Social anxiety disorder in childhood: Attentional, neurophysiological and cognitive correlates of emotional reactivity and emotion regulation

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Julian Schmitz; Professorin Dr. Brunna Tuschen-Caffier
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: since 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 255685354

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is one of the most prevalent mentaldisorders in childhood and youth, often persisting into adulthood.Since most cases of SAD first develop in children and adolescents,research in this age group is crucial to understand the factors that areinvolved in the disorder maintenance. Theoretical models suggest thatdysfunctional attentional and cognitive processes in individuals withSAD lead to an emotional hyperreactivity (e.g. intensive anxiety)within anxiety provoking situations. Taking findings of the first fundingphase as a starting point, the current proposal aims to assessemotional reactivity and emotion regulation in a large sample (n=180)of both children and adolescents, aged 10 to 15 years. Beside ahealthy control group, a clinical control group with specific phobia willbe assessed to capture possible transdiagnostic qualities in theprocesses of interest. In study 1, children and adolescents will watchpictures of emotional faces and neutral house hold pictures, whileelectrocencephalography (EEG) is assessed. We expect that the SADgroup shows a neurophysiological hypervigilance-avoidance patternand that his pattern is more prominent in adolescents. Further, weexpect the SAD group neutrally shows a priorized processing offemale when compared to male faces. In a second study, emotionalreactivity to facial stimuli and attentional processing in a free viewingtask is assessed through pupillometry and eye-tracking measures.We expect children and adolescent with SAD to show an attenuatedpupillary light reflex in response to facial stimuli. Further, we expectthe SAD group to show a hypervigilance-avoidance pattern related tothe eye-region of emotional faces and that this pattern is mostpronounced in girls with SAD. In a third study, we will investigatesubjective and neurophysiological correlates of cognitive appraisal inresponse to social stimuli. After a reappraisal training, children willappraise neutral children’s faces as either socially negative, neutral,or positive. We expect that the SAD group will show a smaller effect ofpositive appraisal on neural and subjective measures when comparedto the two control groups. Negative appraisal will lead to a strongerneural pattern of avoidance and more negative subjective ratings inthe SAD group when compared to controls. Importantly, the studies ofthe proposal will allow to investigate possible developmental differences in the processes of interest between children andadolescents with SAD, and will allow for the assessment of genderspecific features of SAD. Beside the inclusion of a health controlgroup, the studies will include a clinical group of children andadolescents with specific phobia, to assess possible transdiagnosticqualities, according to the recent Research Domain Criteria approach(RDoc), in the processes of interest.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Major Instrumentation: EEG 54 Kanal Aktives Elektroden System
• Instrumentation Group: 3430 Elektro-Enzephalographen