روابط بین روان رنجوری، کنترل توجه، اضطراب و علائم اختلالات در کودکان غیر بالینی

The present study was a first attempt to examine Lonigan and Phillips’ (2001) theory on the role of neuroticism and attentional control in the development of childhood anxiety. A large sample of non-clinical children aged 8–13 years (N=303) completed the neuroticism scale of the Junior version of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (JEPQ), the Attentional Control Scale for Children (ACS-C), and the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED), which is a questionnaire measuring symptoms of childhood anxiety disorders. Results showed that the links between neuroticism and attentional control, on the one hand, and anxiety disorders symptoms, on the other hand, were as expected. That is, the correlation between neuroticism and anxiety was positive, whereas that between attentional control and anxiety was negative. Furthermore, although neuroticism and attentional control both explained a unique and significant proportion of the variance in anxiety disorders symptoms, no support was found for Lonigan and Phillips’ notion that in particular the interaction of these two variables is needed for developing high levels of anxiety. Implications of these findings for theories on temperamental vulnerability for childhood anxiety are briefly discussed.

Anxiety disorders are among the most common forms of psychopathology in children and adolescents. Prevalence rates for anxiety disorders in youths range between 5.7% and 17.7%, with half of them exceeding the 10% rate (Costello & Angold, 1995). There is also evidence to suggest that subclinical manifestations of anxiety disorders are prevalent among normal children and adolescents. For example, Bell-Dolan, Last, and Strauss (1990) found that symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder and specific phobias were present in a substantial minority (20–30%) of a sample of never-psychiatrically ill youths. Acknowledging its high prevalence and the negative impact that anxiety has on daily functioning (e.g., Muris & Meesters, 2002; Strauss, Frame, & Forehand, 1987), researchers have increasingly examined factors that are involved in the development of high levels of anxiety in children and adolescents (e.g., Bernstein, Borchardt, & Perwien, 1996; Craske, 1997). Temperamental vulnerability is considered to play an important role in the etiology of childhood anxiety (Lonigan & Phillips, 2001). One temperamental factor that has been postulated to predispose children to high levels of anxiety is behavioral inhibition (Biederman, Rosenbaum, Chaloff, & Kagan, 1995). Support for this notion comes from a study in which preschool children were followed for a 3-year period (Biederman et al., 1993). Results showed that children initially identified as behaviorally inhibited were subsequently more likely to develop anxiety disorders compared to control children (i.e., children who at study onset were not classified as behaviorally inhibited). Not only social phobia, but also separation anxiety disorder, and multiple anxiety disorders were significantly more prevalent in the subsample with behavioral inhibition (for similar findings, see Muris, Merckelbach, Wessel, & Van de Ven, 1999; Muris, Merckelbach, Schmidt, Gadet, & Bogie, 2001). While Kagan and colleagues (e.g., Kagan, Snidman, Arcus, & Reznick, 1994) view behavioral inhibition as a temperamental factor, critics have argued that children’s inhibited behavior is the perceptible manifestation of an underlying personality dimension (Turner, Beidel, & Wolff, 1996). For example, it may well be the case that inhibition is the behavioral derivative of neuroticism. There is indeed evidence showing that neuroticism plays a role in the development of anxiety disorders. For example, Lonigan, Kistner, Hooe, and David (1997) examined the relationship between neuroticism as assessed by a child version of the Positive and Negative Affectivity Schedule (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) and anxiety symptoms in 300 children and adolescents in a 7-months longitudinal study. Results indicated that there were not only concurrent but also prospective links between neuroticism and anxiety symptoms (cf. John, Caspi, Robins, Moffitt, & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1994). Recently, Lonigan and Phillips (2001) have articulated an innovative theory in which the risk for anxiety is not related to the single dimension of neuroticism, but to the interaction of this temperamental factor with the dimension of effortful control. More precisely, these authors argue that while neuroticism makes children prone to display anxiety and arousal in response to novel and aversive stimuli and situations, effortful control processes may allow them to orient away from these distressing stimuli and situations. In their words: “Although high neuroticism is a necessary condition for the development of anxiety, it is not sufficient. We believe that a dynamic combination of low effortful control and high neuroticism is required” (p. 70). Thus, high neuroticism is accompanied by strong emotional reactivity, which increases the vulnerability to anxiety. However, high effortful control may function as a buffer through employment of self-regulative processes in the form of attention and other coping behaviors. On the other hand, when effortful control is low, the individual is at the mercy of the negative impact of the neurotic temperament. Few studies have tested Lonigan and Phillips’ (2001) theory on the interactive effects of neuroticism and effortful control on anxiety. One exception is a study by Derryberry and Reed (2002) who examined the role of self-reported attentional control (which is a key feature of effortful control) in regulating attentional bias related to trait anxiety (which strongly resembles neuroticism). High and low trait anxious subjects participated in a reaction test paradigm which assessed orienting responses to threatening and non-threatening cues. Results revealed a clear attentional bias effect, that is high trait anxious subjects had more problems in disengaging from threatening stimuli than low trait anxious subjects. Most importantly, evidence was found for the notion that individual differences in attentional control modulated this effect: High trait anxious subjects with poor attentional control remained slow in disengaging from threat, whereas those with good attentional control were better in shifting away. The present study was a first attempt to examine neuroticism and attentional control in relation to childhood anxiety. A large sample of non-clinical children (N=303) aged between 8 and 13 years completed (a) the neuroticism scale of the Junior version of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (JEPQ; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975), (b) the child version of the Attentional Control Scale (ACS-C; see Derryberry & Reed, 2002), which measures attentional focusing (i.e., the ability to concentrate and to focus attention on one task) and attentional shifting (i.e., the ability to engage in dual tasks and to shift attention from one task to another), and (c) the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED; Birmaher et al., 1999), which is a questionnaire measuring symptoms of childhood anxiety disorders in terms of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). In keeping with Lonigan and Phillips’ (2001) theory, it was predicted that high levels of neuroticism and low levels of attentional control were related to anxiety disorders symptoms. Moreover, an interactive effect of neuroticism and attentional control was anticipated. That is, in particular children with a combination of high neuroticism and low attentional control were expected to display high levels of anxiety.