Masters Theses

Date of Award

5-2021

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

Kristy Benoit Allen

Committee Members

Jenny Macfie, Julia Jaekel

Abstract

Myriad parenting behaviors have been linked to the development of internalizing disorders in children. Intrusive parenting, which is characterized by autonomy-limiting behaviors that hold the parent’s agenda above that of the child, seems to uniquely contribute to the onset of child anxiety. In laboratory tasks, anxious mothers demonstrate greater levels of intrusiveness when compared to nonanxious mothers, suggesting that intrusive behaviors may be one mechanism through which anxiety is transmitted from parent and child. Other studies suggest that parental intrusiveness is evoked in the presence of an anxious child, providing evidence for bidirectionality. The current study investigated the bidirectional effects between maternal intrusiveness and anxious symptomology from infancy to middle childhood. Participants were a community sample of 218 infant-mother dyads, and maternal intrusiveness was assessed at seven time points (5 and 10 months; 2, 3, 4, 6 and 9 years) while child anxiety symptoms were assessed at the last four timepoints. Results suggest that maternal intrusiveness remains relatively stable from infancy to middle childhood, but we found no evidence of concurrent or prospective relationships between intrusiveness and child anxiety. Broadly, this study suggests that current operationalizations of intrusive parenting may only be sufficient at capturing these behaviors during infancy and early childhood, but inadequate for middle childhood. Potential directions for future studies using this parenting construct are discussed.

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