While fear of social situations is common, excessive social fears, as observed in social anxiety disorder (SAD), can have debilitating consequences on one’s life. Social fears increase from early...Show moreWhile fear of social situations is common, excessive social fears, as observed in social anxiety disorder (SAD), can have debilitating consequences on one’s life. Social fears increase from early to mid-adolescence, heightening vulnerability to developing SAD. Parents’ threatening verbal comments in a social context could influence children’s fear response, including attention, and lead to social fear acquisition. Additionally, children with higher behavioral inhibition (BI), who are more cautious and withdrawn in novel situations, can be more open to the effects of parental remarks than children with lower BI. Therefore, the current thesis aimed to investigate the effect of parental verbal threat versus safety about strangers on children’s attention to strangers, while looking at BI as a moderator. The children (age M = 11.62, SD = 1.18, range: 9.5-14) gave a presentation for two strangers after receiving either threatening or safe verbal descriptions of these strangers from their parents. Results showed that the child’s attention (i.e., looking duration) toward the stranger did not significantly differ between the threat and safe conditions. Furthermore, there was no significant moderation by BI. Thus, child attention was not influenced by parental verbal information irrespective of individual differences in child BI. Future studies could investigate children’s development of SAD further by focusing on the role of parental SAD, as well as the effects of repetitive exposure to parental verbal threat, other variables related to attention, and the developmental trajectories regarding BI.Show less
Social anxiety runs in families. A pathway that plays a significant role in the transmission of social anxiety from parent-to-child, is the verbal information pathway. Studies that investigated...Show moreSocial anxiety runs in families. A pathway that plays a significant role in the transmission of social anxiety from parent-to-child, is the verbal information pathway. Studies that investigated this pathway mainly focused on the fear of novel animals instead of social fears. The current study investigated how parental verbal threat versus safety information affects the fear beliefs of children about strangers in social situations. Additionally, in the light of earlier research suggesting an influence of parental social anxiety on the effect of verbal information, parental social anxiety has been explored as a moderator. Primary caregivers provided their child (N = 69, M = 11.67 years, 59.4% girls) with either verbal threat or safety information regarding two strangers. After receiving the verbal information, the child had to perform three social tasks, twice, in front of each stranger. After the social tasks, the child had to report his level of fear (fear beliefs) regarding the strangers. Parents reported their own levels of social anxiety through a questionnaire. The findings showed that children reported more fear for the stranger paired with parental verbal threat information compared to the stranger paired with parental verbal safety information. However, no moderation of parental social anxiety on the effect of verbal information was found. Conclusively, the study reveals a causal effect of parental verbal threat on children’s fear beliefs. Possible explanations for the lack of a moderating effect of parental social anxiety and the need for future research are discussed.Show less
Background: Verbal threat transmission is significant part of the etiology of fear as Rachman (1977, 1991) suggested in his three pathway theory. To test his theory, as Remmerswaal & Muris ...Show moreBackground: Verbal threat transmission is significant part of the etiology of fear as Rachman (1977, 1991) suggested in his three pathway theory. To test his theory, as Remmerswaal & Muris (2011) did, our research investigated the contribution of verbal threat information which is provided by parents to the development of children’s fear in the context of Covid-19. In order to do that, we tried to observe the relationships among the parental verbal threat information, parents’ and children’s fear of Covid-19, also, we tested whether parents’ and children’s fear of the Covid-19 were mediated by parental verbal threat transmission related to the Covid-19. Furthermore, this paper tried to depict if the different information sources in addition to the parental verbal threat information, parents’ fear of the Covid-19, children’s general fear of medical affairs, parents’ general fear of medical affairs, direct experience of children and direct experience of parents significantly contributed children’s fear of the Covid-19. Methods: Children aged between 8-18 years old (N=90) and one of their parents (N=90) completed Fear of Covid-19 Questionnaire (FCV-19), the Sources of Information about the Covid-19 Scale (SIQ) and Fear Survey Schedule for Children’s Revised version (FSSC-R; Ollendick, 1983) online. To test the mediation, we conducted multiple regression analysis using Baron and Kenny’s (1986) statistical method and to see different information sources’ contribution on children’s fear of the Covid-19, we conducted hierarchical regression. Results: We concluded that parental verbal threat information partially mediated the relationship between children’s and parents’ fear of the Covid-19 and different information sources significantly contributed to the children’s fear of the Covid-19 in addition to other predictors. Discussion: Our results provided support for Rachman’s (1977, 1991) theory which argued the existence of the verbal threat transmission. Another important area was, different information sources might contribute into fear acquisition of children. It leads other future studies that can investigate which information sources are more effective in the children’s fear acquisition.Show less
In the current study the main goal is to point out how parents of pre-schoolers encounter the subject of Math at home. Eighty eight Greek parents of pre-school children filled in a questionnaire...Show moreIn the current study the main goal is to point out how parents of pre-schoolers encounter the subject of Math at home. Eighty eight Greek parents of pre-school children filled in a questionnaire with several questions referring to topics like the frequency with which they engage in numeracy activities at home or their academic expectations for their child. The main findings indicate that gender of the child does not play a significant role on the academic expectations that their parents have for them before entering Kindergarten. However, those expectations are positively correlated to the frequency that number activities occurred at home.Show less
