Background: Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is a form of anxiety distinguished by fear and avoidance of social situations. SAD can be transferred from parent to child. In addition to genetic...Show moreBackground: Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is a form of anxiety distinguished by fear and avoidance of social situations. SAD can be transferred from parent to child. In addition to genetic inheritance of anxious traits, this transmission of anxiety can occur environmentally when parents verbally communicate threat or anxiety in social situations towards the child. Methods: This study tested whether parents’ verbal threat (versus safety) expressions give rise to more anxious fear beliefs in the child and explored whether this relation is moderated by parents’ trait social anxiety. Sixty-five children (mean age = 4,74, SD = 0,78) participated in this study with their parents. Both parents were asked to fill out the short version of the Social Phobia Avoidance Inventory (SPAI-short). In a lab parents were privately instructed to transfer information regarding two judges to their child. This information consisted of one judge being nice (safe judge) and one being unkind (threat judge). Thereafter, children were asked to sing a song in front of these judges. Afterwards child fear beliefs for each of the judges was measured via the Fear Beliefs Questionnaire (FBQ). Results: Significantly higher (anxious) fear beliefs for the threat judge were found compared to the safe judge, no moderating effects were found for parental social anxiety. Conclusion: Exposure to verbal expression of anxiety from the parent is related to children’s fear beliefs, however parents’ trait social anxiety has no moderating effect on that relationship. Replication of this study is desired with a between-subject design and diverse sampling.Show less
