Do anxiety-related attentional biases mediate the link between maternal over involvement and separation anxiety in children?

Abstract

This study explored attentional mechanisms via which maternal over involvement could contribute to a child's separation anxious symptomatology across development. Consistent with developmental theories of cognition and childhood anxiety age was found to moderate the relationship between attentional biases towards threatening (angry) faces and separation anxiety. In addition, the results highlighted that maternal over involvement enhanced a child's separation anxiety via an attentional bias to angry faces. The results suggest that vigilance for threat partially mediates the association between maternal over involvement and symptoms of childhood separation anxiety. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported with an ESRC studentship (PTA-030-00206) and funding from the School of Psychology, University of Southampton, awarded to the first author.

We are very grateful to all the families who took part in this research project and to local schools for their invaluable help with recruitment.