Anxiety and Social Restriction

The hypothesis that child anxiety is a function of degree of environmental restrictiveness was tested in Mexico, Norway, and the United States with 440 sixth-grade children. The Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale was used toassess anxiety and a Child's View of Child Rearing questionnaire was used to determine level of restrictiveness. This questionnaire measured restrictiveness in several different areas of parent-child relations. Mexican and U.S. children were found to be more anxious than Norwegian children. Mexican children perceived their parents as more restrictive in more ways than did Norwegian and U.S. children. Thus the hypothesis failed. Within nations, the relationships obtained between anxiety and restrictiveness varied greatly. In Mexico anxiety tended to be associated with low restrictiveness, but in Norway anxiety was more highly associated with high restrictiveness. Few significant correlations were found for U.S. children.