Abstract
(1) Background: There is evidence of an attention bias–anxiety relationship in children, but lack of appropriate methods has limited the number of studies with children younger than eight years old. This study used eye tracking as a measure of overt attention in young children. The aim of this study was to assess anxiety-related attention bias in children aged four to eight years. Age was considered a moderator, and the influence of effortful control was investigated. (2) Method: A community sample of 104 children was shown pairs of happy–neutral and angry–neutral faces. Growth curve analyses were used to examine patterns of gaze over time. (3) Results: Analyses revealed moderation by age and anxiety, with distinct patterns of anxiety-related biases seen in different age groups in the angry–neutral face trials. Effortful control did not account for age-related effects. (4) Conclusions: The results support a moderation model of the development of anxiety in children.
Highlights
IntroductionAnxiety is one of the most prevalent mental health disorders in children and adolescents
Anxiety is one of the most prevalent mental health disorders in children and adolescents.Clinical anxiety affects an estimated 6.5% of children and adolescents worldwide at any one time [1], and it is estimated that before age twenty-one, 23.5% of youths have suffered from a clinically significant anxiety problem [2]
This paper aims to establish if children aged four to eight years show an anxiety-related attention bias to emotional stimuli
Summary
Anxiety is one of the most prevalent mental health disorders in children and adolescents. Clinical anxiety affects an estimated 6.5% of children and adolescents worldwide at any one time [1], and it is estimated that before age twenty-one, 23.5% of youths have suffered from a clinically significant anxiety problem [2]. It is crucial to understand the mechanisms that cause and maintain anxiety in childhood. Cognitive models of anxiety suggest that there are particular cognitive biases that predispose, cause and/or maintain anxiety (see [3] for an overview of these models). Cognitive models suggest that after an initial assessment for threat, anxious individuals have an attention bias whereby attention is disproportionately allocated to threat [3]
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