Influence of maternal negative emotion reactivity and cognitive reappraisal on child anxiety disorder
Background Anxiety disorders are among the most common psychopathologies in childhood. Two underlying contributors to child anxiety disorders (ADs) are negative emotional hyper‐reactivity and deficits in reappraisal, a cognitive strategy of emotion regulation. Given that emotion regulation develops...
Saved in:
Published in | Depression and anxiety Vol. 35; no. 4; pp. 353 - 359 |
---|---|
Main Authors | , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Hindawi Limited
01.04.2018
|
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
Cover
Loading…
Summary: | Background
Anxiety disorders are among the most common psychopathologies in childhood. Two underlying contributors to child anxiety disorders (ADs) are negative emotional hyper‐reactivity and deficits in reappraisal, a cognitive strategy of emotion regulation. Given that emotion regulation develops in the context of parent–child interaction, the aim of this study was to fill a research gap regarding the association between maternal negative emotional reactivity (NER) and reappraisal and child anxiety by examining (a) whether mothers of children with ADs display abnormalities in emotional reactivity and reappraisal compared to mothers of children without ADs; (b) whether maternal NER and reappraisal are associated with child anxiety; and (c) whether maternal reactivity and reappraisal significantly explain the variance in the level of child anxiety beyond the level of maternal anxiety.
Method
Forty‐nine mothers and their AD children (aged 10–17) were assessed at admission to an anxiety disorder clinic and were compared to a control group of 42 mothers and their non‐anxious (NA) children. Child and maternal anxiety were assessed, as well as maternal NER and reappraisal.
Results
Mothers of AD children showed a higher NER as well as reappraisal deficits compared to the control group. Self‐rated child anxiety was associated with maternal deficits in reappraisal. The variance in child anxiety was significantly explained by the level of maternal anxiety as well as maternal reappraisal deficits.
Conclusions
This study suggests that maternal NER and reappraisal play an important role in child anxiety and should be considered in prevention and intervention of childhood ADs. |
---|---|
Bibliography: | Department of Psychology, Bar‐Ilan University, Israel Schneider's Children Medical Center of Israel, Israel Ziv Medical Center, Israel Institutions at which the work was performed ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1091-4269 1520-6394 |
DOI: | 10.1002/da.22745 |