Of the extant research conducted with fathers, most has focused on the father's role with respect to normal child development-ignoring the potential relationship between paternal behaviour and child psychopathology (Brennan et al., 2002). An example for the direct role of the father, specifically for child social anxiety, comes from research by Bögels et al. (2011), which found that children with high social anxiety were more influenced by fathers' anxious reactions to ambiguous vignettes than mothers' reactions. That is, anxious children may put higher weight on fathers' responses than mothers' responses when faced with possible threat and deciding if a situation is dangerous and should be avoided (see Bögels et al. (2011)). Considering that extant studies indicate poor psychological outcomes for children of anxious fathers, there is a clear and pressing need for further research in this area (Phares and Compas, 1992).