Influence of Maternal Anxiety, Parenting Behaviors, and Siblings on Children’s Social Anxiety
Open Access
- Author:
- Giorgione, Ryanne Michele
- Area of Honors:
- Psychology
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Dr. Koraly Elisa Pérez-Edgar, Thesis Supervisor
Dr. Jeffrey M Love, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- social anxiety
child anxiety
maternal anxiety
parenting behaviors
presence of siblings - Abstract:
- Social Anxiety Disorder is a prevalent psychiatric diagnosis among school-aged children (Costello, Egger, & Angold, 2005) that can cause adverse effects on children’s emotional development and overall quality of life (Richards, 2013). In order to better address the issue of social anxiety in children we need to understand the underlying factors that contribute to the development of symptoms. The goal of this study was to examine maternal anxiety, maternal parenting behaviors, and sibling presence and how they interact to influence these symptoms. Results indicated that mother’s anxiety levels are positively associated with the mother’s ratings of her child’s anxiety. No significant direct relation between maternal anxiety and authoritative parenting was found, although results suggest authoritative parenting was related to less child anxiety. Increases in maternal anxiety were associated with more authoritarian parenting, which, in turn, was associated with increases in child anxiety. Permissive parenting was not associated with higher maternal anxiety, but there were stronger effects with permissive parenting on child anxiety. Additionally, the results indicated a positive association between mother’s anxiety and child’s anxiety, which on trend was stronger for families with only one child. Although no significant sibling by parenting interaction was found in any model, I did find that increases in the number of siblings was associated with a decrease in maternal authoritative behavior. Overall, the current study stresses the importance of understanding the family-home environment for child social anxiety and the need to better understand these relations in context.