Are fearful boys at higher risk for anxiety? Person-centered profiles of toddler fearful behavior predict anxious behaviors at age 6.

Dysregulated fear (DF), the presence of fearful behaviors in both low-threat and high-threat contexts, is associated with child anxiety symptoms during early childhood (e.g., Buss et al., 2013). However, not all children with DF go on to develop an anxiety disorder (Buss and McDoniel, 2016). This study leveraged the data from two longitudinal cohorts (N = 261) to (1) use person-centered methods to identify profiles of fearful temperament, (2) replicate the findings linking DF to anxiety behaviors in kindergarten, (3) test if child sex moderates associations between DF and anxiety behaviors, and (4) examine the consistency of findings across multiple informants of child anxiety behaviors. We identified a normative fear profile (low fear in low-threat contexts; high fear in high-threat contexts), a low fear profile (low fear across both low- and high-threat contexts) and a DF profile (high fear across both low- and high-threat contexts). Results showed that probability of DF profile membership was significantly associated with child self-reported overanxiousness, but not with parent-reported overanxiousness. Associations between DF profile membership and overanxiousness was moderated by child sex such that these associations were significant for boys only. Additionally, results showed that probability of DF profile membership was associated with both parent-reported social withdrawal and observations of social reticence, but there were no significant associations with child self-report of social withdrawal. Results highlight the importance of considering person-centered profiles of fearful temperament across different emotion-eliciting contexts, and the importance of using multiple informants to understand associations with temperamental risk for child anxiety.

Bidirectional effects of toddler temperament and maternal overprotection on maternal and child anxiety symptoms across preschool.

INTRODUCTION: Existing research highlights interactions among child temperament, parents' own anxiety symptoms, and parenting in predicting increased risk for anxiety symptom development. Theoretical models of child-elicited effects on parents have proposed that parents' behaviors are likely not independent of children's temperament; fearful children likely elicit more protective responses from parents and these parenting behaviors reinforces child anxiety and parents' own anxiety. METHOD: The current study tests this model and examines whether there are bidirectional influences between early fearful temperament (i.e., dysregulated fear [DF]), maternal overprotection, and subsequent trajectories of maternal and child anxiety symptoms across early childhood. A total of 166 children and mothers participated in a multimethod, longitudinal study of temperament risk from 2 to 6 years. RESULTS: Results largely support our hypotheses, replicating and extending the prior literature. DF was associated with more maternal overprotective behavior, subsequent child anxiety symptoms, and maternal anxiety symptoms. Moreover, there were indirect (mediated) associations through maternal overprotective behavior and both child and mother anxiety symptoms. CONCLUSION: Results support the hypothesis that intergenerational transmission of anxiety was meditated through maternal behaviors and that the child-driven temperament effects are central to trajectories of child and maternal anxiety trajectories.