Poster #128 - Does Childhood Adversity Moderate the Longitudinal Effects of Early Temperament or Adolescent Personality on Anxiety?

• In Event: Poster Session 14

Abstract

Behavioral inhibition (BI), a temperament trait characterized by fearfulness in the face of novelty, is known to predict a more reserved personality and the later development of anxiety (Tang et al., 2020). Additionally, there is a relation between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and adult psychopathology, including anxiety (Petruccelli et al., 2009). Although BI, reserved personality, and ACEs are all significant risk factors for the development of anxiety, there may be a diathesis-stress relation at work, such that individuals who are predisposed to anxiety (i.e., those high in BI or with a more reserved personality), who also experience ACEs, are at greatest risk of developing anxiety. Although the interactive effects of BI and ACEs have been examined (Mumper et al., 2019), they had not yet been investigated within a longitudinal design spanning from toddlerhood to early adulthood. This study examined if ACEs moderated the longitudinal relation between toddler BI and anxiety in adulthood. We also tested whether ACEs moderated the longitudinal relation between reserved adolescent personality and later anxiety.

154 participants (67 male) were assessed for BI levels in toddlerhood (2-3 years) via maternal-report and laboratory observations. Parent- and self-reports of reserved personality were collected at age 12 using the Behavioral Inhibition Questionnaire (Bishop et al., 2003). At age 19, participants retrospectively reported on ACEs via a screener (Bucci et al., 2015) and reported current anxiety symptoms using the Screen for Adult Anxiety Related Disorders (Angulo et al., 2017).

Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics and correlations of all variables. Unexpectedly, BI in toddlerhood was not related to adult anxiety. However, parent- and self-reported adolescent reserved personality were longitudinally associated with anxiety. Moreover, as expected, ACES were related to anxiety, such that more ACEs correlated with higher levels of anxiety. As shown in Figure 1, ACEs also moderated the relation between self-reported reserved personality at age 12 and anxiety at age 19 (β=.25, p=0.003), such that a more reserved personality positively predicted anxiety scores for children with more ACEs (p=.011), but not for those with fewer ACEs (p=.165). Importantly, this relation was present while controlling for adolescent self-reported anxiety levels. However, the interaction effect did not emerge when using toddler BI or parent-reported adolescent reserved personality.

The significant moderation between self-reported reserved personality and ACEs provides support for a diathesis-stress relation, such that adolescents reporting a more reserved personality who experience greater amounts of adversity are the most at-risk for developing anxious symptoms. These findings could inform the identification of children who are at the greatest risk for anxiety. Potentially, adolescents with a more reserved personality experience greater levels of stress in response to adversity and lack the ability to effectively cope. A limitation is that only self-reported adolescent reserved personality was significantly moderated by ACEs in relation to anxiety, which may indicate the development of a reserved-anxious personality, as opposed to a direct effect of temperamental factors. Moreover, our sample consisted of relatively well-educated, mostly-white participants, so caution should be used when generalizing these results to other populations.

Authors

• Jenae Cipolla, University of Southern California
  Presenting Author

• Selin Zeytinoglu, University of Maryland - College Park

• Kathryn A Degnan, Catholic University of America

• Andrea Chronis-Tuscano, University of Maryland, College Park

• Nathan A Fox, University of Maryland - College Park

• Santiago Morales, University of Southern California