This thesis aims to address the increasing necessity for employers to provide policies to support their employees’ parenthood. How successfully parents’ cope with the competing demands of being a...Show moreThis thesis aims to address the increasing necessity for employers to provide policies to support their employees’ parenthood. How successfully parents’ cope with the competing demands of being a working parent can have an influence on their well-being. It was proposed that a relationship between the policies parents use, and their general well-being would be also influenced by several factors, such as the age of the child, the gender of the parent, and the characteristics of the child. 137 working parents accessed an online survey through social media where they would report on demographics and the policies they have used and their level of satisfaction. Additionally, they completed the GHQ-12 for general well-being and Mary Rothbart’s temperament questionnaires, IBQ, ECBQ or CBQ, depending on their youngest’ child age. Linear regression analyses were performed to analyze the potential relationship between policies and well-being, as well as a hierarchical multiple regression analyses for moderation effects. Lastly, results did not support the hypotheses; however, a relationship between policies and general well-being was concluded. Against the initial hypothesis, it was found that parents that make use of a lot of policies are predicted to report lower general well-being levels, presenting a quality-quantity dilemma. This is explained through the parents’ subjective experience of policies. Companies are urged to provide adjusted support to their working parents while taking their opinion and individual circumstances into consideration.Show less
Anxiety disorders are prevalent worldwide and tend to run in families. Parents’ suppression of emotions affects the child’s emotional development and mental health through different pathways....Show moreAnxiety disorders are prevalent worldwide and tend to run in families. Parents’ suppression of emotions affects the child’s emotional development and mental health through different pathways. However, due to social desirability bias, parents and children may differ in their reports of parental emotional suppression. This study investigated which report of parental emotional suppression is a stronger predictor of a child’s anxiety. Additionally, the mother- child and father-child interactions seem to differ in effects on the child’s emotional development. Thus, it was explored whether mother-reported or father-reported suppression of emotions has a stronger link with the child’s anxiety symptoms. This study used a correlational cross-sectional design. In total, 187 child-parent dyads were included. Both children and parents had to fill out the online versions of the Affective Style Questionnaire regarding parental suppression and the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotion Disorders. Data was analysed using Pearson’s correlations and by comparing the Fisher’s z effect scores. The correlations were non-significant for the parent-report of emotional suppression and the child’s anxiety and both for the fathers and mothers. However, there was a significant relationship between the child-report of parental emotional suppression and the child’s anxiety. These results unfold the complexity of this matter as children’s gender, age or clinical level of anxiety may explain the null findings. The correlational design was the primary limitation. Future research should further investigate the effects of children’s gender and culture in this relationship to gain a deeper understanding.Show less
Children’s psychosocial functioning in is known to be influenced by parental emotion discussion in early childhood. However, the associations between parental emotion discussion and children’s...Show moreChildren’s psychosocial functioning in is known to be influenced by parental emotion discussion in early childhood. However, the associations between parental emotion discussion and children’s psychosocial functioning have mainly been studied in the typically hearing (TH) population of children. Little is known about this association in the deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) child population, who tend to be at risk of having lower psychosocial functioning. Our study investigated the impact of parental emotion discussion on three areas of DHH and TH children’s psychosocial functioning (externalizing behavior, peer problems, and prosocial behavior) with a cross-sectional study design using parent report data on 215 preschoolers aged 1–7.5 years (49.3% girls, 88 DHH). Contrary to what was previously reported in the literature, we found that DHH and TH children did not differ in psychosocial functioning, nor did their parents differ in their level of emotion discussion with their children. In line with previous research, our results indicated that more parental emotion discussion was related to less externalizing, and more prosocial behavior in their children, but no association was found between parental emotion discussion and peer problems in the children. Furthermore, the hearing status of the children did not affect the associations between parental emotion discussion and children’s psychosocial functioning in our study. Future studies should address the heterogeneity of the DHH population and their families, and clinical focus should be placed to optimize family based early intervention programs for DHH youth.Show less
Social anxiety disorder runs in families. Next to genetically inherited dispositions, there are two main environmental pathways of parent-to-child transmission of anxiety: the verbal transmission...Show moreSocial anxiety disorder runs in families. Next to genetically inherited dispositions, there are two main environmental pathways of parent-to-child transmission of anxiety: the verbal transmission of information and the indirect modelling of information. In this study the parental verbal threat vs safety expressions about strangers on children’s reported fear and the possible moderating role of child’s temperament in a community sample of 10-to-13-year-old children (N = 75) is investigated. In the experiment, primary caregivers gave standardized verbal threat vs safety information about two strangers to their child. Then children separately interacted with the two strangers in a series of social tasks where they gave a social speech, watched back their social performance, and interacted with the strangers about their performance. After that, each participating child was asked to report their fear beliefs about each stranger. Child temperament was measured using the Early Adolescence Temperament Questionnaire (EATQ), filled in by both parents. Results showed that the effect of parental verbal communication on the fear beliefs of the child was significant: children reported more fear beliefs to the stranger paired with parental threat (versus safety) information. The effect was, however, not qualified by a higher order interaction between condition and child’s temperament, suggesting that the impact of parental verbal information does not differ as a function of temperament. The findings reveal that a brief exposure to parental verbal threat induces fear beliefs in children, irrespective to the temperament scores.Show less
Abstract: It is not fully understood how effortful control is influenced by environmental factors. Effortful control is an important underpinning of self-regulation and plays influences...Show moreAbstract: It is not fully understood how effortful control is influenced by environmental factors. Effortful control is an important underpinning of self-regulation and plays influences developmental outcomes such as conscious development and externalizing behavior. We investigated if internalized conduct mediated the relation between parental sensitivity and effortful control in children aged 5-8. To do so, questionnaires were used to measure internalized conduct and effortful control and a parent-child drawing task was used to measure sensitive parenting. In the questionnaire for effortful, questions about the levels of effortful control of the child were answered by the primary parent. In the questionnaire for internalized conduct, questions about the levels of internalized conduct of the child were answered by the other parent. The drawing task for parental sensitivity was done by the child and the primary parent. Significant effects were found in parental sensitivity as a predictor of both internalized conduct and effortful control. In addition a significant effect was found in internalized conduct as a predictor of effortful control. However, internalized conduct was not found to be a mediator in the relation between parental sensitivity and effortful control in this study.Show less
Background: The development of social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a complex aetiological pathway. Recent studies revealed that the verbal informational pathway influences children’s anxiety beliefs...Show moreBackground: The development of social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a complex aetiological pathway. Recent studies revealed that the verbal informational pathway influences children’s anxiety beliefs and behaviours towards novel animals. This study incorporated this to a social context by investigating the effect of parental verbal expression of threat/anxiety (versus safety) on the avoidance behaviour towards strangers in children. In addition, this study investigated if the temperamental construct behavioural inhibition (BI) moderated this effect. Methods: A community sample of 71 children aged between 9-to-14 participated with their primary caregiver by visiting the lab. Both parents had to fill in online questionnaires about their personal anxiety levels and child’s anxiety and temperamental levels. Whilst the child filled in questionnaires about their anxiety and temperamental levels. During the lab visit the caregiver provided verbal threat/anxiety (versus safety) information to their child about two strangers that would watch their child perform social tasks. The effect of this verbal manipulation was tested by observing the child’s avoidance behaviour during these social tasks. Results: The child’s avoidance behaviour did not significantly differ during the social tasks between the stranger paired with the threat/anxiety versus safe condition. However, children who reported more BI sensitivity showed more avoidance behaviour independent of the verbal manipulation. Conclusions: The type of verbal information transmitted by parents did not influence the child’s avoidance behaviour towards strangers. In addition, this study confirmed the existing evidence that BI is a risk factor for developing SAD behaviour.Show less
Background: Parental verbal threat information is considered to play an important role in the development of childhood anxiety. Attentional biases induced by verbal threat information may increase...Show moreBackground: Parental verbal threat information is considered to play an important role in the development of childhood anxiety. Attentional biases induced by verbal threat information may increase the risk of developing social anxiety disorder. This study aims to investigate the effect of parental verbal threat information about strangers on children’s attention to these strangers. In addition, we explored the potential moderating role of child social anxiety. Method: The sample consisted of 75 9-to-14-year-old children (M= 11.51 years; 39 girls) and their primary caregivers from the community. The children filled in a questionnaire to measure their social anxiety levels. In the lab, the children had to give two speeches about shyness and confidence in front of two different strangers. Before the social performance, the caregiver verbally communicated threat or safety information about the two strangers. The duration of the looks measured the child’s attention to each stranger during the social performance. Results: The parental verbal information did not influence the child’s attention to the stranger during the social performance. No significant moderation of this effect by the child’s social anxiety was observed. Conclusions: Parental verbal threat information about strangers does not influence children’s attention to these strangers. In addition, child social anxiety does not affect the effect of parental verbal information on children’s attention to strangers.Show less
This study investigated whether parents’ fear of the COVID-19 is associated with children’s fear of the COVID-19. Further, the study examined whether the association is mediated by parents’ verbal...Show moreThis study investigated whether parents’ fear of the COVID-19 is associated with children’s fear of the COVID-19. Further, the study examined whether the association is mediated by parents’ verbal threat information. In addition, it was studied which sources of information about the COVID-19 contribute to children’s fear of the COVID-19. In this online study participated 90 parent-child dyads (child mean age M = 13.22, parent mean age M = 46.49). The present study has a cross-sectional correlational design. The participants completed online self-reported questionnaires. The results of the study showed that parents’ fear of the COVID-19 is positively linked to children’s fear of the COVID-19. Parents’ fear of the COVID-19 is positively associated with parents’ verbal threat information. Also, parents’ verbal threat information is positively related to children’s fear of the COVID-19. The link between parents’ and children’s fear of the COVID-19 is partially mediated by parents’ verbal threat information. Further, the results showed that various sources of information accounted for 39% of the variance in the children’s fear of the COVID-19. Parents, television and friends are important contributing sources of information to the children’s fear of the COVID-19. The results support Rachman’s information pathway in explaining fear transmission from parents their offspring in the context of the COVID-19. The results are also in line with the previous research about parents’ threat information mediation between parents’ and children’s fear of the swine flu.Show less
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...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
Little is known regarding the specific mechanismsthat underlie the parent-to-child transmission of anxiety. A possible mechanism is the shared attention biases to threat. Also, there is little...Show moreLittle is known regarding the specific mechanismsthat underlie the parent-to-child transmission of anxiety. A possible mechanism is the shared attention biases to threat. Also, there is little evidence regarding individual differences, such as negative temperament, in the earliest development of attention bias to threat. Fearful/ negative temperament can act as a risk factor for developing anxiety disorders later in life. This study investigated the relationship between parents’ and infants’ attention bias, and if negative child temperament strengthened this relationship. Attention bias was measured to fearful faces in infants (N = 220) ages 5 to 19 months and parents (N = 229) during an eye-tracking task. Infants’ negative temperament was measured with a questionnaire. Results show that infants looked longer towards fearful faces than happy faces. Parents did not pay this attention bias towards fearful faces. We found no relation between parents’ attention bias towards fearful faces and infants’ attention bias towards fearful faces. We did find an interaction between the attention biases and negative child temperament. In other words, the higher the infants’ negative temperament, the stronger the relationship between parents’ attention bias towards threatening faces and infants’ attention bias towards threatening faces. These findings support the idea that negative temperament is related to attention bias and that it could be a risk factor for future anxiety development.Show less
This research had generated insight in the relation between math anxiety of parents and teachers and genderstereotyped thinking of parents, teachers and pupils on pupils’ math performance. In total...Show moreThis research had generated insight in the relation between math anxiety of parents and teachers and genderstereotyped thinking of parents, teachers and pupils on pupils’ math performance. In total 42 teachers (nwomen = 30), 279 pupils (ngirls = 156) and 206 parents (nmothers = 188) participated during this research. The pupils have been asked to fill in a questionnaire based on the Student Attitude Questionnaire. For the parents and the teachers this questionnaire was expanded with the Math Attitude Scale. There was also asked for pupils’ math skills from the Leerlingvolgsysteem. The first result showed that boys were better in math than girls (p = .03). Secondly no relation was found between teachers’ math anxiety (p = .41) and genderstereotyped thinking of teachers (p = .58) and pupils (p = .45) on pupils’ math performance. The same relations were found for male and female teachers on pupils’ math performance. Opposed to this, parents’ math anxiety had a negative relation with pupils’ math performance (p = .01), but the genderstereotyped thinking of parents (p = .75) and pupils (p = .70) did not predict pupils’ math performance. In conclusion, the influence of parents on pupils’ math performance is larger compared to the influence of teachers. For further research is suggested to include more male teachers and fathers. In addition, it would be interesting to investigate the difference between male and female pupils and the input of pupils own math anxiety to get insight in their own influence on their math performance.Show less
