“Watch Out, She’s the Mean One!” An Experiment on the Influence of Parental Verbal Information About Strangers on  Children’s Attentional Bias to Strangers

Social anxiety disorder is a disabling disorder that runs in families. One way in which anxiety is transmitted from parents to children is through parental verbal information, which induces attentional biases towards threat-associated animals over safety-associated animals. However, this effect has only been researched with unknown animals as the subject of information. Therefore the current study aimed to investigate the effect of parental verbal information on children’s attentional bias in a social situation, using human strangers as the subject of information. Additionally, the moderating role of child social anxiety was explored. For this study, children (aged 4-6, N=52) visited the lab with their primary caregiver. The caregivers then transferred messages to their children about two strangers: one paired with positive information, one with negative information. After the children completed a social performance task with the strangers posing as judges, the children completed a...Show moreSocial anxiety disorder is a disabling disorder that runs in families. One way in which anxiety is transmitted from parents to children is through parental verbal information, which induces attentional biases towards threat-associated animals over safety-associated animals. However, this effect has only been researched with unknown animals as the subject of information. Therefore the current study aimed to investigate the effect of parental verbal information on children’s attentional bias in a social situation, using human strangers as the subject of information. Additionally, the moderating role of child social anxiety was explored. For this study, children (aged 4-6, N=52) visited the lab with their primary caregiver. The caregivers then transferred messages to their children about two strangers: one paired with positive information, one with negative information. After the children completed a social performance task with the strangers posing as judges, the children completed a visual search task with pictures of the strangers to measure children’s attentional bias towards the strangers. Also, child social anxiety was measured by parental report on a questionnaire. A repeated measures ANOVA showed no significant effect of parental verbal information on child attentional bias. Child social anxiety also did not affect this relationship. The absence of a significant effect of verbal information on attentional bias can be explained by the non-aversive experience children had with the strangers. If this possible extinction effect is found in future studies as well, it may have implications for the extended use of exposure therapy in the treatment of child social anxiety.Show less

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“Watch Out, She’s the Mean One!” An Experiment on the Influence of Parental Verbal Information About Strangers on Children’s Attentional Bias to Strangers