Abstract
Heightened reward sensitivity has been proposed as a risk factor for developing behavioral disorders whereas heightened punishment sensitivity has been related to the development of anxiety disorders in youth. Combining a cross-sectional (n = 696, mean age = 16.14) and prospective (n = 598, mean age = 20.20) approach, this study tested the hypotheses that an attentional bias for punishing cues is involved in the development of anxiety disorders and an attentional bias for rewarding cues in the development of behavioral disorders. A spatial orientation task was used to examine the relation between an attentional bias for punishing cues and an attentional bias for rewarding cues with anxiety and behavioral problems in a subsample of a large prospective population cohort study. Our study indicates that attentional biases to general cues of punishment and reward do not seem to be important risk factors for the development of anxiety or behavioral problems respectively. It might be that attentional biases play a role in the maintenance of psychological problems. This remains open for future research.
Highlights
Given that developmental pathways are triggered or become rooted during adolescence, mental health problems in adolescence may have long-term consequences (Ormel et al 2015)
We (iii) will try to replicate the findings from Derryberry and Reed (2002) in an adolescent sample to see whether a stronger cue validity effect for cues signaling non-punishment with long cue delay is associated with having higher anxiety symptoms and extend this line of research by (iv) looking at the prognostic value of this cue validity effect at six years follow-up
For the prospective sample, including participants with complete data only, did not seem to lead to a biased sample, given that we did not find any significant differences between the individuals with missing prospective data (n = 117, 16%) and individuals with complete prospective data (n = 598) on anxiety and behavioral problems at t3 as well as with regard to the cue validity effects
Summary
Given that developmental pathways are triggered or become rooted during adolescence, mental health problems in adolescence may have long-term consequences (Ormel et al 2015). The current study was designed to investigate how individual differences in attentional bias for cues predicting punishment and reward are associated with symptoms of anxiety and behavioral disorders in adolescence and young adulthood. We (iii) will try to replicate the findings from Derryberry and Reed (2002) in an adolescent sample to see whether a stronger cue validity effect for cues signaling non-punishment with long cue delay is associated with having higher anxiety symptoms and extend this line of research by (iv) looking at the prognostic value of this cue validity effect at six years follow-up. We expect (vii) this association between a stronger cue validity effect for cues signaling reward with behavioral problems to be most pronounced on trials with long cue delay since than both automatic and more voluntary processes are expected to play a role and are expected to have an added effect
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