Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
909658 Journal of Anxiety Disorders 2011 6 Pages PDF
Abstract

Schoolchildren reported their parents’ use of aversive control and positive reinforcement contingencies in their educational interventions, as well as parental non-responsiveness to their requests for educational assistance. They also reported their own levels of six dimensions of anxiety disorder-related phenomena. Both parental use of aversive control and non-responsiveness were directly related to overall levels of child anxiety disorder-related behavior; these correlations were more robust than those observed in previous investigations of more diffuse dimensions of parenting style and trait anxiety. Panic disorder/agoraphobia and Generalized anxiety disorder were the dimensions most strongly correlated with both parental aversive control and non-responsiveness, while Compulsive behavior was uniquely uncorrelated with parental non-responsiveness and uniquely correlated with parental use of positive reinforcement contingencies. Differences in the magnitudes of correlations between anxiety disorder-related dimensions and parental educational practices are interpreted in terms of the probable differential effectiveness of their constituent behaviors in terminating parent-mediated negative reinforcers.

► A study of relations between parental educational contingency use and child anxiety. ► Parental educational use of aversive control contingencies correlates with anxiety. ► Parental non-involvement in children's academic affairs correlates with anxiety. ► Use of positive reinforcement contingencies is unrelated to overall anxiety levels. ► Parental practices are differentially correlated with specific dimensions of anxiety.

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