Cobham V E, Dadds M R, Spence S H
School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Australia.
J Clin Child Psychol. 1999 Jun;28(2):220-31. doi: 10.1207/s15374424jccp2802_9.
Assigned 73 children, ages 7 to 14, to 1 of 3 groups (anxious, clinical control, and nonclinical control) according to their diagnostic status. Within the anxious group, children were assigned to 1 of 2 further groups on the basis of self-reported parental anxiety--either the child anxiety only group or the child + parent anxiety group. All children completed an experimental task (giving a brief talk in front of a video camera), which was the focus for a series of structured family discussions between the child and his or her parents. The aims of the study were to measure and compare across groups (a) the evaluations of children and their parents regarding the child's predicted anxiety and skill level and (b) the effect of the family discussion on children's expectations. Results indicated that, prior to the family discussion, anxious children's expectations of their future performance did not differ from those of control children. Similarly, there were no differences in children's expectations between the child anxiety group and the child + parent anxiety group. Second, compared to mothers in the child anxiety group, mothers in the child + parent anxiety group expected that their children would be more anxious and more likely to choose an avoidant problem solution (but not less skilled). Finally, the family discussion was found to produce no changes in anxious children's expectations of their future performance. The implications of these findings are discussed.
根据诊断状况，将73名7至14岁的儿童分为3组（焦虑组、临床对照组和非临床对照组）中的一组。在焦虑组中，根据自我报告的父母焦虑情况，将儿童进一步分为2组中的一组——要么是仅儿童焦虑组，要么是儿童+父母焦虑组。所有儿童都完成了一项实验任务（在摄像机前进行简短演讲），这是儿童与其父母之间一系列结构化家庭讨论的重点。该研究的目的是测量并跨组比较：(a) 儿童及其父母对儿童预测的焦虑和技能水平的评估；(b) 家庭讨论对儿童期望的影响。结果表明，在家庭讨论之前，焦虑儿童对其未来表现的期望与对照组儿童没有差异。同样，儿童焦虑组和儿童+父母焦虑组之间儿童的期望也没有差异。其次，与儿童焦虑组的母亲相比，儿童+父母焦虑组的母亲预计他们的孩子会更焦虑，更有可能选择回避问题的解决方案（但技能并不更低）。最后，发现家庭讨论并未改变焦虑儿童对其未来表现的期望。讨论了这些发现的意义。
