The Intergenerational Transmission of Social Phobia
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Reading
Department Name: Sch of Psychology and Clinical Lang Sci
Abstract
The study concerns a form of emotional disturbance known as ‘social phobia’. People who suffer from social phobia intensely fear that they will humiliate or embarrass themselves.
About one in four of the children of someone with social phobia develop the disorder themselves. Genetics plays some part in this, but parenting is likely also to be important.
We have been studying a group of mothers and their children, from pregnancy until the child was two years old. The mothers either have social phobia, another form of anxiety (chronic worrying), or have never been anxious.
A significant proportion of the children of the mothers with social anxiety themselves show early signs of social anxiety. This anxiety is associated with mothers displaying their own social anxiety to their children and not supporting and encouraging their children with strangers.
We now wish to assess these children when they start school at age five, to learn how the children of socially anxious mothers cope with this situation and how the mothers do or do not help them.
It is known that anxious children of anxious parents do not respond to treatment as well as other anxious children. This study will contribute to the development of new treatments for these children.
About one in four of the children of someone with social phobia develop the disorder themselves. Genetics plays some part in this, but parenting is likely also to be important.
We have been studying a group of mothers and their children, from pregnancy until the child was two years old. The mothers either have social phobia, another form of anxiety (chronic worrying), or have never been anxious.
A significant proportion of the children of the mothers with social anxiety themselves show early signs of social anxiety. This anxiety is associated with mothers displaying their own social anxiety to their children and not supporting and encouraging their children with strangers.
We now wish to assess these children when they start school at age five, to learn how the children of socially anxious mothers cope with this situation and how the mothers do or do not help them.
It is known that anxious children of anxious parents do not respond to treatment as well as other anxious children. This study will contribute to the development of new treatments for these children.
Technical Summary
Social phobia is a common and disabling condition commonly with early onset. This study concerns the intergenerational transmission of the disorder. In our previous MRC programme, a prospective longitudinal study was initiated. Large samples of three groups of women were recruited in pregnancy: those with social phobia (SP), those with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), and those with no history of anxiety disorder. These mothers and their infants were assessed from the neonatal period until the infants were two years old. Over this time, the children of the SP mothers developed clear signs of emerging social anxiety; and their mothers‘ parenting was distinguished by manifestations of social anxiety and inability to support their children‘s social interactions.
The current proposal is to follow up these samples when the children are aged five with the aim of elucidating the mechanisms whereby certain children go on to develop frank social anxiety, while others follow a healthy developmental trajectory. At five years the children begin school, and the entailed normative social stress provides an important opportunity for examining the process whereby early infant vulnerability becomes consolidated as emotional disturbance. Assessments will be made in the school to assess both the child‘s ability to settle in to a new social situation and maternal strategies that either help or hinder the child‘s achieving this goal. Assessments will also be made in the laboratory to reassess maternal mental state and the mothers‘ parenting in controlled situations; and assessments will be made of child anxiety. In addition, child genetic material will be analysed to enable gene-environment analysis to be made (i.e. the 5-HTTLPR gene and parenting), as will salivary cortisol, to determine whether risk for the development of anxiety disorder is associated with impairments in the regulation of the HPA-axis. In addition to this study furthering understanding of the mechanisms involved in the intergenerational transmission of social phobia (and, incidentally, GAD), it stands to be of significant clinical benefit by contributing to the development of improved treatments for child anxiety. This is especially important given the relatively poor treatment response of anxious children of anxious parents.
The current proposal is to follow up these samples when the children are aged five with the aim of elucidating the mechanisms whereby certain children go on to develop frank social anxiety, while others follow a healthy developmental trajectory. At five years the children begin school, and the entailed normative social stress provides an important opportunity for examining the process whereby early infant vulnerability becomes consolidated as emotional disturbance. Assessments will be made in the school to assess both the child‘s ability to settle in to a new social situation and maternal strategies that either help or hinder the child‘s achieving this goal. Assessments will also be made in the laboratory to reassess maternal mental state and the mothers‘ parenting in controlled situations; and assessments will be made of child anxiety. In addition, child genetic material will be analysed to enable gene-environment analysis to be made (i.e. the 5-HTTLPR gene and parenting), as will salivary cortisol, to determine whether risk for the development of anxiety disorder is associated with impairments in the regulation of the HPA-axis. In addition to this study furthering understanding of the mechanisms involved in the intergenerational transmission of social phobia (and, incidentally, GAD), it stands to be of significant clinical benefit by contributing to the development of improved treatments for child anxiety. This is especially important given the relatively poor treatment response of anxious children of anxious parents.