title: Observational measures of parenting in anxious and nonanxious mothers: does type of task matter?
abstract: This study examined the relation between type of parent-child interaction task and parenting behaviors among a predominantly African American community-based sample. Twenty-five anxious and matched nonanxious (N = 50) mothers were videotaped with their children (M age = 5.8 years) engaging in both a structured and unstructured task. Blind raters coded 3 parent behaviors hypothesized to play a role in the development of child anxiety: overcontrol, anxious behavior, and criticism. Results indicated that higher levels of overcontrol, anxious behavior, and criticism were found in the structured compared to unstructured task. Levels of criticism, among anxious mothers only, were significantly correlated across tasks. Results suggest that situation specific aspects of parent-child interaction tasks may influence parenting behaviors. These findings help explain variations in observational research in the anxiety literature and highlight the need for careful selection of parent-child tasks in future research.
authors.affiliation: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA. gginsbu@jhmi.edu
authors.forename: Golda S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Ginsburg
authors.forename: Rachel L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Grover
authors.forename: Jennalee J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Cord
authors.forename: Nick
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ialongo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D001007:Anxiety / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D001519:Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D010988:Play and Playthings / Q000523:psychology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014743:Videotape Recording