Interpretation and avoidant response biases in anxious children: Relationships with mothers' threat perception, coping expectations and parenting behaviors

Anxious children are appear more likely than non-anxious children to display interpretation bias (tendency to overestimate threat) and avoidant response bias (tendency to underestimate one's coping ability, resulting in avoidance). There is some evidence for the transmission of these biases from parents to their children; studies have shown there is a positive correlation between parents' and children's threat perception and beliefs about the children's coping abilities. Family discussions of ambiguously threatening situations have also been shown to enhance anxious children's avoidant behavior.; The present study sought to: (1) Replicate previous findings of interpretation and avoidant response biases in anxious children and their mothers, and (2) Expand upon prior research by examining the degree to which mothers' threat perception, coping expectations, and parenting behaviors influence children's threat perception and avoidance in ambiguously and saliently threatening situations. Forty clinically anxious children and 40 non-clinical children (ages seven to 14) participated in the study with their mothers. Participants were presented with hypothetical situations pertaining to the child; three of the situations were standard for all participants, while three situations were selected by each child as particularly anxiety provoking. Children described what they would think and do in the situations; mothers listed what they thought a typical child would think, what their child would do, and what they would say and do. Participants also gave threat or likelihood ratings on a 0-8 scale for the main variables. Trained coders rated qualitative response.; T-tests and hierarchical regression analyses were used to evaluate the study hypotheses. Mothers' expectations of their children's ability to cope in ambiguous and salient situations positively predicted children's own coping expectations. Mothers' coping expectations also predicted children's threat perception in salient situations. Mothers' anxiety level, threat perception, and parenting behaviors were not significant predictors of children's threat perception or coping expectations in either type of situation. In addition, clinically anxious children had greater threat perception and lower expectations of their coping abilities (coder-rated and self-rated) in response to salient situations, and lower self-rated coping expectations for ambiguous situations, than non-clinical children. Clinical implications of the current findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.