UVM Theses and Dissertations
Format:
Print
Author:
Mount, Kristin S.
Dept./Program:
Psychology
Year:
2009
Degree:
MA
Abstract:
The goal of this study was to predict the development of anxiety in 2 1/2 year olds as a function of maternal anxiety and inhibited temperament, and to test the mediating, moderating, and curvilinear effects of maternal sensitivity. Hypotheses were that maternal sensitivity would mediate the association between maternal and child anxiety, that maternal sensitivity would correlate negatively and inhibition positively with child anxiety, and that they would interact, with high sensitivity reducing any association between inhibition and anxiety; I predicted further this sensitivity would affect temperamentally inhibited children in a curvilinear fashion, with highly inhibited children more likely to exhibit anxiety when maternal sensitivity was both very low and very high. Participants were 82 mothers and their 2 1/2 year old children (32 females). Maternal anxiety was rated using the Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire.
Maternal sensitivity was rated from laboratory observations of sensitivity during a novel event and maternal report diaries from everyday situations, with ratings based on appropriateness and timeliness of mothers' responses to children.'s fear. Child temperament was rated using the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire. Child anxiety was measured using the Child Behavior Checklist. Hierarchical multiple linear regressions were used to test the hypothesized effects. Gender significantly predicted child anxiety, as did maternal sensitivity. Inhibition explained additional variance in child anxiety. However, this association was moderated by the quadratic maternal sensitivity term.
Follow-up regressions within groups high and low in behavioral inhibition, based on a median split, revealed that in the low inhibition group, maternal sensitivity significantly predicted child anxiety, as a simple negative, linear effect. In the high inhibition group, the quadratic maternal sensitivity term predicted child anxiety at the trend level. When maternal sensitivity was either very high or very low, child anxiety increased, whereas when maternal sensitivity was moderately high, child anxiety decreased.
Maternal sensitivity was rated from laboratory observations of sensitivity during a novel event and maternal report diaries from everyday situations, with ratings based on appropriateness and timeliness of mothers' responses to children.'s fear. Child temperament was rated using the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire. Child anxiety was measured using the Child Behavior Checklist. Hierarchical multiple linear regressions were used to test the hypothesized effects. Gender significantly predicted child anxiety, as did maternal sensitivity. Inhibition explained additional variance in child anxiety. However, this association was moderated by the quadratic maternal sensitivity term.
Follow-up regressions within groups high and low in behavioral inhibition, based on a median split, revealed that in the low inhibition group, maternal sensitivity significantly predicted child anxiety, as a simple negative, linear effect. In the high inhibition group, the quadratic maternal sensitivity term predicted child anxiety at the trend level. When maternal sensitivity was either very high or very low, child anxiety increased, whereas when maternal sensitivity was moderately high, child anxiety decreased.