Abstract
Early exposure to stressful life events is associated with greater risk of chronic diseases and mental health problems, including anxiety. However, there is significant variation in how individuals respond to environmental adversity, perhaps due to individual differences in processing and regulating emotional information. Differences in cognitive control – processes necessary for implementing goal directed behavior – have been linked to both stress exposure and anxiety, but the directionality of these links is unclear. The present study investigated the longitudinal pathway of environmental stress exposure during early adolescence on later adolescent anxiety, and the possible mediating mechanism of cognitive control. Participants were 674 Mexican-origin adolescents (meanage = 10.8 years, 50% male) enrolled in the California Families Project, an ongoing longitudinal study of Mexican-origin families. In the current analysis, we examined self-reports of environmental stressors at age 14 (Time 1), cognitive control at age 16 (Time 2), and anxiety at age 18 (Time 3). Structural equation modeling revealed that environmental stressors (Time 1) had both direct and indirect effects on later anxiety (Time 3) through their effects on cognitive control (Time 2), even when accounting for prior levels of anxiety (Time 2). Cognitive control accounted for 18% of the association between environmental stressors and adolescent anxiety: an increase in stressors decreased cognitive control (β = −0.20, p < 0.001), however, cognitive control buffers against anxiety (β = −0.10, p = 0.004). These findings deepen our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the development of anxiety and highlight the importance of cognitive control as a potential protective factor.
Highlights
Exposure to stressful life events is associated with greater risk of developing chronic diseases and mental health disorders, including anxiety – the most prevalent psychiatric disorder experienced by youth (Pérez-Edgar and Fox, 2005; Pine, 2007; Rapee et al, 2009)
We hypothesized that individuals with higher levels of environmental stress exposure would later report higher levels of anxiety, as compared with peers with lower levels of environmental stress exposure (Hypothesis 1)
Structural equation modeling revealed that cumulative environmental stressors at age 14 had both direct and indirect effects on later anxiety at age 18 through their effects on cognitive control at age 16 even when previously reported anxiety at age 16 was included as a covariate
Summary
Exposure to stressful life events is associated with greater risk of developing chronic diseases and mental health disorders, including anxiety – the most prevalent psychiatric disorder experienced by youth (Pérez-Edgar and Fox, 2005; Pine, 2007; Rapee et al, 2009). The Attentional Control Theory (Eysenck and Derakshan, 2011) and the Processing Efficiency Theory (Eysenck and Calvo, 1992) were put forth to explain the reallocation of cognitive resources when processes such as inhibition, stress, and negative thoughts co-occur. These theories postulate that compromised cognitive control is linked to excessive and uncontrollable worry, a core symptom of anxiety. The scarcity of studies examining longitudinal associations between of cognitive control and anxiety begs the question of directionality and whether cognitive control is an underlying mechanism that might mediate the effect of stress exposure on the development of anxiety
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