Early Adolescents’ Relationships with Parents Teachers and Peers and Increases in Social Anxiety Symptoms

摘要

Previous research on social anxiety has clearly identified interpersonal relationships as important for social anxiety symptoms. Few studies, however, have utilized longitudinal designs and have examined mechanisms that might explain links between negative interpersonal relationships and changes in youths’ social anxiety over time. Recent models of social anxiety suggest that negative interpersonal relationships are linked to social anxiety through effects on social skills and behaviors. Using an auto-regressive design and a sample of 416 two-parent families (51% female, 91% White), this study examined whether connections among parent-adolescent hostility, teacher support (6^th grade), and changes in early adolescent social anxiety symptoms (6^th to 8^th grades) are mediated by youths’ compliance to peers (7^th grade). Results indicated that youth who experienced greater parent-adolescent hostility and lower teacher support engaged in greater compliance to peers. In turn, youth who engaged in greater compliance to peers experienced increases in social anxiety symptoms. Significant indirect effects were substantiated only for parent-adolescent hostility. Associations were unique to adolescent social anxiety after accounting for depressive symptoms. Associations did not differ for early adolescent girls and boys. The results reveal that nuanced social processes involving relationships with parents, teachers, and social behaviors have important and potentially unique implications for changes in early adolescent social anxiety symptoms.