Developmental Trajectories of Symptom-Specific Anxiety in Chinese Preschoolers: The Role of Maternal Anxious Rearing Behaviors

Siyu Zhou and Xiaowei Li ()
Additional contact information
Siyu Zhou: Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Xiaowei Li: Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 24, 1-11

Abstract: Although developmental trajectories of anxiety have begun to be explored, most research has focused on total anxiety symptom scores in middle childhood and adolescence. Little is known about the developmental trajectories of specific anxiety symptoms in early childhood. This three-wave longitudinal study investigated (1) the developmental trajectories of four specific anxiety symptoms (separation anxiety, special fear, social anxiety, and generalized anxiety) during early childhood, and (2) the association between maternal anxious rearing behaviors and these four specific anxiety symptoms concurrently and over time. Mothers of 105 Chinese children completed the Preschool Anxiety Scale (PAS) and the “Egna Minnen Beträffande Uppfostran” for parents (EMBU-P) to report their child’s anxiety symptoms and their own anxious rearing behaviors when their child was 2–4, 3–5, and 6–7 years old. The results of latent growth curve modelling (LGCM) showed that participating children exhibited a slight linear decrease in special fear and social anxiety across three time points, whereas the trajectories of separation anxiety and generalized anxiety remained stable. Maternal anxious rearing behaviors were significant and positively related to children’s separation anxiety at T3 and specific fear at T1 and T2 but unrelated to social anxiety and generalized anxiety at any time points. These findings help us better understand how various types of anxiety problems develop in early life and isolate the risk factors (e.g., maternal anxious rearing behaviors) contributing to the emergence and continuity of anxiety problems as early as possible.

Keywords: specific anxiety symptoms; developmental trajectories; maternal anxious rearing; early childhood; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/24/16402/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/24/16402/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:24:p:16402-:d:996909

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().