Anxiety disorders are globally one of the most prevalent and disabling forms of psychopathology in adults and children. Having a parent with an anxiety disorder multiplies the risk of anxiety disorders in the offspring, although the specific mechanisms and processes that play a role in this intergenerational transmission remain largely unknown. According to information processing theories, threat-related biases in cognitive processing are a causal mechanism in the development and maintenance of anxiety. These theories propose that individuals with anxiety are more likely to cognitively process novel stimuli in their environment as threatening. Creswell and colleagues proposed a theoretical model that highlighted the role of these cognitive biases as a mechanism in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety (Creswell et al., in Hadwin, Field (eds) Information processing biases and anxiety: a developmental perspective, Wiley, pp 279–295, 2010). This model postulated significant associations between (1) parents’ and children’s threat-related cognitive biases (2) parents’ threat-related cognitive biases in their own and their child’s environment, (3) parents’ threat-related cognitive biases and parenting behaviors that convey anxiety risk to the offspring (e.g., modeling of fear, and verbal threat information transmission), and (4) parenting behaviors and child threat-related biases. This theoretical review collated the recent empirical work testing these four core hypotheses of the model. Building on the reviewed empirical work, an updated conceptual model focusing on threat-related attention and interpretation is proposed. This updated model incorporates the links between cognition and anxiety in parents and children and addresses the potential bidirectional nature of parent–child influences.

焦虑症是全球成人和儿童中最普遍和最致残的精神病理学形式之一。父母患有焦虑症会增加后代患焦虑症的风险，尽管在这种代际传播中发挥作用的具体机制和过程仍然很大程度上未知。根据信息处理理论，认知处理中与威胁相关的偏差是焦虑发展和维持的因果机制。这些理论表明，患有焦虑症的人更有可能将环境中的新刺激视为威胁。 Creswell 及其同事提出了一个理论模型，强调了这些认知偏差作为焦虑代际传递机制的作用（Creswell 等人，载于 Hadwin，Field（编辑）信息处理偏差和焦虑：发展视角，Wiley，第279-295，2010）。该模型假设（1）父母和孩子的威胁相关认知偏见（2）父母在自己和孩子的环境中的威胁相关认知偏见，（3）父母的威胁相关认知偏见和养育行为之间存在显着关联。向后代传达焦虑风险（例如，恐惧建模和口头威胁信息传递），以及（4）养育行为和与儿童威胁相关的偏见。本理论综述整理了最近测试模型这四个核心假设的实证工作。基于审查的实证工作，提出了一个更新的概念模型，重点关注与威胁相关的关注和解释。 这个更新的模型结合了父母和孩子的认知和焦虑之间的联系，并解决了父母与孩子影响的潜在双向性。