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ANXIETY DISORDERS PART 2

WHAT CAUSES ANXIETY IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS?

 Genetics

 Temperament

 Neurobiological factors

 Family factors

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GENETICS

 First-degree relatives of a person with an anxiety disorder are 4-6 times more likely to have that same anxiety disorder

 Also considerable risk for having any anxiety disorder, with heritability of 20-40%

 Likely due to complex interactions of several genes

 Including genes related to serotonin and dopamine systems

 … and the interactions between genes and the environment (e.g., stressful life events)

 Also inherit general tendency to be inhibited, tense, or fearful

TEMPERAMENT

Clark & Watson (1991) Tripartite Model of Emotion

 Negative affectivity (NA): propensity towards negative moods

 Proposed that high NA common to anxiety and depression

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TEMPERAMENT CONT’D

Behavioral inhibition (BI): consistent display of fearfulness and withdrawal, especially in unfamiliar situations

 Heritability between .50 and .70

 High BI linked with greater than 7-fold increase in risk in social anxiety

 Outcomes depend on parenting style as well

NEUROBIOLOGICAL FACTORS

 Fear circuitry: processes and responds to danger and threat in one’s surroundings  Amygdala

 Ventral Prefrontal Cortex (vPFC)

 Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC)

 Children who are high on behavioral inhibition and those with anxiety diagnoses show overexcitement in amygdala

 Adolescents with anxiety diagnoses show higher levels of amygdala activity in response to viewing fearful faces than healthy peers

 Also show reduced activity in PFC, suggesting difficulty regulating emotion

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FAMILY FACTORS

Specific parenting practices shown to contribute to anxiety in youth:

 Rejection: being more critical and less positive in their interactions with child

 Overcontrol: being directive and solving problems for child

 Impacts child’s feelings of competence

 Overprotection: reducing child’s exposure to anxiety-provoking situations

 Prevents the child from mastering these situations

FAMILY FACTORS CONT’D

 Modeling anxious behaviors

 Interaction between temperament and parenting

 e.g., high negative affect and high parental warmth -> higher levels of internalizing symptoms

 Difficulty self-soothing

 Warm mothers may provide frequent reassurance

 Reliance on mothers for emotion regulation

Davis, Votruba-Drzal, & Silk (2015)

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INTEGRATIVE MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS

Vasey and Dadds (2001)