Previous studies have identified three central pathways of parent-to-child anxiety transmission: (1) shared
genetic load, (2) fetal programming through maternal experiences during pregnancy, and (3) parental
behaviors that model and shape anxiety-linked cognitive, behavioral, and emotional profiles. To date, we have
few tractable mechanisms by which we can intervene upon the first two pathways. However, a wide and robust
literature has characterized specific parenting behaviors linked to the emergence of childhood anxiety, making
it a translatable target. Much of this literature has focused on broad profiles based on questionnaire measures
or aggregate summaries of behaviors averaged over time. As a result, we know little regarding the moment-
by-moment interactions that serve as a behavioral conduit for intergenerational transmission. Repeated daily
interactions with caregivers, channeled through dyadic social dynamics, attune the child to parental
expressions of fear and distress influencing the child's own responses to surrounding events. The current
longitudinal study will focus on two instances of dyadic social dynamics as mechanisms for anxiety
transmission. First is dyadic synchrony, a process captured in the temporal co-ordination of discrete microlevel
signals between dyadic partners evident across levels of analysis. Second is emotion modeling, in which
observed patterns of parental emotion, distress, and coping are internalized by the child, supported by
psychophysiological synchrony, and then reflected in their own subsequent behavior. Children ages 4 to 6 and
their parent, including both mothers and fathers, will be assessed at five time points, 6 months apart in a multi-
modal battery. Parent-child dyads will engage in mildly stressful interactions that allow us to capture neural
(fNIRS), psychophysiological (RSA), attentional (mobile eye-tracking), and behavioral (overt emotion and
distress) patterns of synchrony. In addition, we will assess regulatory (EEG delta-beta coupling), cognitive
(ERP N2 component), and attentional (threat bias) markers of socioemotional development and anxiety risk.
Finally, we asses child fearful temperament, which is associated with greater sensitivity to the social
environment and the later emergence of anxiety. Thus, we can ask (1) Concurrently, how do patterns of dyadic
social dynamics vary across parent-child pairs? (2) Across tasks, to what extent does variation in dyadic
patterns help predict anxiety risk? (3) Over time, can we predict socioemotional profiles and anxiety risk from
earlier patterns of dynamic dyadic interactions? Reflecting the Research Domain Criteria, we integrate
multilevel mechanisms by examining how social and arousal/regulatory systems are coupled through dyadic
social dynamics to influence the emergence of anxiety via the cognitive (attention to threat, cognitive control),
arousal/regulatory (delta-beta coupling), and negative valence (fearful temperament) systems. In doing so we
heed the call to examine development and the environment as “bidirectional influences” on transdiagnostic
processes of psychopathology in order to translate our findings to dyadic treatment approaches.
