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Parent- and Child-Factors in Specific Phobias: The Interplay of Overprotection and Negative Affectivity

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Abstract

Specific phobias are among the most prevalent anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. Although brief and intensive treatments are evidence-based interventions (Davis III et al. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 15, 233–256, 2019), up to one-third of youth do not show significant change in their symptoms following these interventions. Hence, consideration of additional factors influencing treatment response is necessary. Child-factors such as temperament and parent-factors such as parenting behaviors both contribute to the development of specific phobias and their maintenance over time. Specifically, we addressed child temperament (negative affectivity) and parenting behaviors (overprotection) that could uniquely predict clinical outcomes for specific phobias and that might interact to inform goodness-of-fit in the context of these interventions. We also considered whether child- and/or parent-gender shaped the effects of temperament or parenting on clinical outcomes. Participants were 125 treatment-seeking youth (M age = 8.80 years; age range = 6–15 years; 51.5% girls) who met criteria for specific phobia and their mothers and fathers. Mothers’ reports of children’s negative affectivity uniquely predicted poorer specific phobia symptom severity and global clinical adjustment at post-treatment. Interaction effects were supported between parental overprotection and child negative affectivity for post-treatment fearfulness. The direction of these effects differed between fathers and mothers, suggesting that goodness-of-fit is important to consider, and that parent gender may provide additional nuance to considerations of parent-child fit indices.

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Notes

  1. McDonald’s omega, rather than Cronbach’s alpha, was used to determine internal consistencies in the current study. This coincides with a broader shift in the field away from alphas, which depend on a larger set of assumptions that are typically not met with many measures (i.e., unidimensionality, sensitity of items), and biased estimated when assumptions are violated. Omega estimates incorporate fewer assumptions and show attenuated biases relative to alphas (see Dunn et al. 2014).

  2. CGAS scores from 41 to 50 indicate moderate impairment in functioning in most domains and severe impairment in at least one domain, such as communication. CGAS scores from 81 to 90 indicate adequate functioning in all areas (see Wagner et al. 2007).

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Funding

This study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, Grant R01MH074777.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

    Nicole N. Capriola-Hall

  2. Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA

    Jordan A. Booker

  3. Child Study Center, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Thomas H. Ollendick

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  1. Nicole N. Capriola-Hall
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  2. Jordan A. Booker
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  3. Thomas H. Ollendick
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NCH contributed to hypothesis generation and helped write the manuscript. JAB contributed to data analysis and helped write the manuscript. THO secured the relevant funding for this project, oversaw data collection, and helped write the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Nicole N. Capriola-Hall.

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Capriola-Hall, N.N., Booker, J.A. & Ollendick, T.H. Parent- and Child-Factors in Specific Phobias: The Interplay of Overprotection and Negative Affectivity. J Abnorm Child Psychol 48, 1291–1302 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-020-00662-3

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