De psychologische volwassenwording

Wetensch. publ. referee

De jeugd van tegenwoordig!

Developmental pathways of social-emotional and cognitive functioning - ou

Concurrent and prospective associations between social anxiety and responses to stress in adolescence

Several studies have investigated the relationship between adolescents' responses to stress and general anxiety and depression, but only few studies addressed the relationship between responses to stress and social anxiety. The current three-wave longitudinal study, that covered a period of 5 years with a time interval of on average two years between waves, examined concurrent as well as prospective relations between adolescents' self-reported stress responses, including coping responses, and self-perceived social anxiety. Both the predictive power of social anxiety for different stress responses and, reversely, of stress responses for social anxiety were evaluated. Participants were 331 youth (170 boys) aged 9 to 17 years old at Wave 1. Self-report questionnaires were used to measure social anxiety, responses to social stress, and depressive symptoms. Results showed significant concurrent relations between social anxiety and maladaptive stress responses. Moreover, the study yielded evidence for social anxiety predicting stress responses across time as well as stress responses predicting social anxiety, although evidence for the former link is stronger. The findings suggest that a relative lack of adaptive stress responses may heighten social anxiety and social anxiety in turn may trigger maladaptive as well as adaptive responses to social problems. The relevance of these findings for social anxiety prevention and intervention purposes are discussed.Pathways through Adolescenc

Adolescent social anxiety and substance use: The role of susceptibility to peer pressure

Pathways through Adolescenc

Eye gaze behavior during a face-to-face conversation: effects of anxiety, conversational role and partner gaze direction?

ObjectivesSocial anxiety has long been related to reduced eye contact. The present study aimed to determine whether gaze avoidance by more socially anxious individuals is a habit (related to social anxiety) or a momentary effect of state anxiety in a face-to-face conversation. Meanwhile, this study investigated the effect of conversational role and partner gaze direction on gaze behaviour during the conversation.MethodsParticipants (N = 61, age-range 17-30 years, 89% female) had a getting acquainted conversation with a same-sex confederate for approximately 10 minutes. We alternated conversational roles (talking vs. listening) and manipulated the confederate’s gaze direction (direct vs. averted). Participants’ gaze behaviour was registered with eye-tracking glasses. Their social anxiety and state anxiety were measured using questionnaires.ResultsThe results revealed greater state anxiety was associated with reduced eye gaze throughout the conversation whereas no effect of social anxiety was found. Furthermore, the results showed that the negative association between state anxiety and eye gaze was particularly strong when the confederate directly looked at the participant and also when the participant was talking. In addition, the study found main and interaction effects of conversational role and partner gaze direction on eye gaze behaviour during the conversation.ConclusionsTogether, the current results shed light on factors that influence eye gaze behaviour in a face-to-face social setting and provide initial evidence that, in the general population, eye gaze avoidance is more related to heightened state anxiety than to social anxiety.Pathways through Adolescenc

Will they like me? Neural and behavioral responses to social-evaluative peer feedback in socially and non-socially anxious females

The current study examined neural and behavioral responses to social-evaluative feedback processing in social anxiety. Twenty-two non-socially and 17 socially anxious females (mean age = 19.57 years) participated in a Social Judgment Paradigm in which they received peer acceptance/rejection feedback that was either congruent or incongruent with their prior predictions. Results indicated that socially anxious participants believed they would receive less social acceptance feedback than non-socially anxious participants. EEG results demonstrated that unexpected social rejection feedback elicited a significant increase in theta (4-8 Hz) power relative to other feedback conditions. This theta response was only observed in non-socially anxious individuals. Together, results corroborate cognitive-behavioral studies demonstrating a negative expectancy bias in socially anxiety with respect to social evaluation. Furthermore, the present findings highlight a functional role for theta oscillatory dynamics in processing cues that convey social-evaluative threat, and this social threat-monitoring mechanism seems less sensitive in socially anxious females.Pathways through Adolescenc

Putative EEG measures of social anxiety: Comparing frontal alpha asymmetry and delta-beta cross-frequency correlation

The goal of the present study was to examine whether frontal alpha asymmetry and delta-beta cross-frequency correlation during resting state, anticipation, and recovery are electroencephalographic (EEG) measures of social anxiety. For the first time, we jointly examined frontal alpha asymmetry and delta-beta correlation during resting state and during a social performance task in high (HSA) versus low (LSA) socially anxious females. Participants performed a social performance task in which they first watched and evaluated a video of a peer, and then prepared their own speech. They believed that their speech would be videotaped and evaluated by a peer. We found that HSA participants showed significant negative delta-beta correlation as compared to LSA participants during both anticipation of and recovery from the stressful social situation. This negative delta-beta correlation might reflect increased activity in subcortical brain regions and decreased activity in cortical brain regions. As we hypothesized, no group differences in delta-beta correlation were found during the resting state. This could indicate that a certain level of stress is needed to find EEG measures of social anxiety. As for frontal alpha asymmetry, we did not find any group differences. The present frontal alpha asymmetry results are discussed in relation to the evident inconsistencies in the frontal alpha asymmetry literature. Together, our results suggest that delta-beta correlation is a putative EEG measure of social anxiety.Pathways through Adolescenc

University teachers' conceptions of their current and ideal intermediate assessment: An A+ is good, but speaking your mind is better

Teaching and Teacher Learning (ICLON