Trajectories of anxiety when children start school: The role of behavioral inhibition and attention bias to angry and happy faces.
Abstract
Preschool predictors of children’s anxiety symptoms and state anxiety (reported daily) over the transition to school at age 4 were examined. Specifically, attention biases to angry and happy faces, relative to neutral, and an avoidant temperament style known as behavioral inhibition (BI) were examined as predictors. BI predicted anxiety symptoms and state anxiety. There was no evidence that attention biases directly predicted anxiety, although biases interacted with temperament to predict trajectories of state anxiety over the transition.
Type
Publication
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
