Adolescent Anxiety: Development, Individual Vulnerability, and Social Relationships

Abstract

The general aim of this dissertation was to extend current knowledge on the development of adolescent anxiety in the general population, by (1) examining developmental patterns of anxiety and individual differences in these patterns from childhood throughout adolescence, as well as concurrent associations with psychosocial functioning in several other domains, (2) exploring individual vulnerabilities that may be associated with the development of adolescent anxiety, and (3) examining how aspects of adolescents’ relationships with parents and peers (i.e., social processes) are associated with the development of adolescent anxiety. Guided by a developmental psychopathological framework, this dissertation includes six empirical longitudinal studies in large community samples of youth, each addressing one of the aforementioned three salient issues related to the development of adolescent anxiety in the general population. Together, these six empirical studies addressed different forms of adolescent anxiety (i.e., global anxiety as well as different specific forms of anxiety, such as Generalized Anxiety and Social Anxiety), different time frames from mid-childhood to late adolescence, and a wide range of relevant predictors, correlates, and outcomes of adolescent anxiety development as well as potential processes underlying this development. Furthermore, multiple sources and methods were used to assess a wide range of biological, psychological, and social-contextual factors and processes associated with adolescent anxiety development (i.e., multi-informant and multi-method). A combination of modern variable-centered and person-centered statistical analysis strategies was used to examine different aspects of adolescent anxiety development in the most appropriate statistical manner. Findings in this dissertation revealed different age-normative developmental patterns for different forms of anxiety during adolescence, though youth anxiety trajectories were characterized by large heterogeneity over time, especially across the transition from elementary to secondary school. Nevertheless, adolescent anxiety showed marked continuity over time across all studies, and heightened stress-reactivity was found to play a role in the stability of adolescent anxiety over time. Furthermore, different forms of anxiety did not only show (differential) concurrent stable associations with other domains of psychosocial functioning over time, but adolescent anxiety both affected and was affected by relationships with parents and peers over time. Moreover, adolescents’ social adjustment appeared to play a role in adolescents’ health risk behavior. Finally, though most findings in this dissertation suggest that high levels of adolescent anxiety are associated with poorer intrapersonal and interpersonal functioning over time, some findings also suggest that adolescent anxiety may serve some protective functions (e.g., with respect to adolescent cannabis use). Altogether, findings in this dissertation indicate that high levels of adolescent anxiety deserve serious attention from researchers as well as clinicians.