Neonatal auditory evoked responses are related to perinatal maternal anxiety

Maternal stress and anxiety during pregnancy are related to negative developmental outcomes for offspring, both physiological and psychological, from the fetal period through early adolescence. This robust relationship is likely to be partly explained by alterations in fetal neurodevelopmental programming, calling for further examination of neurophysiologically-based cognitive markers that may be related to the altered structure–function relationships that contribute to these negative developmental outcomes. The current investigation examined the relationship between perinatal maternal anxiety and neonatal auditory evoked responses (AERs) to mother and stranger voices. Results indicated that neonates of low-anxiety mothers displayed more negative frontal slow wave amplitudes in response to their mother’s voice compared to a female stranger’s voice, while neonates of high-anxiety mothers showed the opposite pattern. These findings suggest that neonates of perinatally anxious mothers may demonstrate neurophysiologically-based differences in attentional allocation. This could represent one pathway to the negative psychological outcomes seen throughout development in offspring of anxious mothers.     

The impact of maternal control on children’s anxious cognitions, behaviours and affect: An experimental study

Controlling parenting is associated with child anxiety however the direction of effects remains unclear. The present study implemented a Latin-square experimental design to assess the impact of parental control on children’s anxious affect, cognitions and behaviour. A non-clinical sample of 24 mothers of children aged 4-5 years were trained to engage in (a) controlling and (b) autonomy-granting behaviours in interaction with their child during the preparation of a speech. When mothers engaged in controlling parenting behaviours, children made more negative predictions about their performance prior to delivering their speech and reported feeling less happy about the task, and this was moderated by child trait anxiety. In addition, children with higher trait anxiety displayed a significant increase in observed child anxiety in the controlling condition. The pattern of results was maintained when differences in mothers’ levels of negativity and habitual levels of control were accounted for. These findings are consistent with theories that suggest that controlling parenting is a risk factor in the development of childhood anxiety.     

Positive Psychology and Attachment: Positive Affect as a Mediator of Developmental Outcomes

Fredrickson’s (1998) broaden-and-build model and Bowlby’s (1969) attachment theory provide alternate explanations for positive cognitive, social, physical, and psychological outcomes, positive affect and secure attachments, respectively. This study examined whether affect mediates the relationship between attachment and positive outcomes. The sample consisted of 99 undergraduate students from a small, public liberal arts college in the mid-Atlantic region. For people high in attachment anxiety, but not those high in attachment avoidance, affect partially mediated social and psychological outcomes and fully mediated health outcomes. People who scored high in attachment anxiety reported less positive affect and more negative affect, which results in poorer social, physical, and psychological outcomes than those with lower levels of attachment anxiety. Perhaps children with caregivers who are more responsive to their needs experience more positive affect; and, it is the experience of positive affect that yields developmental advantages.     

Does Father Know Best? A Formal Model of the Paternal Influence on Childhood Social Anxiety

We explore paternal social anxiety as a specific risk factor for childhood social anxiety in a rational optimization model. In the course of human evolution, fathers specialized in external protection (e.g., confronting the external world) while mothers specialized in internal protection (e.g., providing comfort and food). Thus, children may instinctively be more influenced by the information signaled by paternal versus maternal behavior with respect to potential external threats. As a result, if fathers exhibit social anxiety, children interpret it as a strong negative signal about the external social world and rationally adjust their beliefs, thus becoming stressed. Under the assumption that paternal signals on social threats are more influential, a rational cognitive inference leads children of socially anxious fathers to develop social anxiety, unlike children of socially anxious mothers. We show in the model that mothers cannot easily compensate for anxious paternal behavior, but choose to increase maternal care to maintain the child’s wellbeing. We discuss research directions to test the proposed model as well as implications for the prevention and treatment of child social anxiety.     

Parent–child interactions and anxiety disorders: an observational study

Past research has indicated a potential link between anxiety and parenting styles that are characterised by control and rejection. However, few studies have utilised observational methods to support these findings. In the current study, mother–child interactions were observed while the child completed two difficult cognitive tasks. The sample consisted of clinically anxious children (n=43), oppositional defiant children (n=20) and non-clinical children (n=32). After adjusting for the age and sex of the child, mothers of anxious children and mothers of oppositional children displayed greater and more intrusive involvement than mothers of non-clinical children. Mothers of anxious children were also more negative during the interactions than mothers of non-clinical children. The differences between anxious and non-clinical interactions were equivalent across three separate age groups. The results support the relationship between an overinvolved parenting style and anxiety but question the specificity of this relationship.     

Infant face interest is associated with voice information and maternal psychological health

Early infant interest in their mother's face is driven by an experience based face processing system, and is associated with maternal psychological health, even within a non clinical community sample. The present study examined the role of the voice in eliciting infants’ interest in mother and stranger faces and in the association between infant face interest and maternal psychological health.Infants aged 3.5-months were shown photographs of their mother's and a stranger's face paired with an audio recording of their mother's and a stranger's voice that was either matched (e.g., mother's face and voice) or mismatched (e.g., mother's face and stranger's voice). Infants spent more time attending to the stranger's matched face and voice than the mother's matched face and voice and the mismatched faces and voices. Thus, infants demonstrated an earlier preference for a stranger's face when given voice information than when the face is presented alone. In the present sample, maternal psychological health varied with 56.7% of mothers reporting mild mood symptoms (depression, anxiety or stress response to childbirth). Infants of mothers with significant mild maternal mood symptoms looked longer at the faces and voices compared to infants of mothers who did not report mild maternal mood symptoms. In sum, infants’ experience based face processing system is sensitive to their mothers’ maternal psychological health and the multimodal nature of faces.     

Maternal stress and behavioral adaptation in methadone- or buprenorphine-exposed toddlers

The current study examined the relationship between early interaction, parenting stress, maternal psychological distress symptoms, and behavior problems and health-related quality of life among children born to mothers in opioid maintenance treatment (OMT) in Norway during the period 2005–2007 (N = 36). This group was compared with a normative sample of mothers without substance abuse problems and their children (N = 36). There were significant group differences (p < .01) in perceived child problems in toddlerhood. In a regression model, mothers’ self-reported psychological distress symptoms in terms of depression and anxiety symptoms significantly predicted child behavior problems (p < .01) and health-related quality of life (p < .01) rather than parenting stress. No significant, unique effect of exposure was found after controlling for other factors that could influence developmental outcomes. These findings add to the growing evidence on the importance of maternal psychological well-being for child development, and underscore the need to address opioid-maintained women's personal maladjustment and the constellation of stress experienced by mothers in recovery.     

Maternal Sensitivity and Anxiety: Impacts on Child Outcome

ABSTRACT

Children of anxious parents have been shown to be at an increased risk of developing an anxiety disorder. Thus, it is critically important to identify factors that increase or decrease that risk. The depression literature has shown that maternal sensitivity decreases negative child outcome associated with maternal depression. The current study was designed to determine whether maternal sensitivity may buffer children of anxious mothers in a similar way. Three hypotheses were tested. First, that anxious mothers would display less sensitivity than nonanxious mothers in interactions with their children; that there would be an interaction between sensitivity and anxiety on child outcome; and that sensitivity would account for variance in child outcome beyond that attributed to anxiety. One hundred and twenty-five mothers (75 anxious) and their children (ages 3–12) completed the study. Mothers were administered the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule-IV and Parent, and a subset also completed the Beck Anxiety Inventory. Children completed the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule-Child. Dyads also engaged in two interaction tasks (one cognitive, one social) which were coded for maternal sensitivity and three child outcome behaviors. Results showed that anxious mothers displayed less sensitivity in the social task but not in the cognitive task. An interaction between anxiety and sensitivity was found only when predicting child negativity in the social task. Finally, maternal sensitivity was found to account for variance in child outcome beyond that of anxiety. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Interactions between anxious mothers and their infants: An integration of theory and research findings

Children of highly anxious mothers are at risk for developmental difficulties including anxiety disorders, and “anxious maternal behavior” and disturbed mother–infant interactions have been implicated in the transmission of risk. In this article, we describe interactions between mothers who are highly anxious and their young infant, based on the few directly relevant observation studies that are available. For more detail, we draw on a broader literature including studies of depressed mothers and developmental theory. Our goal is to describe how the interactions between anxious mothers and infants look to an outside observer and how they may feel to mothers and infants. We also discuss possible bases for their disturbed interactive behavior, the impact that the disturbances can have on both mothers and infants, buffers and risk factors, and routes to short‐term intervention. Finally, we suggest directions for future research on maternal anxiety and anxious maternal behavior and the significance of such research for clinicians and researchers.     

Changes in maternal expressed emotion toward clinically anxious children following cognitive behavioral therapy

The aim of this study was to determine whether maternal expressed emotion (criticism and emotional overinvolvement) decreased across treatment for childhood anxiety. Mothers of 48 clinically anxious children (aged 6-14 years) were rated on levels of criticism (CRIT) and emotional overinvolvement (EOI), as measured by a Five Minute Speech Sample (FMSS) from mothers, prior to and following cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for their children’s anxiety. Results showed a significant decrease in the proportion of mothers who expressed high levels of criticism and emotional overinvolvement from pretreatment to posttreatment. This finding suggests that interventions aimed at reducing symptoms of child anxiety can also result in a decrease of maternal expressed emotion (criticism and emotional overinvolvement).     

The Role of Metacognitions in the Association between Children’s Perceptions of Maternal Control and Anxiety

We aimed to bring a developmental perspective to metacognitive theory. The metacognitive model (MCM) was originally developed for adults. However, an increasing number of studies demonstrate the MCM is relevant to child anxiety. Therefore, it is important to understand the origins of anxiety-specific metacognitions. Given the role experiences of controlling parenting play in maintaining and perhaps forming anxious cognitions or a cognitive vulnerability we focused on maternal behavioral and psychological control. Using a cross-sectional design, Danish school children (9–17 years old; N?=?1062) rated their levels of anxiety and anxiety-specific metacognitions, and their mothers' controlling behavior. Child-perceived maternal psychological control was positively correlated with each anxiety specific metacognition (positive and negative worry beliefs, cognitive confidence, need to control, and cognitive self-consciousness). Child-perceived autonomy-granting was negatively correlated with all metacognitions except cognitive self-consciousness. Child perceived maternal psychological control was indirectly associated with anxiety via total metacognitions. Child-perceived autonomy-granting, but not psychological control, was directly related to anxiety. Given the differential findings for psychological control and autonomy-granting, we suggest that specific types of parenting behavior may be related to specific elements of (meta-) cognitive vulnerability. Our findings are theoretically important because they propose maternal psychological control is an environmental factor that may play a role in the development of a metacognitive vulnerability related to anxiety. A potential clinical implication of our findings is that metacognitive therapy for children should include a parental component.     

The impact of mothers' trait anxiety on their expectations of approach‐avoidance behaviour in anxious and non‐anxious children

This study investigated estimates of approach and avoidance behaviour in clinically anxious and non‐anxious children, and whether mothers' expectations of their children's avoidance differed as a function of high trait anxiety (HTA) versus low trait anxiety (LTA). Participants were 62 clinically anxious and 60 non‐anxious children aged 7–12 years and their mothers. Estimates of avoidance were obtained using an analogue task in which children and mothers were given threat and pleasant information about two novel animals and were asked to estimate children's avoidance of the threat animal's habitat when the threat animal was present (threat condition) and absent (safe condition) from the habitat and when its presence was uncertain (ambiguous condition). Contrary to expectation, anxious children did not differ from controls in estimates of avoidance in any condition. However, relative to HTA mothers of anxious children and LTA mothers of non‐anxious children, HTA mothers estimated greater approach behaviour by their non‐anxious children in the threat condition. Findings suggest that mothers' expectations of children's approach‐avoidance behaviour is influenced by both maternal and child factors.     

An examination of the interactions between mothers and children with anxiety disorders

This study examined the association between parenting styles and mother and child anxiety. Maternal overinvolvement and negativity/criticism were evaluated during a speech preparation task (N = 135 dyads) and a Five Minute Speech Sample (FMSS) from mothers (N = 155). During the speech task interaction, mothers of anxious children (aged 4–16 years), regardless of their own anxiety, were observed to be more overinvolved than mothers of nonanxious children. Similarly, the FMSS showed that mothers of anxious children (aged 4–17 years) were more overprotective, self-sacrificing, or nonobjective than mothers of nonanxious children, irrespective of maternal anxiety status. No differences in maternal negativity were found on the speech task between any of the groups. However, the FMSS showed that mothers of anxious children were more critical than mothers of nonanxious children, regardless of maternal anxiety status. These results support the relationship between overinvolved, critical parenting and child anxiety, but suggest that maternal anxiety is not associated with increased overinvolvement or criticism. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Subchance perception: Anxious, non-defensive individuals identify subliminally-presented positive words at below-chance levels

People who chronically experience anxiety are biased towards subliminally-presented negative information. Recent research has shown that they may also avoid subliminally-presented positive information. However, these findings are equivocal due to the limitations of previous paradigms and measures. This paper reports two experiments demonstrating that highly anxious, non-defensive individuals exhibit subchance perception when attempting to identify subliminally-presented positive words; that is, they identify such words with accuracy rates that are below chance (guessing). Participants attempted to identify masked positively and negatively valenced words that had been presented briefly (6.4 ms) in a two-alternative forced-choice paradigm. In Experiment 1, persons high in trait anxiety and low in defensiveness identified positive words at below-chance levels and negative words at above-chance levels. No other participant-group’s performance differed from chance. In Experiment 2, persons high in trait anxiety and low in defensiveness again exhibited subchance perception of positive words when responding quickly. This represents the clearest evidence to date that anxious, non-defensive individuals systematically avoid subliminally-presented positive information.     

Interactions between mothers and children: impacts of maternal and child anxiety

This study, an expansion of an earlier study of parenting behaviors of anxious mothers, examined the relationship of both mother and child anxiety disorders to mother behavior in parent--child interactions. Participants were 68 mother--child dyads with children ranging in age from 7 to 15 years. Mothers and children completed diagnostic evaluations and engaged in conversational tasks; behaviors were rated by coders who were blind to diagnosis. Mothers of anxious children, regardless of their own anxiety, were less warm (p <.05) toward their children. They also granted less autonomy (p <.01). There was an interaction between mother and child anxiety in predicting maternal catastrophizing (p <.01), with anxious mothers and nonanxious mothers of anxious children likely to catastrophize. Theoretical and research implications are discussed.     

Asymmetry in self-other agreement on attachment style among romantic partners

This research reports about asymmetrical relations in self-other ratings of attachment style. Specifically, results showed that romantic partners hold relatively accurate perceptions of each other’s attachment styles with one exception: women’s ability to judge their male partner’s level of attachment-related anxiety was compromised compared with the other agreement indices measured. The effect was not moderated by acquaintanceship length or relationship satisfaction, but it was affected by men’s interpersonally oriented self-control. The findings appear to reflect men’s reluctance from appearing anxious to their female partners and from the nature of the anxiety dimension of attachment. Anxiety (as compared with avoidance) has a less consistent interpersonal behavioral manifestation and thus is more concealable among those motivated and capable of doing so.     

Parental Anxiety Disorders, Child Anxiety Disorders, and the Perceived Parent–Child Relationship in an Australian High-Risk Sample

This study was designed to explore the role of perceived parenting behavior in the relationship between parent and offspring anxiety disorders in a high-risk sample of adolescents. We examined the relationship between parental and child anxiety disorders and tested whether perceived parenting behavior acted as a mediator between these variables. Analyses were performed on a high-risk sample of 816 fifteen-year-olds drawn from a birth cohort in Queensland, Australia. Parental depression and income were covaried. Maternal anxiety disorder significantly predicted the presence of anxiety disorders in children; the association between paternal anxiety disorder and child anxiety disorder was not significant. There was no evidence that perceived parenting played a mediating role in the association between mother and child anxiety disorders. These results replicate earlier studies' findings of elevated rates of anxiety disorders among the offspring of anxious parents, but only when the child's mother is the anxious parent.     

Growing Up with an Anxious Sibling: Psychosocial Correlates and Predictors of Sibling Relationship Quality

Relationships between young people with anxiety and their non-affected siblings are important for both individuals in the dyad, and for family dynamics throughout the lifespan; however, these relationships are not well understood. This study examined the experience of growing up with an anxious sibling from the sibling without anxiety’s point of view. We measured psychosocial factors associated with sibling relationship quality in 64 young adults with an anxious sibling. Overall, participants with anxious siblings were resilient, reporting comparable sibling relationship quality, anxiety symptoms, and psychological functioning relative to peers without anxious siblings. The contributions of caregiver burden and attributions about the causes of the sibling’s anxiety-related behavior accounted for significant variance in both sibling relationship warmth/closeness and conflict, with responsibility attributions emerging as an individual predictor of conflict. Clinical and research implications for understanding sibling relationships in the context of anxiety, and for the role of attributions in family relationships are considered.     

Maternal Affective Disorder and Children’s Representation of Their Families

Children’s perceptions of family relationship are related to their later emotional and social adjustment. This is of particular relevance in the context of family stressors such as maternal affective disorder. This study investigated the effects of maternal postnatal depression and anxiety on children’s family representations. In our sample of postnatally depressed mothers we also explored marital conflict as mediator between maternal psychopathology and children’s representations. Family drawings of 235 4–5 year-old children (93 control, 53 depressed and 89 anxious) were examined. When compared to controls, children of depressed, but not of anxious mothers, were more likely to draw themselves as less prominent than other family members and to represent a dysfunctional family, less likely to represent themselves with a happy face and showed a greater tendency of drawing bizarre pictures. Marital conflict mediated the association between maternal depression and dysfunctionality in drawings.     

Infant interest in their mother's face is associated with maternal psychological health

Early experience can alter infants’ interest in faces in their environment. This study investigated the relationship between maternal psychological health, mother–infant bonding, and infant face interest in a community sample. A visual habituation paradigm was used to independently assess 3.5-month old infants’ attention to a photograph of their mother's face and a stranger's face. In this sample of 54 healthy mother–infant pairs, 57% of mothers (N = 31) reported symptoms of at least one of stress response to trauma, anxiety, or depression. Interest in the mother-face, but not stranger-face, was positively associated with the mother's psychological health. In regression analyses, anxiety and depression predicted 9% of the variance in looking to the mother-face. Anxiety was the only significant predictor within the model. No direct associations were found between mother–infant bonding and infants’ face interest. Taken together, these findings indicate that infant's visual engagement with their mother's face varies with maternal symptoms of emotional distress, even within a community sample.