Family communication patterns and adolescent social anxiety: cross-sectional and longitudinal connections

Abstract

Social anxiety (SA) is the fear of negative evaluation, criticism or humiliation in social contexts. In its severe, clinical form of Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), this fear and its compensatory maladaptive avoidance and safety behaviors often lead to drastically impaired academic and occupational performance, psychiatric comorbidity, and lower quality of life. With adolescence bringing significant increases in SA symptoms and thus SAD diagnoses, particular focus on childhood and adolescence to understand the origins of the disorder is essential. Existing reserch literature implicates many parenting behaviors, such as overcontrol and low emotional warmth, as contributing factors to the development and maintenance of SA and SAD. The present thesis expanded on this literature by examining cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between adolescent SA and the two family communication pattern (FCP) variables of conversation orientation (CvO) and conformity orientation (CfO) included in the Revised Family Communication Patterns instrument (RFCP). A population representative sample of suburban southwestern Finnish adolescents was longitudinally studied between the 7th and 9th grades in the lower secondary school (n = 393). The adolescents filled questionnaires assessing SA via the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A) and assessing FCP via the RFCP. Adolescent RFCP–SAS-A connections were tested cross-sectionally via t-tests between upper and lower adolescent SAS-A quartiles’ CvO and CfO means, and longitudinally via regression analysis with SAS-A, CvO and CfO predicting the next grade’s SAS-A. In cross-sectional adolescent self-reports, higher CvO was linked to less SA and higher CfO was linked to more SA. Longitudinal analyses also partially supported a link between higher current CfO and higher next grade SA, but not current CvO and next grade’s SA. Results support the conclusion of parenting behaviors generally and FCP specifically being linked to SA. Higher CfO being longitudinally linked to later higher SA tentatively supports a potential causal connection. Further research is recommended to investigate the specifics of FCP variables' potential role in the etiology of SAD.