Barrett P M, Rapee R M, Dadds M M, Ryan S M
University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
J Abnorm Child Psychol. 1996 Apr;24(2):187-203. doi: 10.1007/BF01441484.
Previous research has shown that anxious adults provide more threat interpretations of ambiguous stimuli than other clinic and nonclinic persons. We were interested in investigating if the same bias occurs in anxious children and how family processes impact on these children's interpretations of ambiguity. Anxious, oppositional, and nonclinical children and their parents were asked separately to interpret and provide plans of action to ambiguous scenarios. Afterwards, each family was asked to discuss two of these situations as a family and for the child to provide a final response. The results showed that anxious and oppositional children were both more likely to interpret ambiguous scenarios in a threatening manner. However, the two clinic groups differed in that the anxious children predominantly chose avoidant solutions whereas the oppositional children chose aggressive solutions. After family discussions, both the anxious children's avoidant plans of action and the oppositional children's aggressive plans increased. Thus, this study provides the first evidence of family enhancement of avoidant and aggressive responses in children. These results support a model of anxiety that emphasizes the development of an anxious cognitive style in the context of anxiety-supporting family processes.
先前的研究表明，焦虑的成年人比其他临床和非临床人群对模糊刺激做出更多的威胁性解读。我们感兴趣的是，这种偏差是否也会出现在焦虑的儿童身上，以及家庭环境如何影响这些儿童对模糊情境的解读。我们分别要求焦虑、对立违抗和非临床儿童及其父母对模糊情境进行解读并提供行动计划。之后，要求每个家庭作为一个整体讨论其中两种情境，并让孩子给出最终回应。结果表明，焦虑儿童和对立违抗儿童都更有可能以威胁的方式解读模糊情境。然而，这两个临床组的不同之处在于，焦虑儿童主要选择回避性解决方案，而对立违抗儿童则选择攻击性解决方案。经过家庭讨论后，焦虑儿童的回避性行动计划和对立违抗儿童的攻击性计划都有所增加。因此，本研究首次证明了家庭环境会增强儿童的回避性和攻击性反应。这些结果支持了一种焦虑模型，该模型强调在支持焦虑的家庭环境中发展出焦虑的认知风格。
