ORIGINAL ARTICLE Parental Beliefs About Child Anxiety as a Mediator of Parent and Child Anxiety Sarah E. Francis Æ Bruce F. Chorpita Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract Previous research has consistently supported a link between child and parental anxiety. Less well under- stood, however, are mediators of this association. Recent work has suggested the importance of parental cognitions in understanding the relationship between parental and child anxiety. The present investigation, employing a cross-sec- tional design, evaluates the potential mediational role of a specific parental cognitive variable, namely parental beliefs about the child’s anxiety, in the relationship between parental and child anxiety. Among a sample of clinic- referred youth (n = 103) with a variety of clinical presen- tations, parental beliefs about the harmfulness of the child’s anxiety significantly mediated the relationship between parent and child anxiety. This finding provides preliminary support for the role of parental beliefs about child anxiety in mediating the link between parent and child anxiety. Keywords Anxiety Á Child Á Parent Á Mediation Introduction The association between parental and child anxiety has been well documented (e.g., Beidel and Turner 1997; Last et al. 1991). Moreover, numerous factors have been implicated in the transmission of anxiety from parent to child (Bo ¨gels and Brechman-Toussaint 2006; McLeod et al. 2007), including genetic predisposition (Stein et al. 2002); parental psychopathology, including anxiety and depression (Bayer et al. 2006); and parental childrearing behaviors (Barrett et al. 2005; Moore et al. 2004; Whaley et al. 1999). General evidence indicating that anxious parents interact differently with their children than do non- anxious parents (Lindhout et al. 2006; Woodruff-Borden et al. 2002) and specific demonstrations of the impact of maternal anxious cognitions on children’s interpretation biases (Creswell and O’Connor 2006) suggest that par- enting behaviors and beliefs might play a meaningful role in the relationship between parental and child anxiety. Despite preliminary indications that parenting variables contribute to the development and maintenance of child- hood anxiety, findings regarding the magnitude of this contribution and the specific facets of parenting involved remain inconclusive (McLeod et al. 2007; Turner et al. 2003). The present investigation sought to extend upon previ- ous research in this area by examining whether parent reported beliefs about their child’s anxiety mediate the relationship between parent and child anxiety. A cross- sectional design was employed to examine this question, assessing parental anxiety, parental beliefs about the child’s anxiety, and child anxiety concurrently. The parental beliefs examined in this study, as measured by the Parental Beliefs about Anxiety Questionnaire (PBA-Q), have demonstrated significant associations with parental and child anxiety (Francis and Chorpita 2009). This paper seeks to test the potential mediational role such beliefs might play in the relationship between parental and child anxiety. Behavioral and cognitive parental influences on child anxiety have been extensively studied (Bo ¨gels et al. 2003; S. E. Francis (&) Department of Psychology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL A1B 3X9, Canada e-mail: sfrancis@mun.ca B. F. Chorpita Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA e-mail: chorpita@ucla.edu 123 Cogn Ther Res DOI 10.1007/s10608-009-9255-9