 2010). Participants were told they would complete a 5min speech to be evaluated by a researcher. They were given 3 min to prepare.
Table 1 Demographic Information. % Race Caucasian/White* African American/Black Asian American Native American Other Ethnicity Non Hispanic/Latino Hispanic/Latino Year in School: 6th Grade 7th Grade 8th Grade 9th Grade 10th Grade 11th Grade Ever Been in Therapy: Yes Currently in Therapy: Yes
74.1 11.6 7.1 2.7 0.9 85.7 12.5 5.4 13.4 16.1 39.3 21.4 3.6 19.6 6.3
Note. n ¼ 112. Percentages do not add to 100 as adolescents were able to select more than one race. Four participants declined to identify their race. Two participants declined to identify their ethnicity.
T.-M. Bynion et al. / Journal of Adolescence 60 (2017) 11e15
13
2. Results See Tables 1 and 2 for descriptive data. A manipulation check indicated the speech task successfully increased anxiety from pre-to post-task [t(111) ¼ 5.56, p < 0.001]. Maternal findings are depicted in Fig. 1. In both models, child-reported anxious parenting related positively to maternal psychological control (path a), and maternal psychological control related positively to child social anxiety symptoms (RCADS-SP; path b). After accounting for indirect effects, the direct effects of maternal anxious parenting on both RCADS-SP and post-social stress task anxiety scores were not significant (path c0 ). When entered into the omnibus regression model, child-reported anxious parenting and psychological control accounted for 12.71% of variance in RCADS-SP scores [F(2,109) ¼ 7.94, p ¼ 0.001], and 53.82% of variance in anxious responding to the social stress task [F(3,108) ¼ 41.96, p < 0.001]. There were positive indirect associations of psychological control on the relation between maternal anxious parenting and RCADS-SP as well as post-social stress task anxiety scores (path ab). There was no association between child-reported paternal anxious parenting and psychological control. Paternal psychological control was similarly not associated with RCADS-SP scores. However, paternal anxious parenting was related to RCADS-SP scores (b ¼ 0.26, SE ¼ 0.08, p ¼ 0.001). Anxious parenting and psychological control accounted for 11.08% of the total variance in RCADS-SP scores [F(2,109) ¼ 6.79, p ¼ 0.002]. There was not an indirect association of paternal psychological control on the relation between anxious parenting and RCADS-SP scores, however there was a significant total effect of paternal anxious parenting on child social anxiety symptoms (b ¼ 0.27, SE ¼ 0.08, p ¼ 0.007). In terms of anxious responding to the task, child-reported paternal anxious parenting was not significantly related to psychological control, although psychological control was related post-social stress task anxiety (b ¼ 0.14, SE ¼ 0.06, p ¼ 0.022). Anxious parenting was unrelated to child anxious responding. Baseline anxiety, paternal anxious parenting, and paternal psychological control accounted for 53.79% of the total variance in anxious responding to the social stress task when entered into the omnibus regression model [F(3,108) ¼ 41.91, p < 0.001]. There was no indirect association of psychological control on the relation between anxious parenting and anxious responding as elicited by the task. 3. Discussion Parenting behaviors were examined in relation to adolescent social anxiety. First, in terms of adolescent perceptions of maternal parenting behavior, there was a significant indirect effect of psychological control on the relation between anxious rearing behaviors and daughters' social anxiety symptoms. These data extend limited research highlighting a link between anxious parenting and female adolescent social anxiety (e.g., Grüner, Muris, & Merckelbach, 1999). Findings suggest maternal anxiety about daughters' well-being correlates positively with psychologically controlling tactics and, in turn, child social anxiety symptoms. These results accord with theoretical accounts suggesting such parenting behaviors may undermine autonomy and contribute to feelings of incompetence (Soenens et al., 2010). Indirect effects of maternal psychological control also were observed in the link between anxious rearing and daughters' anxious responding to a social stress task. Greater variance was accounted for in this model, possibly due to methodological factors; post-task anxiety ratings are a single-item response to performance evaluation whereas self-reported symptoms reflect a more global retrospective measure of social anxiety. In terms of paternal behaviors, anxious rearing was associated with daughters' social anxiety symptoms, but it was not significantly linked with anxious responding to the social stress task, nor were indirect effects of psychological control observed. The relative lack of paternal influence observed here is consistent with some work (e.g., Morris & Oosterhoff, 2016; Rork & Morris, 2009). Perhaps because girls spend more time with mothers as compared to fathers (Smetana, Metzger, Gettman, & Campione-Barr, 2006), perceptions of maternal anxious and psychologically controlling behavior is more strongly associated with girls' social anxiety. However, it is noteworthy that the variance accounted for in the current maternal and paternal models were comparable, which fits with other work citing an important role for fathers in terms of € gels & Phares, 2008). Additional work is needed to clarify paternal influence, with particular attention to child anxiety (e.g., Bo Table 2 Zero-order correlations and descriptive data on all continuous variables. Variable
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
M (SD)
Range
a
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
0.01 e
0.14 0.39*** e
0.12 0.35*** 0.72*** e
0.21* 0.34*** 0.29** 0.35*** e
0.20* 0.14 0.12 0.23* 0.50*** e
0.04 0.21* 0.00 0.02 0.34*** 0.19* e
0.29** 0.32*** 0.08 0.05 0.15 0.09 0.49*** e
14.38 (1.15) 12.32 (6.40) 2.88 (2.61) 4.05 (3.16) 11.71 (3.30) 11.32 (3.45) 23.73 (7.12) 21.91 (7.52)
12e15 0e26 0e10 0e10 8e22 8e22 10e40 10e40
n/a 0.86 n/a n/a 0.77 0.82 0.85 0.88
1. Age RCADS-SP Pre-Task Anxious Responding Post-Task Anxious Responding Psychological Control- Mother Psychological Control- Father Anxious Parenting- Mother Anxious Parenting- Father
Note. n ¼ 112; RCADS-SP: Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale e Social Phobia subscale. SUDS: Subjective Units of Distress Anxiety (Anxious Responding); EMBU-C: Egna Minnen Betr€ affande Uppfostran (Anxious Parenting). *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
14
T.-M. Bynion et al. / Journal of Adolescence 60 (2017) 11e15
Fig. 1. Effects of Anxious Parenting. A diagram of the indirect effects model. RCADS-SP displayed on left, anxious responding elicited by the social stressor task displayed on right. A: The total effect of maternal anxious parenting on RCADS-SP/Anxious Responding. B: The indirect effects model with maternal psychological control examined as a possible factor accounting for the relation between the maternal anxious parenting and RCADS-SP/Anxious Responding. Unstandardized path coefficients are displayed, with corresponding standardized coefficients in parentheses. *p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
methodological and sample factors that may be important, such as assessment modality (e.g., Greco & Morris, 2002) and the € ller, Nikolic, Majdand € gels, 2016). child's developmental level (Mo zi c, & Bo A number of limitations merit discussion. First, research suggests child anxiety may elicit anxious (Settipani & Kendall, 2015) and psychologically controlling (Loukas, 2009) parental behavior. That is, parents may behave in a manner aimed at addressing child displays of anxiety (Hudson, Doyle, & Gar, 2009). In the current cross-sectional study, we cannot determine whether child social anxiety follows parental behavior (Maxwell & Cole, 2007). Importantly, findings lay the groundwork for the types of resource-intensive prospective tests necessary to make such determinations (Kraemer, Yesavage, Taylor, & Kupfer, 2000). Second, psychological control correlated positively with age; the role of child maturation warrants further research. Third, the relative effects of parenting on social anxiety as compared to depression could usefully be examined by conducting tests where such factors are methodologically controlled (Kraemer, 2015). Fourth, although adolescent perception is a critical indicator of parenting behavior (Smetana, Crean, & Campione-Barr, 2005), mono-method assessment bias may have skewed observed findings. Finally, there were no questions indicating whether girls in this non-clinical sample were currently living with either, or both, of their parents, nor indicators of socioeconomic status. These limitations notwithstanding, the current findings uniquely extend current work and lay the foundation for evaluating a number of important research questions regarding the role of parental behaviors in adolescent social anxiety problems. Acknowledgements T. Bynion drafted the manuscript with crucial revision from authors H. Blumenthal, S.A. Bilsky, R.M. Cloutier and E.W. LeenFeldner. All authors contributed to, edited, and approved the final manuscript. S.A. Bilsky conducted the statistical analysis and R. M. Cloutier consulted on the statistical analysis. H. Blumenthal developed the procedures and directed the larger study from which the data were drawn from. References Barber, B. K. (1996). Parental psychological control: Revisiting a neglected construct. Child Development, 67(6), 3296e3319. € gels, S., & Phares, V. (2008). Fathers' role in the etiology, prevention and treatment of child anxiety: A review and new model. Clinical Psychology Review, Bo 28(4), 539e558. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2007.07.011. € gels, S. M., van Oosten, A., Muris, P., & Smulders, D. (2001). Familial correlates of social anxiety in children and adolescents. Behaviour Research and Bo Therapy, 39(3), 273e287. Chorpita, B. F., Yim, L., Moffitt, C., Umemoto, L. A., & Francis, S. E. (2000). Assessment of symptoms of DSM-IV anxiety and depression in children: A revised child anxiety and depression scale. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 38(8), 835e855. Ginsburg, G. S., & Schlossberg, M. C. (2002). Family-based treatment of childhood anxiety disorders. International Review of Psychiatry, 14(2), 143e154. Greco, L. A., & Morris, T. L. (2002). Paternal child-rearing style and child social anxiety: Investigation of child perceptions and actual father behavior. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 24(4), 259e267. Grüner, K., Muris, P., & Merckelbach, H. (1999). The relationship between anxious rearing behaviours and anxiety disorders symptomatology in normal children. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 30(1), 27e35. Hudson, J. L., Doyle, A. M., & Gar, N. (2009). Child and maternal influence on parenting behavior in clinically anxious children. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 38(2), 256e262. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15374410802698438.
T.-M. Bynion et al. / Journal of Adolescence 60 (2017) 11e15
15
Hummel, R. M., & Gross, A. M. (2001). Socially anxious children: An observational study of parent-child interaction. Child & Family Behavior Therapy, 23(3), 19e40. Kessler, R. C., Berglund, P., Demler, O., Jin, R., Merikangas, K. R., & Walters, E. E. (2005). Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the national comorbidity survey replication. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62(6), 593e602. http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.62.6.593. Kraemer, H. C. (2015). A Source of false findings in published research studies: Adjusting for covariates. JAMA Psychiatry, 72(10), 961e962. Kraemer, H. C., Yesavage, J. A., Taylor, J. L., & Kupfer, D. (2000). How can we learn about developmental processes from cross-sectional studies, or can we? American Journal of Psychiatry, 157(2), 163e171. Kudielka, B. M., Hellhammer, D. H., & Kirschbaum, C. (2007). Ten years of research with the trier social stress test-revisited. In E. Harmon-Jones, & P. Winkielman (Eds.), Social Neuroscience: Integrating biological and psychological explanations of social behavior (pp. 56e83). New York: The Guilford Press. Loukas, A. (2009). Examining temporal associations between perceived maternal psychological control and early adolescent internalizing problems. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 37(8), 1113e1122. Maxwell, S. E., & Cole, D. A. (2007). Bias in cross-sectional analyses of longitudinal mediation. Psychological Methods, 12(1), 23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ 1082-989X.12.1.23. €ller, E. L., Nikoli €gels, S. M. (2016). Associations between maternal and paternal parenting behaviors, anxiety and its precursors Mo c, M., Majdand zi c, M., & Bo in early childhood: A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 45, 17e33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2016.03.002. Morris, T. L., & Oosterhoff, B. (2016). Observed mother and father rejection and control: Association with child social anxiety, general anxiety, and depression. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 25(9), 2904e2914. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10826-016-0448-z. Muris, P., Meesters, C., & van den Berg, S. (2003). Internalizing and externalizing problems as correlates of self-reported attachment style and perceived parental rearing in normal adolescents. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 12(2), 171e183. Nisbett, R., & Ross, L. (1980). Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of human judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Rork, K. E., & Morris, T. L. (2009). Influence of parenting factors on childhood social anxiety: Direct observation of parental warmth and control. Child & Family Behavior Therapy, 31(3), 220e235. Settipani, C. A., & Kendall, P. C. (2015). The effect of child distress on accommodation of anxiety: Relations with maternal beliefs, empathy, and anxiety. Dissertations Abstracts International, 76, 1e14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2015.1094741. Smetana, J., Crean, H. F., & Campione-Barr, N. (2005). Adolescents' and parents' changing conceptions of parental authority. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 108, 31e46. Smetana, J. G., Metzger, A., Gettman, D. C., & Campione-Barr, N. (2006). Disclosure and secrecy in adolescenteparent relationships. Child Development, 77(1), 201e217. Soenens, B., Vansteenkiste, M., Duriez, B., & Goossens, L. (2006). In search of the sources of psychologically controlling parenting: The role of parental separation anxiety and parental maladaptive perfectionism. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 16, 539e559. Soenens, B., Vansteenkiste, M., & Luyten, P. (2010). Toward a domain-specific approach to the study of parental psychological control: Distinguishing between dependency-oriented and achievement-oriented psychological control. Journal of Personality, 78(1), 217e256. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.14676494.2009.00614.x. Yim, I. S., Quas, J. A., Cahill, L., & Hayakawa, C. M. (2010). Children's and adults' salivary cortisol responses to an identical psychosocial laboratory stressor. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 35(2), 241e248. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2009.06.014.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Adolescence journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jado
Brief report
Dimensions of parenting among mothers and fathers in relation to social anxiety among female adolescents Teah-Marie Bynion a, *, Heidemarie Blumenthal b, Sarah A. Bilsky a, Renee M. Cloutier b, Ellen W. Leen-Feldner a a b
University of Arkansas, USA University of North Texas, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 4 January 2017 Received in revised form 10 July 2017 Accepted 11 July 2017
Social anxiety is the most common anxiety disorder among youth; theoretical and empirical work suggest specific parenting behaviors may be relevant. However, findings are inconsistent, particularly in terms of maternal as compared to paternal effects. In the current study, we evaluated the indirect effects of perceived psychological control on the relation between anxious rearing behaviors and child social anxiety among 112 community-recruited girls (ages 12e15 years). In addition to self-report, adolescent participants completed a laboratory-based social stress task. In line with hypotheses, results indicated indirect effects of psychological control on the relation between anxious rearing behaviors and child social anxiety in maternal but not paternal models. Findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical and empirical implications for clarifying the role of parental relations in adolescent social anxiety. © 2017 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Social anxiety Anxious parenting Adolescents
Social anxiety disorder is a common and often debilitating condition that typically emerges during adolescence (Kessler et al., 2005). Parental anxious rearing behaviors, which involve articulation of fears and anxieties, particularly those relevant to child activities (e.g., doing something independently; Muris, Meesters, & van den Berg, 2003), may play a role. Little is known, however, about pathways through which anxious rearing behaviors may relate to child social anxiety. Although parents' own anxiety is weakly related to controlling behavior (e.g., Hudson, Doyle, & Garr, 2009), theoretical accounts link anxious rearing style, characterized by child-oriented anxious apprehension, and efforts to control the child's behavior (Ginsburg & Schlossberg, 2002). In other words, parents' worries about the activities and welfare of their child may correlate with the use of psychologically controlling tactics. Indeed, extant work suggests that parental characteristics like separation anxiety are linked to child well-being via psychological control (Soenens, Vansteenkiste, Duriez, & Goossens, 2006). Soenens, Vansteenkiste, and Luyten (2010) contend that self-determination is promoted by “autonomy-supportive” environments (e.g., freedom to make choices). In contrast, psychologically controlling parenting behavior (e.g., guilt induction), may incite children to behave in ways that do not accord with their true desires, which negatively impacts social functioning. Evidence links parental psychological control with child social anxiety (Greco & Morris, 2002; Morris & Oosterhoff, 2016.) Thus, indirect effects of psychological control on the relation between anxious rearing and adolescent social anxiety may be expected.
* Corresponding author. Department of Psychological Science, 216 Memorial Hall, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, 72701, USA. E-mail address: [email protected] (T.-M. Bynion). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2017.07.004 0140-1971/© 2017 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
12
T.-M. Bynion et al. / Journal of Adolescence 60 (2017) 11e15
Further, adolescent perception of maternal versus paternal parenting behavior as it relates to social anxiety requires more € gels, van Oosten, Muris, and Smulders (2001; age range 8e18 years) found that maternal overprotectiveness investigation. Bo was more predictive of child social anxiety than paternal factors, but no differences in coded parenting behaviors between mothers and fathers of socially anxious children have also been observed (Hummel & Gross, 2001; age range 9e12 years). Mixed findings may be due to limited paternal participation, inconsistent measures of psychological control, and differences in the way psychological control is expressed by mothers and fathers (Soenens et al., 2010). This study was designed to evaluate hypothesized indirect effects of psychological control on the relation between anxious rearing behavior and child social anxiety as measured by social anxiety symptoms and anxious reactivity to a social stress task. A real-time social stress task was utilized to reduce retrospective self-report biases (e.g., memory; affect; Nisbett & Ross, 1980).
1. Method 1.1. Participants The sample included 112 girls (12e15 years; Mage ¼ 14.38, SD ¼ 1.15) locally recruited from a Southwest region of the United States. Table 1 summarizes demographic information.
1.2. Measures All measures utilized are psychometrically strong. Psychological control was assessed via the Psychological Control ScaleYouth Self-Report (Barber, 1996). Anxious parenting was indexed using the Anxious Parenting Scale (Muris et al., 2003), which included items such as “Your parents are afraid when you do something on your own” and “Your parents warn you of all possible dangers”. Social anxiety symptoms were assessed via the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression e Social Phobia subscale (RCADS e SP; Chorpita, Yim, Moffitt, Umemoto, & Francis, 2000). Participants rated anxiety elicited by the social stress task by rating current anxiety from 0 (Not at all) to 10 (A lot) immediately pre- and post-task.
1.3. Procedure Written guardian consent/child assent were obtained, and participants completed a self-report battery and a Modified Trier Social Stress Test (Kudielka, Hellhammer, & Kirschbaum, 2007; Yim, Quas, Cahill, & Hayakawa, 2010). Participants were told they would complete a 5min speech to be evaluated by a researcher. They were given 3 min to prepare.
Table 1 Demographic Information. % Race Caucasian/White* African American/Black Asian American Native American Other Ethnicity Non Hispanic/Latino Hispanic/Latino Year in School: 6th Grade 7th Grade 8th Grade 9th Grade 10th Grade 11th Grade Ever Been in Therapy: Yes Currently in Therapy: Yes
74.1 11.6 7.1 2.7 0.9 85.7 12.5 5.4 13.4 16.1 39.3 21.4 3.6 19.6 6.3
Note. n ¼ 112. Percentages do not add to 100 as adolescents were able to select more than one race. Four participants declined to identify their race. Two participants declined to identify their ethnicity.
T.-M. Bynion et al. / Journal of Adolescence 60 (2017) 11e15
13
2. Results See Tables 1 and 2 for descriptive data. A manipulation check indicated the speech task successfully increased anxiety from pre-to post-task [t(111) ¼ 5.56, p < 0.001]. Maternal findings are depicted in Fig. 1. In both models, child-reported anxious parenting related positively to maternal psychological control (path a), and maternal psychological control related positively to child social anxiety symptoms (RCADS-SP; path b). After accounting for indirect effects, the direct effects of maternal anxious parenting on both RCADS-SP and post-social stress task anxiety scores were not significant (path c0 ). When entered into the omnibus regression model, child-reported anxious parenting and psychological control accounted for 12.71% of variance in RCADS-SP scores [F(2,109) ¼ 7.94, p ¼ 0.001], and 53.82% of variance in anxious responding to the social stress task [F(3,108) ¼ 41.96, p < 0.001]. There were positive indirect associations of psychological control on the relation between maternal anxious parenting and RCADS-SP as well as post-social stress task anxiety scores (path ab). There was no association between child-reported paternal anxious parenting and psychological control. Paternal psychological control was similarly not associated with RCADS-SP scores. However, paternal anxious parenting was related to RCADS-SP scores (b ¼ 0.26, SE ¼ 0.08, p ¼ 0.001). Anxious parenting and psychological control accounted for 11.08% of the total variance in RCADS-SP scores [F(2,109) ¼ 6.79, p ¼ 0.002]. There was not an indirect association of paternal psychological control on the relation between anxious parenting and RCADS-SP scores, however there was a significant total effect of paternal anxious parenting on child social anxiety symptoms (b ¼ 0.27, SE ¼ 0.08, p ¼ 0.007). In terms of anxious responding to the task, child-reported paternal anxious parenting was not significantly related to psychological control, although psychological control was related post-social stress task anxiety (b ¼ 0.14, SE ¼ 0.06, p ¼ 0.022). Anxious parenting was unrelated to child anxious responding. Baseline anxiety, paternal anxious parenting, and paternal psychological control accounted for 53.79% of the total variance in anxious responding to the social stress task when entered into the omnibus regression model [F(3,108) ¼ 41.91, p < 0.001]. There was no indirect association of psychological control on the relation between anxious parenting and anxious responding as elicited by the task. 3. Discussion Parenting behaviors were examined in relation to adolescent social anxiety. First, in terms of adolescent perceptions of maternal parenting behavior, there was a significant indirect effect of psychological control on the relation between anxious rearing behaviors and daughters' social anxiety symptoms. These data extend limited research highlighting a link between anxious parenting and female adolescent social anxiety (e.g., Grüner, Muris, & Merckelbach, 1999). Findings suggest maternal anxiety about daughters' well-being correlates positively with psychologically controlling tactics and, in turn, child social anxiety symptoms. These results accord with theoretical accounts suggesting such parenting behaviors may undermine autonomy and contribute to feelings of incompetence (Soenens et al., 2010). Indirect effects of maternal psychological control also were observed in the link between anxious rearing and daughters' anxious responding to a social stress task. Greater variance was accounted for in this model, possibly due to methodological factors; post-task anxiety ratings are a single-item response to performance evaluation whereas self-reported symptoms reflect a more global retrospective measure of social anxiety. In terms of paternal behaviors, anxious rearing was associated with daughters' social anxiety symptoms, but it was not significantly linked with anxious responding to the social stress task, nor were indirect effects of psychological control observed. The relative lack of paternal influence observed here is consistent with some work (e.g., Morris & Oosterhoff, 2016; Rork & Morris, 2009). Perhaps because girls spend more time with mothers as compared to fathers (Smetana, Metzger, Gettman, & Campione-Barr, 2006), perceptions of maternal anxious and psychologically controlling behavior is more strongly associated with girls' social anxiety. However, it is noteworthy that the variance accounted for in the current maternal and paternal models were comparable, which fits with other work citing an important role for fathers in terms of € gels & Phares, 2008). Additional work is needed to clarify paternal influence, with particular attention to child anxiety (e.g., Bo Table 2 Zero-order correlations and descriptive data on all continuous variables. Variable
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
M (SD)
Range
a
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
0.01 e
0.14 0.39*** e
0.12 0.35*** 0.72*** e
0.21* 0.34*** 0.29** 0.35*** e
0.20* 0.14 0.12 0.23* 0.50*** e
0.04 0.21* 0.00 0.02 0.34*** 0.19* e
0.29** 0.32*** 0.08 0.05 0.15 0.09 0.49*** e
14.38 (1.15) 12.32 (6.40) 2.88 (2.61) 4.05 (3.16) 11.71 (3.30) 11.32 (3.45) 23.73 (7.12) 21.91 (7.52)
12e15 0e26 0e10 0e10 8e22 8e22 10e40 10e40
n/a 0.86 n/a n/a 0.77 0.82 0.85 0.88
1. Age RCADS-SP Pre-Task Anxious Responding Post-Task Anxious Responding Psychological Control- Mother Psychological Control- Father Anxious Parenting- Mother Anxious Parenting- Father
Note. n ¼ 112; RCADS-SP: Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale e Social Phobia subscale. SUDS: Subjective Units of Distress Anxiety (Anxious Responding); EMBU-C: Egna Minnen Betr€ affande Uppfostran (Anxious Parenting). *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
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Fig. 1. Effects of Anxious Parenting. A diagram of the indirect effects model. RCADS-SP displayed on left, anxious responding elicited by the social stressor task displayed on right. A: The total effect of maternal anxious parenting on RCADS-SP/Anxious Responding. B: The indirect effects model with maternal psychological control examined as a possible factor accounting for the relation between the maternal anxious parenting and RCADS-SP/Anxious Responding. Unstandardized path coefficients are displayed, with corresponding standardized coefficients in parentheses. *p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
methodological and sample factors that may be important, such as assessment modality (e.g., Greco & Morris, 2002) and the € ller, Nikolic, Majdand € gels, 2016). child's developmental level (Mo zi c, & Bo A number of limitations merit discussion. First, research suggests child anxiety may elicit anxious (Settipani & Kendall, 2015) and psychologically controlling (Loukas, 2009) parental behavior. That is, parents may behave in a manner aimed at addressing child displays of anxiety (Hudson, Doyle, & Gar, 2009). In the current cross-sectional study, we cannot determine whether child social anxiety follows parental behavior (Maxwell & Cole, 2007). Importantly, findings lay the groundwork for the types of resource-intensive prospective tests necessary to make such determinations (Kraemer, Yesavage, Taylor, & Kupfer, 2000). Second, psychological control correlated positively with age; the role of child maturation warrants further research. Third, the relative effects of parenting on social anxiety as compared to depression could usefully be examined by conducting tests where such factors are methodologically controlled (Kraemer, 2015). Fourth, although adolescent perception is a critical indicator of parenting behavior (Smetana, Crean, & Campione-Barr, 2005), mono-method assessment bias may have skewed observed findings. Finally, there were no questions indicating whether girls in this non-clinical sample were currently living with either, or both, of their parents, nor indicators of socioeconomic status. These limitations notwithstanding, the current findings uniquely extend current work and lay the foundation for evaluating a number of important research questions regarding the role of parental behaviors in adolescent social anxiety problems. Acknowledgements T. Bynion drafted the manuscript with crucial revision from authors H. Blumenthal, S.A. Bilsky, R.M. Cloutier and E.W. LeenFeldner. All authors contributed to, edited, and approved the final manuscript. S.A. Bilsky conducted the statistical analysis and R. M. Cloutier consulted on the statistical analysis. H. Blumenthal developed the procedures and directed the larger study from which the data were drawn from. References Barber, B. K. (1996). Parental psychological control: Revisiting a neglected construct. Child Development, 67(6), 3296e3319. € gels, S., & Phares, V. (2008). Fathers' role in the etiology, prevention and treatment of child anxiety: A review and new model. Clinical Psychology Review, Bo 28(4), 539e558. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2007.07.011. € gels, S. M., van Oosten, A., Muris, P., & Smulders, D. (2001). Familial correlates of social anxiety in children and adolescents. Behaviour Research and Bo Therapy, 39(3), 273e287. Chorpita, B. F., Yim, L., Moffitt, C., Umemoto, L. A., & Francis, S. E. (2000). Assessment of symptoms of DSM-IV anxiety and depression in children: A revised child anxiety and depression scale. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 38(8), 835e855. Ginsburg, G. S., & Schlossberg, M. C. (2002). Family-based treatment of childhood anxiety disorders. International Review of Psychiatry, 14(2), 143e154. Greco, L. A., & Morris, T. L. (2002). Paternal child-rearing style and child social anxiety: Investigation of child perceptions and actual father behavior. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 24(4), 259e267. Grüner, K., Muris, P., & Merckelbach, H. (1999). The relationship between anxious rearing behaviours and anxiety disorders symptomatology in normal children. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 30(1), 27e35. Hudson, J. L., Doyle, A. M., & Gar, N. (2009). Child and maternal influence on parenting behavior in clinically anxious children. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 38(2), 256e262. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15374410802698438.
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