FAMILY PROCESS AND CHILD ANXIETY AND AGGRESSION - AN OBSERVATIONAL ANALYSIS

Barrett, Rapee, Dadds, and Ryan (1996) described a phenomenon whereby family discussions magnified the style of children's problem solving i n a way characteristic of their particular clinical diagnosis. That is , anxious children became more avoidant, aggressive children more aggr essive, and nonclinic children more prosocial, after discussing ambigu ous hypothetical situations with their parents. This study examined sp ecific sequences of communications exchanged between parents and child ren hypothesized to underlie this family exacerbation of child cogniti ve style. Family discussions were videotaped and categorized for group s of anxious, aggressive, and nonclinic children and their parents. Re sults revealed differences between groups of parents in frequency of a greeing with and listening to their child and the frequency of pointin g out positive consequences. Conditional probability analyses showed t hat parents of anxious children were more likely to reciprocate avoida nce, while parents of nonclinic children were more likely to agree wit h and listen to prosocial plans from their child. Differences in paren t behaviors observed during the family discussions were reliably assoc iated with the child's response to the ambiguous situation proposed af ter the family discussion. Results support a model of developmental an xiety and aggression that emphasizes the interaction of family process es and social-cognitive development in the child.