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Maternal Anxiety, Behaviors, and Expectations During a Behavioral Task: Relation to Children’s Self-Evaluations

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Abstract

This study examined the associations between maternal anxiety, behaviors, and expectations and children’s self-evaluations of distress, coping, and performance during a stressful performance evaluation task. Seventy-five mothers (38 clinically anxious and 37 nonanxious) along with one of their children aged 6–14 (52.0% female; 78.7% Caucasian) were videotaped while preparing the child to deliver a speech about themselves. Child and parent assessments were obtained before and after the speech, and independent coders rated maternal behavior during the speech preparation. Maternal anxiety and behaviors accounted for a greater proportion of variance in children’s self-evaluations than did maternal expectations, such that children of mothers who reported higher task anxiety and demonstrated more overcontrol and anxious behavior during the task evaluated themselves more negatively. These findings extend the literature by providing information about the relative associations between maternal factors and children’s self-evaluations within the context of an in vivo stressful situation.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH63427-02) awarded to Golda S. Ginsburg, Ph.D. During manuscript preparation, Kimberly Becker was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (T32 MH18834).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mental Health, The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 111 Market Place, Suite 901, Baltimore, MD, 21202, USA

    Kimberly D. Becker

  2. Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Golda S. Ginsburg

Authors
  1. Kimberly D. Becker
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  2. Golda S. Ginsburg
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Correspondence to Kimberly D. Becker.

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Becker, K.D., Ginsburg, G.S. Maternal Anxiety, Behaviors, and Expectations During a Behavioral Task: Relation to Children’s Self-Evaluations. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 42, 320–333 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-011-0216-7

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