.4-6 Year-old Children's Anxiety, And Interpersonal Cognitive Problem Solving And Relationship Between The Two,

One of common mental health problems of children is anxiety, which is definedas an unpleasant experience about external events and internal thoughts and feelings.Proper and specific-to-situation anxiety is a normal reaction, but over-anxiety andgeneralized anxiety is a pathology or an abnormal state, which influences children'slearning, behaviors, self-consciousness and every day life. In recent years, westernpsychologists studied children's anxiety, and found it is associated with interpersonalcognitive problem-solving skills. Interpersonal problem solving strategies ofchildren with low anxiety levels are more effective and adequate, compared withthose with high anxiety levels. In China, people put high value on standard andcontrol, so anxiety and its bad effect on social adjustment is likely different from thewest, but few studies were found. In the present thesis, a comprehensive literaturereview was made with regard to anxiety. Further analysis was focused on thelimitations existing in the prior research. On the basis of this, three related studieswere conducted to revise Preschool Anxiety Scale and investigate 4-6-year-oldchildren's anxiety and interpersonal cognitive problem solving skills, which mayreveal the consistency and differences of children's anxiety between China and thewest by comparing the present results with the western ones.In study 1, Preschool Anxiety Scale was revised by questionnaire survey. Instudy 2, structure and developmental characteristics of 4-6-year-old children'sanxiety were investigated by questionnaire survey. In study 3, developmental trendof 4-6-year-old children's interpersonal cognitive problem solving skills and therelations between anxiety and interpersonal cognitive problem solving skills wereinvestigated by individual interview and questionnaire survey.The main findings in the above three studies are as follows:1. Spence Preschool Anxiety Scale has high reliability and validity in Chineseculture, 4-6-year-old children's anxiety symptoms were diagnosed with the revisedScale, the prevalence rate is 22%.2. The anxiety structure of 4-6-year-old children includes 5 dimensions, whichare separation anxiety, fear of physical injury, social phobia, obsessive-compulsivedisorder and generalized anxiety. Fear of physical injury is stable, but othersymptoms gradually decrease with age.3. In general, the highest anxiety level of 4-6-year-old children is fear ofphysical injury, and follows separation anxiety;the lower are social phobia andgeneralized anxiety, the lowest is obsessive-compulsive disorder.4. Social phobia and generalized anxiety of boys are significantly higher thanthose of girls, other symptoms do not have significant gender differences.5. The quantity of interpersonal problem-solving strategies, consequenceexpectations and behavior causes is gradually increasing with age in preschoolperiod, and the quantity of consequence expectations is larger than interpersonalproblem-solving strategies and behavior causes.6. The quantity of interpersonal problem-solving strategies does not havesituational differences, but the quality has significant differences across socialsituations. Specifically, the main strategy in initiating situations is oralcommunication, maintaining situations are oral communication and benefit orsharing, and conflicting situations are oral communication, compromise, andreprimand or arbitrariness.7. The effectiveness of strategies in initiating situations is lower and theadequancy is higher than those of maintaining and conflicting situations.8. The higher social phobia is, the less the quantity of interpersonal problemsolving strategies is;the lower the adequancy and the effectiveness of strategies, andthe worse the ability of cause understanding.