SOCIAL ANXIETY AND PERCEPTION OF EARLY PARENTING AMONG AMERICAN, CHINESE-AMERICAN, AND SOCIAL PHOBIC SAMPLES

Emotionally distant and controlling child-rearing attitudes have been reported to characterize the parents of American or western European s ocial phobics in previous research. However the notion that these pare ntal attitudes may be associated with social anxiety only in some cult ures has not been investigated The present study examined social anxie ty among American social phobics and American and Chinese/Chinese Amer ican volunteer samples and how it may relate to their parents' child-r earing attitudes. Multivariate analyses of variance revealed overall g roup differences. Both volunteer samples reported lower levels of anxi ety than social phobics. Parents of Chinese/Chinese Americans and soci al phobics were reported to be similar in their (1) isolation of child ren from social activities; (2) over-emphasis of others' opinions; and (3) use of shame tactics for discipline (more so than American volunt eers' parents). However parents of nonsocial phobics were more likely to attend family social activities than social phobics' parents Overal l, the association between a reported parenting style emphasizing othe rs' opinions and shame tactics and social anxiety in their adult child ren was more evident in both American samples than among Chinese/Chine se Americans. (C) 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.