Maternal Over-Control Moderates the Association Between Early Childhood Behavioral Inhibition and Adolescent Social Anxiety Symptoms

Behavioral inhibition (BI) and maternal over-control are early risk factors for later childhood internalizing problems, particularly social anxiety disorder (SAD). Consistently high BI across childhood appears to confer risk for the onset of SAD by adolescence. However, no prior studies have prospectively examined observed maternal over-control as a risk factor for adolescent social anxiety (SA) among children initially selected for BI. The present prospective longitudinal study examines the direct and indirect relations between these early risk factors and adolescent SA symptoms and SAD, using a multi-method approach. The sample consisted of 176 participants initially recruited as infants and assessed for temperamental reactivity to novel stimuli at age 4?months. BI was measured via observations and parent-report across multiple assessments between the ages of 14?months and 7?years. Maternal over-control was assessed observationally during parent–child interaction tasks at 7?years. Adolescents (ages 14–17?years) and parents provided independent reports of adolescent SA symptoms. Results indicated that higher maternal over-control at 7?years predicted higher SA symptoms and lifetime rates of SAD during adolescence. Additionally, there was a significant interaction between consistently high BI and maternal over-control, such that patterns of consistently high BI predicted higher adolescent SA symptoms in the presence of high maternal over-control. High BI across childhood was not significantly associated with adolescent SA symptoms when children experienced low maternal over-control. These findings have the potential to inform prevention and early intervention programs by indentifying particularly at-risk youth and specific targets of treatment.     

Family Routine Moderates the Relation Between Child Impulsivity and Oppositional Defiant Disorder Symptoms

Although child impulsivity is associated with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms, few studies have examined whether family processes moderate this association. To address this gap, we tested whether child-reported family routine moderated the relation between child hyperactivity/impulsivity (HI) and ODD symptoms among a sample of low-income, urban, ethnic-minority children (N = 87, 51% male). Child HI and ODD symptoms were assessed using parent and teacher reports. HI also was indexed by a laboratory task. Family routine was assessed using child self-report. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that family routine moderated child HI. Among children with higher levels of teacher-reported HI symptoms, lower levels of family routine were associated with higher levels of teacher-reported ODD symptoms compared to children with lower levels of teacher-reported HI symptoms. Children who self-reported higher levels of family routine were rated as low on teacher-reported ODD symptoms, regardless of teacher-reported HI levels. Parent report and laboratory measures of child HI did not produce significant interactions. Lower levels of family routine may confer risk for ODD symptoms among low-income, urban, ethnic-minority children experiencing higher levels of HI.     

Family Conflict Moderates the Relation Between Negative Mood and Youth Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms

Higher negative (or lower positive) mood is associated with internalizing and externalizing problems among some, but not all youth, suggesting that contextual factors may influence these temperament-symptom relations. Family conflict also is associated with internalizing and externalizing problems, although it is unclear whether family conflict influences the relation between negative mood and symptoms. To address this gap, we examined whether family conflict moderates the relations between temperamental negative mood and internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Participants were 775 youth (69?% male, 76?% Caucasian). Mothers and youth completed questionnaires when youth were ages 10–12 (time 1) and 12–14 (time 2). When exposed to higher family conflict at time 1, children higher in negative mood experienced higher time 2 internalizing and externalizing problems than children lower in negative mood. When exposed to lower family conflict, children’s internalizing and externalizing symptom levels were similar regardless of their levels of negative mood. Findings suggest that interventions aimed at reducing youth’s risk for internalizing and externalizing symptoms should address conflictual interactions within the larger family system, particularly among youth with higher negative mood.     

Safety Behaviors and Social Anxiety: An Examination of the Social Phobia Safety Behaviours Scale

The Social Phobia Safety Behaviours Scale (SPSBS) is a measure designed to identify and assess safety behavior use. The current study is the first to evaluate the psychometric properties of the English SPSBS. Using four samples (N?=?725), the component structure, validity, and ability of the SPSBS to function as a state measure were examined. The results of the principal component analyses suggest that the SPSBS is a two-component measure, consisting of an inhibitory behavior component and a management of physical symptoms component, and the scale has good internal consistency. The SPSBS also showed good concurrent validity in both clinical and nonclinical samples. Moreover, there was evidence to suggest that the SPSBS is an accurate measure of situational use of safety behaviors as compared to observers’ ratings. The results of this investigation show that the SPSBS is a useful tool for the identification and measurement of safety behaviors.     

Social Functioning Mediates the Relation Between Symptoms of Depression,Anxiety, and Suicidal Ideation Among Youth

Journal of Child and Family Studies - In order to accurately identify youth at risk for suicide, it remains crucial to explore the interplay of risk factors that predict suicidal behavior. Thus,...     

Parental Monitoring and Adolescent Risk Behaviors: The Moderating Role of Adolescent Internalizing Symptoms and Gender

Parental monitoring can reduce adolescents’ engagement in risky behaviors; however, adolescents’ internalizing symptoms may alter the effectiveness of parental monitoring. The current study examines independent and interactive effects of maternal and paternal monitoring, adolescent’s internalizing symptoms, and adolescent gender on sexual behaviors and substance use with data from 659 of the 15-year-olds enrolled in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Results suggest girls who experienced less maternal monitoring and more internalizing symptoms—both independently and interactively—engaged in more risky sexual behaviors. Greater substance use was associated with less maternal and paternal monitoring for girls and boys, more internalizing symptoms for girls, and interactively with less maternal and paternal monitoring depending on girls’ levels of internalizing symptoms. The current study highlights the unique influences of mothers’ and fathers’ monitoring efforts on adolescent risky behavior based on the adolescent’s level of internalizing symptoms.     

Intolerance of Uncertainty Mediates the Relation Between Generalized Anxiety Disorder Symptoms and Anger

Previous research has shown that individuals with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) report elevated anger compared with nonanxious individuals; however, the pathways linking GAD and anger are currently unknown. We hypothesized that negative beliefs about uncertainty, negative beliefs about worry and perfectionism dimensions mediate the relationship between GAD symptoms and anger variables. We employed multiple mediation with bootstrapping on cross-sectional data from a student sample (N = 233) to test four models assessing potential mediators of the association of GAD symptoms to inward anger expression, outward anger expression, trait anger and hostility, respectively. The belief that uncertainty has negative personal and behavioural implications uniquely mediated the association of GAD symptoms to inward anger expression (confidence interval [CI] = .0034, .1845, P_M = .5444), and the belief that uncertainty is unfair and spoils everything uniquely mediated the association of GAD symptoms to outward anger expression (CI = .0052, .1936, P_M = .4861) and hostility (CI = .0269, .2427, P_M = .3487). Neither negative beliefs about worry nor perfectionism dimensions uniquely mediated the relation of GAD symptoms to anger constructs. We conclude that intolerance of uncertainty may help to explain the positive connection between GAD symptoms and anger, and these findings give impetus to future longitudinal investigations of the role of anger in GAD.     

Safety Behaviors in Adults With Social Anxiety: Review and Future Directions

Safety behaviors are considered an important factor in the maintenance of social anxiety disorder (SAD). Safety behaviors are typically employed by socially anxious individuals to reduce anxiety in feared social situations. However, by preventing individuals with social anxiety from gathering evidence that would disconfirm their maladaptive beliefs about social situations, the use of safety behaviors ultimately maintains social anxiety over time. Twenty years ago, Wells and colleagues (1995) demonstrated that use of safety behaviors diminishes the efficacy of exposure treatment for SAD, suggesting that reduction in the use of safety behaviors during exposure can enhance treatment response. Research on safety behaviors has expanded considerably since Wells et al.’s seminal publication, and our understanding of the role safety behaviors may play in the maintenance of social anxiety has grown in breadth and depth. In this paper, we present a detailed review of the published research on safety behaviors relevant to social anxiety and social-anxiety-related processes. Finally, we evaluate the impact of safety behaviors on the outcome of treatment for SAD, and we look to the literature on safety behaviors in other anxiety disorders to inform our understanding of use of safety behaviors during exposure and to facilitate future research in SAD.     

Age Moderates the Relationship Between Social Support and Psychosocial Problems

Social support is commonly assumed to protect people from the experience of psychological distress and to enhance well‐being. However, past research shows that the effectiveness of social support from family members and friends varies over the life span. Both the stage model of life satisfaction and compensatory processes associated with aging provide accounts for why this may be the case. Accordingly, age was predicted to moderate the association between perceived functional and structural social support and the experience of depressive symptoms and loneliness. Age was also predicted to be associated with lower relationship standards that allow people to remain content regardless of whether available social support decreases. This moderational model was tested in a community‐based sample of 325 adults ranging in age from 19 to 85 years. Results indicated that social support from family members and sheer contact with them, as well as social support from a spouse or partner, was most strongly and negatively related to the psychosocial problems in the younger participants. Age also moderated the association between relationship standards and loneliness. Consistent with the assumptions of the stage model of life satisfaction and previous research on compensatory processes associated with aging, older people do not appear to be as dependent as younger people on receiving social support from diverse sources in order to maintain a sense of well‐being.     

Socialization of Social Anxiety in Adolescent Crowds

In this study, we looked at whether social anxiety is socialized, or influenced by peers’ social anxiety, more in some peer crowds than others. Adolescents in crowds with eye-catching appearances such as Goths and Punks (here termed Radical), were compared with three comparison groups. Using data from 796 adolescents (353 girls and 443 boys; M _age  = 13.36) at three timepoints, the results show that adolescents affiliating with the Radical crowd tended to select peers from the same crowd group. Being a member of a crowd in itself did not predict socialization of social anxiety, but adolescents in the Radical crowd were more influenced by their peers’ social anxiety than adolescents who did not affiliate with the Radical crowd group. The results suggest that through a bidirectional process, adolescents affiliating with Radical crowds may narrow their peer relationship ties in time, and in turn socialize each other’s social anxiety.     

Searching for Specificity Between Cognitive Vulnerabilities and Mood and Anxiety Symptoms

Using two large nonclinical samples (N = 725), relations between five targeted cognitive variables [intolerance of uncertainty, negative problem orientation, perfectionism/certainty, responsibility/threat estimation, and importance/control of thoughts] and mood [depression] and anxiety [social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and obsessive–compulsive] symptoms were examined. Analyses provided multiple levels of specificity, including zero-order correlations, partial correlations controlling for the effects of positive and negative affect, regression analyses, and hierarchical structural modeling. Results were that (a) intolerance of uncertainty showed relative specificity to anxiety versus depression symptoms and (b) negative problem orientation was common to mood and anxiety symptoms. Although certain analyses suggested that (c) perfectionism/certainty specifically predicted generalized anxiety and (d) both responsibility/threat estimation and importance/control of thoughts were unique predictors of obsessive–compulsive symptoms, these three cognitive variables inconsistently predicted symptom scores across the two studies. Conceptual and therapeutic implications are discussed.     

The Relationship Between Defenses and Symptoms in Adolescent Psychopathology

The relationship between defense mechanisms and symptoms was assessed in a group of 196 psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents. Defense mechanisms were measured through the use of the Defense Mechanisms inventory (DMI); symptoms and problem behaviors were measured with the Youth Self-Report. Univariate and multivariate analyses indicated that externalizing symptoms are associated with defenses that locate the conflict outside of the self, whereas internalizing symptoms are associated with defenses that locate the conflict within the self. In contrast to previous reports, no gender differences, were found in defense preference, though gender differences were found in the relation of defenses to symptoms. The findings are consistent with clinical theory of defense processes and support the distinction between internalizing/externalizing behaviors and personality dimensions for both symptoms and defenses. The study supports the validity of the adolescent form of the DML.     

Comorbidity Between Depression and Anxiety in Adolescents: Bridge Symptoms and Relevance of Risk and Protective Factors

Depression and anxiety are highly prevalent and comorbid in adolescents, and this co-occurrence leads to worse prognosis and additional difficulties. The relationship between depression and anxiety must be delineated to, in turn, reduce and prevent the comorbidity, however our knowledge is still limited. We used network analysis to investigate bridge symptoms; symptoms that connect individual depression and anxiety symptoms and thus can help explain the comorbidity. We also examined the role of relevant risk and protective factors in explaining these symptom-level associations between these disorders. We analyzed data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Children and Parents (n?=?3670). Depression and anxiety symptoms, peer victimization, bullying, peer relational problems, prosocial behavior, and parental monitoring were assessed at a single time point around age 13 years. Stressful life events (SLEs) were assessed at age 11 years. We identified the most prominent bridge symptoms among depression (“feeling unhappy”, “feeling lonely”) and anxiety symptoms (“worrying about past”, “worrying about future”). Peer relational difficulties and SLEs were strongly associated with several depression and anxiety symptoms, such that these two risk factors created a link between individual depression and anxiety symptoms. Prosocial behavior had several negative associations with symptoms of both disorders, suggesting it can be an important protective factor.

     

Brief report: Attentional Control Moderates the Relationship Between Attentional Bias and Anxiety in Children

This current study tested whether attentional control moderates the relationship between attentional bias to threat and anxiety in children. Children completed a self-report measure of attentional control and anxiety and an attentional bias task. Attentional control was examined as a moderator in the relationship between attentional bias and different dimensions of anxiety. The interaction between attentional control and attentional bias was significant for total and generalized anxiety. Although attentional control significantly moderated the relationship between attentional bias and anxiety, the direction of the interaction was not consistent with existing literature. Study implications and explanations for the study results are discussed.     

Impaired Fear Recognition and Social Anxiety Symptoms in Adolescence

This study represents the first examination of adolescent anxiety in relation to peer emotion recognition, rather than adult emotion recognition. Additionally, we examine potential mechanisms for the development of social anxiety in females. Facial emotion recognition (FER) is important for accurate social cognition, which is impaired in individuals with various disorders, including anxiety disorders. Social anxiety often onsets during adolescence, is observed more commonly in females, and is often associated with FER difficulties. Given the importance of peer interaction during adolescence, and some evidence that FER may differ as a function of the stimuli (adolescent or adult faces), we sought to study FER in relation to social anxiety symptoms using stimuli portraying adolescent faces. Male and female adolescents (N = 64) completed an online survey in which they rated 257 child and adolescent emotional faces and completed a self-report measure of social anxiety symptoms. We examined differences in emotion recognition (e.g., fear, anger, sadness) between individuals with high and low levels of social anxiety symptoms. Adolescents with high social anxiety symptoms were more likely to have problems correctly identifying fearful expressions (90.55 % accuracy) compared to adolescents with low social anxiety symptoms (96.00 % accuracy; t = 2.375, p = .021, d = 0.594), and this effect was observed exclusively in female adolescents. The observed sex difference in accurate identification of fearful faces in relation to social anxiety could suggest a potential mechanism for social anxiety development in adolescent females.     

Social Anxiety in Children with Anxiety Disorders: Relation with Social and Emotional Functioning

Investigated the psychometric properties of the Social Anxiety Scale for children-Revised (SASC-R) as well as relations between social anxiety and children's social and emotional functioning. Participants were a clinic sample of children, ages 6–11 with anxiety disorders (N = 154) who completed the SASC-R. For a subset of these children, parent ratings of social skills, and self-ratings of perceived competence and peer interactions were also obtained. Factor analysis of the SASC-R supported the original three-factor solution and internal consistencies were in the acceptable range. Among children with simple phobia, scores on the SASC-R differentiated those with and without a comorbid social-based anxiety disorder. Social anxiety was also associated with impairments in social and emotional functioning. Specifically, highly socially anxious children reported low levels of social acceptance and global self-esteem and more negative peer interactions. Girls with high levels of social anxiety were also rated by parents as having poor social skills, particularly in the areas of assertive and responsible social behavior.     

The Relation Between Emotional Dysregulation and Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms, Pain-Related Anxiety, and HIV-Symptom Distress Among Adults with HIV/AIDS

The current study investigated the relations between emotional dysregulation and anxiety and depressive symptoms, pain-related anxiety, and HIV-symptom distress among individuals living with HIV/AIDS. This research is important in its explanatory value regarding the unique effects of emotional dysregulation as it relates to psychological and disease-specific distress given high rates of distress specific to HIV infection (e.g. medicatin side-effects, stigma). Participants included 164 adults (17.1 % female, Mage = 48.40, SD?=?9.57) with HIV/AIDS. Results indicated that emotional dysregulation was significantly and positively related to anxiety and depressive symptoms, pain-related anxiety, and HIV-symptom distress. All emotional dyregulation effects were evidenced above and beyond the variance accounted for by demographic and HIV-specific characteristics, and the main effects of anxiety sensitivity and distress intolerance. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of emotional dysregulation in negative affective experiences within the HIV/AIDS population.     

Mindfulness Moderates the Association Between Perceived Burdensomeness and Suicide Ideation in Adults With Elevated Depressive Symptoms

A conceptual model in which the associations between perceived burdensomeness and suicide ideation, and between thwarted belongingness and suicide ideation, are moderated by mindfulness was examined. Participants were 218 undergraduates (mean age = 20.81) with moderate‐to‐severe depressive symptoms. Mindfulness significantly moderated the association between perceived burdensomeness and suicide ideation; participants with thoughts of burdensomeness experienced lower levels of suicide ideation if they were high, as opposed to low, in mindfulness. Mindfulness did not significantly moderate the association between thwarted belongingness and suicide ideation. Implications for intervention and elaboration of the interpersonal psychological theory of suicide are discussed.     

Differential Effects of Anxiety Sensitivity Components in the Relation Between Emotional Non-Acceptance and Post-traumatic Stress Symptoms Among Trauma-Exposed Treatment-Seeking Smokers

Anxiety sensitivity (AS), defined as the extent to which individuals believe anxiety and anxiety-related sensations have harmful consequences, may play an important explanatory role in the relation between emotional non-acceptance and the expression of traumatic stress symptoms among trauma-exposed smokers. This investigation examined whether lower-order dimensions of AS (cognitive, physical, and social concerns) differentially explain the relation between emotional non-acceptance and post-traumatic stress (PTS) symptom clusters (re-experiencing, avoidance, hyperarousal) among trauma-exposed daily smokers (N = 169, 46% female; M_age = 41, SD = 12.3). AS and its lower-order facets of cognitive and social concerns were found to mediate the relations between emotional non-acceptance and avoidance and hyperarousal PTS symptoms. Using a multiple mediation model, the mediational effect of AS cognitive concerns for the relation between emotional non-acceptance and post-traumatic avoidance symptoms was found to be uniquely evident relative to social and physical concerns. All observed AS effects were evident above and beyond the variance accounted for by gender, number of traumatic event exposure types, negative affectivity, number of cigarettes smoked per day, and alcohol use problems. The present findings suggest cognitive-based AS concerns may play a mechanistic role in the relation between emotional non-acceptance and certain PTS symptoms among trauma-exposed daily smokers.