Identifying Moderators of the Link Between Parent and Child Anxiety Sensitivity: The Roles of Gender, Positive Parenting, and Corporal Punishment

School engagement, school climate and youth externalizing behaviors: direct and indirect effects of parenting practices

This research aimed to explore the direct and indirect effects of students' school engagement, school climate and parenting practices on youth's externalizing behaviors. A quantitative methodology with a sample of 183 Portuguese students, aged between 11 and 16 years old, was used. The main results suggested negative associations between externalizing behaviors and higher levels of school engagement and positive school climate. Poor parental supervision, inconsistent discipline and corporal punishment were positively related with externalizing behaviors, contrary to parental involvement and positive parenting that were associated with lower levels of externalizing behaviors. However, negative parenting practices were associated with lower levels of school engagement. Additionally, the results indicated that parenting practices might influence youth's externalizing behaviors through school engagement.

Perceived Parenting Styles and Mental Health: The Multiple Mediation Effect of Perfectionism and Altruistic Behavior

Background

According to the ecological systems theory, the microsystems are important during the development process because they have direct effects on immediate and proximal factors that shape human development. The theory identifies the family as a microsystem that has profound influence on development since it is the immediate environment in which individuals live. This study explored the multiple mediation effect of perfectionism and altruistic behavior on the association between perceived parenting styles and mental health.

Methods

In this cross-sectional study, convenience cluster sampling was used, and the purpose was empirically examined by means of an online questionnaire survey. This study adopted the Demographic Questionnaire, short-form Egna Minnen Beträffande Uppfostran, Chinese Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, Self-Reported Altruism Scale, and General Health Questionnaire to conduct measurements in 525 university students.

Results

The results of the correlation analysis revealed that perceived parenting styles were significantly correlated to perfectionism, altruistic behavior, and mental health. In addition, perfectionism and altruistic behavior were significantly correlated to mental health, while negative perfectionism was not correlated to altruistic behavior. The results of the structural equation model analysis indicated that parental rejection and emotional warmth had direct and significant effects on children's mental health. Positive perfectionism and altruistic behavior not only played partial mediating roles between parental emotional warmth and children's mental health but also exerted a chain multiple mediation effect. Altruistic behavior played a partial mediating role between positive perfectionism and mental health.

Conclusion

Therefore, parents should practice positive parenting styles such as parental emotional warmth toward their children to ensure that positive perfectionism and altruistic behavioral tendency improve mental health.

Familial Factors in the Development of Social Anxiety Disorder

The purpose of the current article is to explore familial factors that influence the development of social anxiety disorder (SAD) in children and adolescents, including parenting, sibling relationships, and family environment. A multitude of interrelated genetic and familial factors have been found to cause and maintain SAD in children and adolescents. There are many challenges in diagnosing and treating the disorder. Knowledge and awareness of familial factors provide insight on targeted treatments that prevent or ameliorate SAD. [Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 59(7), 23-34.].

Cognitive vulnerabilities to anxiety symptoms among Chinese adolescents: A 3-year longitudinal study

OBJECTIVE

This study established cognitive vulnerability of anxiety symptoms among high school students.

METHOD

A total of 72 grade 9-11 students completed measures on levels of anxiety sensitivity (AS), selective attentional processing, and anxiety symptoms annually between 2016 and 2018.

RESULTS

Latent class growth analysis (unconditional model) showed a four-class model: High (stable) (6.94%), low (stable) (11.11%), medium (decreasing) (61.11%), and medium (increasing) (20.83%). The conditioned model controlling for the physical-concerns dimension of AS and negative attentional bias demonstrated that a two-class model consisted of a low anxiety class (n = 59, 81.9%) and a high anxiety class (n = 13, 18.1%) provided the best fit for the data. Negative attentional bias is a significant factor related to the development of anxiety trajectories.

CONCLUSION

Attentional bias modification to disengage from negative stimuli may serve as a potential target of intervention to reduce chronic anxiety among high school students.

The interaction between sleep disturbances and anxiety sensitivity in relation to adolescent anger responses to parent adolescent conflict

INTRODUCTION

Sleep disturbances are common among adolescents and are associated with elevated anxiety, and difficulties managing affect. Familial conflict is associated with both anxiety sensitivity and adolescent sleep disturbances. No work to date has examined how adolescent sleep disturbances may interact with anxiety sensitivity in relation to adolescent affective responding to parent-adolescent conflict. The current study was designed to address this gap in the literature by examining how adolescent sleep disturbances, anxiety sensitivity, conflict elicited anger, and conflict avoidance are associated.

METHOD

Seventy-two American adolescents (n = 39 males) between the ages of 12 and 16 years (M_age = 13.84, SD = 1.38) completed a baseline assessment as well as a well-validated mother-adolescent laboratory-based conflict task.

RESULTS

For youth low in anxiety sensitivity, greater sleep disturbance related positively to conflict-elicited anger, which in turn predicted higher conflict avoidance. In contrast, this indirect effect was not significant for adolescents relatively higher in anxiety sensitivity. Instead, for these adolescents, increased sleep disturbances were associated with lower levels of conflict elicited anger.

CONCLUSIONS

Results suggest that the effects of sleep disturbances on conflict elicited anger may vary as a function of adolescent anxiety vulnerability. These findings highlight the importance of considering the unique effects of sleep disturbances on adolescent affect as a function of adolescent anxiety vulnerability.

Parental Presence Impacts a Neural Correlate of Anxiety (the Late Positive Potential) in 5-7 Year Old Children: Interactions with Parental Sensitivity to Child Anxiety

Anxiety disorders tend to onset early in development and often result in chronic impairment across the lifespan. Thus, there is substantial interest in identifying early neural markers of anxiety and leveraging these markers to better understand processes leading to anxiety. The late positive potential (i.e., LPP) indexes sustained attention to motivationally relevant stimuli; and the LPP to negative images is increased in individuals with anxiety. In the current study, we examined how parental presence impacts the LPP to threatening images in children (52.6% male) between 5 and 7 years-old (N = 78). Moreover, we explored interactions with parental sensitivity to child anxiety symptoms. Results suggest that when children are in the presence of their parent (compared to the presence of an experimenter), they displayed a larger LPP to threatening images. LPP activity was modulated by parental response to their child's anxiety symptoms, such that children with parents who were overly reactive to their children's anxiety symptoms had the greatest LPP response when viewing threatening stimuli in their parent's presence. Additionally, exploratory analyses indicated that children with clinical and subclinical anxiety were characterized by an increased LPP to negative images, but only when the LPP was measured with parents in the room. Findings are novel and extend previous work by suggesting that parents who react strongly when observing their children's anxiety symptoms in turn increase their child's engagement with threatening stimuli, thereby placing them at greater risk for anxiety.

The Parent Sensitivity to Child Anxiety Index

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is the perception that anxiety symptoms and experiences have negative consequences, and has been identified as a risk factor for the development of anxiety disorders. AS has been measured in adults and in children, but to date, the construct of parent's sensitivity to their children's anxiety symptoms has not been identified, measured, or evaluated. The current study presents a novel measure of this construct, the Parent Sensitivity to Child Anxiety Index (PSCAI), and an initial evaluation of its psychometric properties. Factor analysis revealed a three-factor structure consisting of parents' concern for physical symptoms, concern of social evaluation, and fear of anxiety symptoms. The PSCAI demonstrated good internal consistency, and was positively correlated with relevant parental constructs such as parental accommodation, anxiety sensitivity, and trait anxiety. This new measurement system opens new avenues for researching the early development of anxiety disorders and the possibility for novel targeted interventions.

An experimental test of the impact of adolescent anxiety on parental sick role reinforcement behavior

A large body of work links parental sick role reinforcement behavior to adolescent panic vulnerability. To date, however, little work has examined the role of the adolescent in this process. The current study addressed this gap in the literature, using a novel method to experimentally test the impact of adolescent anxiety during a straw-breathing task on parental propensity to engage in sick role reinforcement behavior. An unselected sample of 51 early adolescents (26 female, 10-14 years) and their parents participated in the study. Adolescents were trained to mimic a straw-breathing task, and adolescent reactions to the task were scripted. Parents were randomly assigned to watch their adolescent react either a) anxiously or b) non-anxiously to the straw-breathing task. Parents who viewed their adolescent react anxiously ended the task earlier, reported that they would reinforce more sick role behavior, and reported more negatively valenced reactions during the task than parents who viewed their adolescent react non-anxiously to the task. No group differences emerged in terms of parental self-reported or physiological arousal during the task. Results suggest that adolescent anxiety increases parental sick role reinforcement behavior. Findings are discussed in terms of future directions for reducing parenting behaviors thought to increase vulnerability for panic among adolescents.

Gender differences in response to a school-based mindfulness training intervention for early adolescents

Mindfulness training has been used to improve emotional wellbeing in early adolescents. However, little is known about treatment outcome moderators, or individual differences that may differentially impact responses to treatment. The current study focused on gender as a potential moderator for affective outcomes in response to school-based mindfulness training. Sixth grade students (N = 100) were randomly assigned to either the six weeks of mindfulness meditation or the active control group as part of a history class curriculum. Participants in the mindfulness meditation group completed short mindfulness meditation sessions four to five times per week, in addition to didactic instruction (Asian history). The control group received matched experiential activity in addition to didactic instruction (African history) from the same teacher with no meditation component. Self-reported measures of emotional wellbeing/affect, mindfulness, and self-compassion were obtained at pre and post intervention. Meditators reported greater improvement in emotional wellbeing compared to those in the control group. Importantly, gender differences were detected, such that female meditators reported greater increases in positive affect compared to females in the control group, whereas male meditators and control males displayed equivalent gains. Uniquely among females but not males, increases in self-reported self-compassion were associated with improvements in affect. These findings support the efficacy of school-based mindfulness interventions, and interventions tailored to accommodate distinct developmental needs of female and male adolescents.

The Mediating Role of Anxiety Sensitivity in Uncontrolled Drinking: A Look at Gender-Specific Parental Influences

BACKGROUND

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) reflects an individual's belief that experiencing anxiety will cause illness or embarrassment, and may be a reason individuals self-medicate with alcohol. Harsh or indulgent parenting could contribute to the development of AS. We examined the direct and indirect associations between parenting styles and alcohol-related variables through AS and impaired control over drinking (IC; i.e., perceived failure to adhere to limits on alcohol consumption in the future).

METHODS

A multiple-group structural equation model with 614 university students (344 men; 270 women) was examined. Structural invariance tests were conducted to evaluate moderation by gender. We used a bias corrected bootstrap technique to obtain the mediated effects.

RESULTS

Father authoritarianism and mother permissiveness were directly linked to AS among women, whereas father permissiveness was directly linked to AS among men. This suggests unique parental influences based on gender regarding AS. While AS was directly linked to alcohol-related problems for both men and women, several gender-specific associations were found. AS was directly linked to IC for men but not for women. For men, father permissiveness was directly related to AS, and AS mediated the indirect link between father permissiveness and IC along both the heavy episodic drinking and alcohol-related problems pathways. Similar to other internalizing constructs (e.g., neuroticism and depression), higher AS was directly associated with less heavy episodic drinking but more alcohol-related problems.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings highlight the dangers of AS for men as an important correlate of under-controlled drinking behaviors. Additionally, permissive parenting of the same-gender parent was associated with AS, which is consistent with the gender-matching hypothesis. Together, these results underscore the importance of measuring the independent influence of both parents.

The role of parental anxiety sensitivity and learning experiences in children's anxiety sensitivity

This study evaluated the impact of the mother's and father's anxiety sensitivity (AS) and learning experiences on children's AS, and the influence of two moderators: the children's femininity orientation and the children's emotional intelligence (EI). The sample comprised 200 non-clinical children, aged 9-13 years, and their parents (mothers and fathers). Results revealed that the effect of parental AS on children's AS is moderated by the children's EI for maternal AS and by their femininity traits for paternal AS. Learning experiences following somatic sensations influenced the children's level of AS. More specifically, special attention by parents following a child's somatic sensations (reinforcement and transmission of information) was associated with high AS in children. Parental reactions of fear following a parent's somatic sensations (modelling) seem to predict higher scores for AS when the link is moderated by the child's femininity orientation. The implications of these findings are discussed. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject The influence of parental factors in child's AS has been demonstrate, but these studies are limited. Specific mechanisms might condition the relationship between child's AS and parental factors. What does this study add? Learning experiences and parental AS influence the child's level of AS. It is important to consider the influence of mothers and fathers in child's AS. Child's emotional intelligence and expressive traits may moderate the effect of parental factors.

The interaction between anxiety sensitivity and cigarette smoking level in relation to sleep onset latency among adolescent cigarette smokers

Cigarette smoking during adolescence is linked to a number of sleep disturbances and has been consistently linked to sleep onset latency among adults. However, little research has examined factors that may influence the relation between cigarette smoking level and sleep onset latency among adolescents. One factor that may be particularly important in this regard is anxiety sensitivity (AS). The current study examined whether cigarette smoking level interacted with AS in its association with sleep onset latency among 94 adolescent (Mage = 15.72) cigarette smokers. As hypothesized, AS interacted with smoking level to relate to sleep onset latency, even after controlling for age and gender. This relation was specific to sleep onset latency as opposed to other types of sleep disturbances, and that adolescents who smoked at higher levels tended to go to sleep later and wake up later than adolescents who smoked at relatively lower levels.