Infants can acquire fears vicariously by observing parents’ fearful reactions to novel stimuli in everyday situations (i.e., modeling). To date, no systematic or meta-analytic review examined the role of modeling in parent–child transmission of fear and avoidance in early life. In our systematic review and meta-analysis, we aimed to investigate the effect of modeling parents’ fearful reactions on infants’ acquisition of fear and avoidance of novel stimuli and explore the moderation of this effect by child behavioral inhibition (BI) and parent trait anxiety. The search conducted in Web Of Science, Pubmed, Embase, and PsycINFO revealed 23 eligible studies for the systematic review and 19 for the meta-analysis. Eligible studies included published studies that measured infant fear and avoidance (infants aged up to 30 months) of novel stimuli following exposure to parental fearful expressions. Meta-analysis findings revealed a significant causal effect of modeling of parental fear on infants’ fear [g = .44] and avoidance of novel stimuli [g = .44]. The findings support moderation by child BI on infant avoidance (not fear) acquisition, with the effects being larger for infants with higher BI. However, this moderation was only found, when including both experimental and correlational studies (p > .05), but not when exclusively including experimental studies (p = .17). This meta-analysis provides support for early parent-to-offspring fear transmission: a causal small to medium effect of parents’ fearful reactions was shown on infants’ fear and avoidance of novel stimuli. Elucidating parent-to-offspring anxiety transmission pathways can inform us about potential fear reduction and prevention strategies.

婴儿可以通过观察父母对日常生活中的新刺激（即模仿）的恐惧反应来间接获得恐惧。迄今为止，还没有系统的或荟萃分析的综述来检验建模在早期生活中亲子传递恐惧和回避的作用。在我们的系统回顾和荟萃分析中，我们旨在研究模仿父母的恐惧反应对婴儿获得恐惧和回避新刺激的影响，并探索儿童行为抑制（BI）和父母特质焦虑对这种影响的调节作用。在 Web Of Science、Pubmed、Embase 和 PsycINFO 中进行的检索显示了 23 项符合系统评价条件的研究和 19 项符合荟萃分析的研究。符合条件的研究包括已发表的研究，这些研究测量了婴儿（30个月以下的婴儿）在接触父母恐惧表情后对新刺激的恐惧和回避。荟萃分析结果显示，父母恐惧的建模对婴儿的恐惧 [ g  = .44] 和回避新刺激 [ g = .44]具有显着的因果效应 。研究结果支持儿童 BI 对婴儿回避（而非恐惧）习得的调节作用，对于 BI 较高的婴儿影响更大。然而，只有在同时包括实验研究和相关研究时才发现这种调节（p  > .05 ），但仅在包括实验研究时才发现（p  = .17 ）。这项荟萃分析为早期父母向后代的恐惧传递提供了支持：父母的恐惧反应对婴儿的恐惧和回避新刺激有小到中等的因果影响。阐明父母到后代的焦虑传播途径可以让我们了解潜在的减少恐惧和预防策略。