TY - JOUR
T1 - Maternal emotion regulation during child distress, child anxiety accommodation, and links between maternal and child anxiety
AU - Kerns, Caroline E.
AU - Pincus, Donna B.
AU - McLaughlin, Katie A.
AU - Comer, Jonathan S.
PY - 2017/8
Y1 - 2017/8
N2 - Environmental contributions are thought to play a primary role in the familial aggregation of anxiety, but parenting influences remain poorly understood. We examined dynamic relations between maternal anxiety, maternal emotion regulation (ER) during child distress, maternal accommodation of child distress, and child anxiety. Mothers (N = 45) of youth ages 3–8 years (M = 4.8) participated in an experimental task during which they listened to a standardized audio recording of a child in anxious distress pleading for parental intervention. Measures of maternal and child anxiety, mothers’ affective states, mothers’ ER strategies during the child distress, and maternal accommodation of child anxiety were collected. Mothers’ resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity during the recording was also acquired. Higher maternal negative affect and greater maternal ER switching (i.e., using multiple ER strategies in a short time without positive regulatory results) during child distress were associated with child anxiety. Sequential mediation modeling showed that maternal anxiety predicted ineffective maternal ER during child distress exposure, which in turn predicted greater maternal accommodation, which in turn predicted higher child anxiety. Findings support the mediating roles of maternal ER and accommodation in linking maternal and child anxiety, and suggest that ineffective maternal ER and subsequent attempts to accommodate child distress may act as mechanisms underlying the familial aggregation of anxiety.
AB - Environmental contributions are thought to play a primary role in the familial aggregation of anxiety, but parenting influences remain poorly understood. We examined dynamic relations between maternal anxiety, maternal emotion regulation (ER) during child distress, maternal accommodation of child distress, and child anxiety. Mothers (N = 45) of youth ages 3–8 years (M = 4.8) participated in an experimental task during which they listened to a standardized audio recording of a child in anxious distress pleading for parental intervention. Measures of maternal and child anxiety, mothers’ affective states, mothers’ ER strategies during the child distress, and maternal accommodation of child anxiety were collected. Mothers’ resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity during the recording was also acquired. Higher maternal negative affect and greater maternal ER switching (i.e., using multiple ER strategies in a short time without positive regulatory results) during child distress were associated with child anxiety. Sequential mediation modeling showed that maternal anxiety predicted ineffective maternal ER during child distress exposure, which in turn predicted greater maternal accommodation, which in turn predicted higher child anxiety. Findings support the mediating roles of maternal ER and accommodation in linking maternal and child anxiety, and suggest that ineffective maternal ER and subsequent attempts to accommodate child distress may act as mechanisms underlying the familial aggregation of anxiety.
KW - Child anxiety
KW - Emotion regulation
KW - Maternal anxiety
KW - Parenting
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85020052164&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85020052164&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.janxdis.2017.05.002
DO - 10.1016/j.janxdis.2017.05.002
M3 - Article
C2 - 28577415
AN - SCOPUS:85020052164
VL - 50
SP - 52
EP - 59
JO - Journal of Anxiety Disorders
JF - Journal of Anxiety Disorders
SN - 0887-6185
ER -