Zeytinoglu Selin, White Lauren K, Morales Santiago, Degnan Kathryn, Henderson Heather A, Pérez-Edgar Koraly, Pine Daniel S, Fox Nathan A
Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2025 Apr 10. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.14169.
Although social anxiety runs in families, little is known about how parents and children contribute to the intergenerational transmission of social fears. We examined whether mothers transfer social fear beliefs to their children through verbal communication and how children's behavioral inhibition and social anxiety contribute to this transmission. The associations of children's social fear beliefs with peer avoidance and interpretation bias were also examined.
Participants (N = 291, 54% female) were followed from toddlerhood to middle childhood. Behavioral inhibition was assessed at ages 2 and 3. At the 10-year assessment, mother-child dyads participated in a conversation task. Mothers received ambiguous information about hypothetical peers and then talked to their children about vignettes involving these peers. Mothers' positive and negative statements were coded. Prior to the conversation, dyads reported their own social fear beliefs. Post-conversation, children rated their social fear beliefs and completed symbolic peer avoidance and social interpretive bias tasks. Children self-reported their social anxiety.
Mothers' positive statements mediated the paths from maternal social fear beliefs and behavioral inhibition to children's post-conversation social fear beliefs. Mothers' negative statements also mediated the link between mothers' fear beliefs and children's post-conversation fear beliefs, but only among children with heightened anxiety. Children's post-conversation social fear beliefs were, in turn, associated with children's peer avoidance and interpretation bias.
Findings suggest that maternal verbal communication serves as a mechanism in the relation between parent and child social fear beliefs, and children's fear beliefs, in turn, predict their symbolic peer avoidance and interpretative biases. Children with heightened anxiety were particularly impacted by their mothers' negative statements, whereas behavioral inhibition predicted fewer maternal positive statements. Targeting mothers' social fear beliefs and verbal communication patterns may help prevent the intergenerational transmission of social fear.
尽管社交焦虑具有家族遗传性，但对于父母与子女如何促成社交恐惧的代际传递，我们却知之甚少。我们研究了母亲是否通过言语交流将社交恐惧观念传递给子女，以及子女的行为抑制和社交焦虑如何影响这种传递。同时，我们还研究了子女的社交恐惧观念与同伴回避及解释偏差之间的关联。
对291名参与者（54%为女性）从幼儿期追踪至童年中期。在2岁和3岁时评估行为抑制情况。在10岁评估时，母婴二元组参与了一项对话任务。母亲们收到关于假设同伴的模糊信息，然后与孩子谈论涉及这些同伴的小插曲。对母亲的积极和消极陈述进行编码。在对话之前，二元组报告他们自己的社交恐惧观念。对话之后，孩子们对自己的社交恐惧观念进行评分，并完成象征性同伴回避和社交解释偏差任务。孩子们自我报告他们的社交焦虑情况。
母亲的积极陈述介导了从母亲的社交恐惧观念和行为抑制到孩子对话后社交恐惧观念的路径。母亲的消极陈述也介导了母亲的恐惧观念与孩子对话后恐惧观念之间的联系，但仅在焦虑程度较高的孩子中如此。孩子对话后的社交恐惧观念反过来又与孩子的同伴回避和解释偏差相关。
研究结果表明，母亲的言语交流是亲子社交恐惧观念之间关系的一种机制，而孩子的恐惧观念反过来又预测了他们象征性的同伴回避和解释偏差。焦虑程度较高的孩子尤其受到母亲消极陈述的影响，而行为抑制则预示着母亲的积极陈述较少。针对母亲的社交恐惧观念和言语交流模式可能有助于预防社交恐惧的代际传递。
