Trait anxiety and adolescent's academic achievement: The role of executive function

Does Anxiety Systematically Bias Estimates of Executive Functioning Deficits in Pediatric Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder?

Growing evidence suggests that childhood ADHD is associated with larger impairments in working memory relative to inhibition. However, most studies have not considered the role of co-occurring anxiety on these estimates - a potentially significant confound given prior evidence that anxiety may increase working memory difficulties but decrease inhibition difficulties for these children. The current study extends prior work to examine the extent to which co-occurring anxiety may be systematically affecting recent estimates of the magnitude of working memory/inhibitory control deficits in ADHD. The carefully-phenotyped sample included 197 children with ADHD and 142 children without ADHD between the ages of 8 and 13 years (N = 339; Mage = 10.31, SD = 1.39; 144 female participants). Results demonstrated that ADHD diagnosis predicted small impairments in inhibitory control (d = 0.31) and large impairments in working memory (d = 0.99). However, child trait anxiety assessed dimensionally across multiple informants (child, parent, teacher) did not uniquely predict either executive function, nor did it moderate estimates of ADHD-related working memory/inhibition deficits. When evaluating anxiety categorically and controlling for ADHD, anxiety diagnosis predicted slightly better working memory (d = 0.19) but not inhibitory control for clinically evaluated children generally. Findings from the current study indicate that trait anxiety, measured dimensionally or categorically, does not differentially affect estimates of executive dysfunction in pediatric ADHD. Further, results suggest that trait anxiety is generally not associated with executive dysfunction above and beyond the impact of co-occurring ADHD. Future research is needed to further assess the role of anxiety in ADHD behavioral symptomatology, neurocognitive functioning, and mechanisms underlying these relations.

Trait Anxiety, Emotion Regulation, and Metacognitive Beliefs: An Observational Study Incorporating Separate Network and Correlation Analyses to Examine Associations with Executive Functions and Academic Achievement

Trait anxiety, emotion regulation strategies, and metacognitive beliefs influence executive functions (EFs) and academic achievement. This study examines their interplay and impact on academic success. In total, 275 adolescents (10-17 years) and parents completed an online questionnaire assessing trait anxiety, emotion regulation strategies, metacognition, parent-reported behaviors related to executive functioning, and overall school average. Preliminary analyses confirmed consistency with the existing literature for each variable and their interaction. Furthermore, we conducted a network analysis among the main variables. This analysis supports the need to pay more attention to reflective variables-maladaptive emotion regulation strategies and metacognitive beliefs about worry-when studying trait anxiety. These variables were linked to problematic executive functioning in adolescents, and the latter was negatively linked to academic achievement. This study offers innovative insights by investigating relationships less explored in the scientific literature. It reveals high and significant correlations between metacognitive beliefs, maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, and trait anxiety (r > 0.500, p < 0.001) but also between these variables and both executive functioning and academic achievement. These findings offer new perspectives for research and underscore the importance of holistically examining the psychological factors related to academic success.

Gender stereotypes and motor performance: How explicit and implicit stereotypes influence girls standing long jump and anxiety

OBJECTIVES

Inducing a negative stereotype toward women usually leads to a decrease in women's motor performance. Given that most studies have focused on explicit stereotype induction among adults, the main aim of this study was to investigate the effects of explicit and implicit gender stereotypes on standing long jump performance in children. The second aim was to investigate the effects of these same manipulations on children's state anxiety.

DESIGN

A mixed model design with within-between-subject was used with standing long jump performance and state anxiety as dependent variables.

METHOD

Two hundred and four children (Mage = 10.95 years, SDage = 0.85) participated in this study and were randomly assigned, after baseline measurement, into four different groups (i.e., explicit/implicit vs. explicit vs. implicit vs. control). Specifically, participants performed 8 trials of standing long jump (4 trials during the baseline phase and 4 trials during the experimental phase). Children also completed the competitive state Anxiety Inventory at baseline as well as immediately after the trials.

RESULTS

For motor performance, children in the explicit/implicit group and in the implicit group were negatively affected by the stereotype manipulation during all trials whereas participants in the explicit group were only negatively impacted during the last two trials. However, regarding state anxiety, children were negatively affected after both explicit only and implicit only manipulations and more significantly after explicit/implicit manipulation.

CONCLUSIONS

The present research showed that the explicit and implicit manipulations influenced motor performance differently, but that these two manipulations increased state anxiety in the same way. Moreover, the combination of the explicit and implicit inductions leads to a greater significant negative influence on state anxiety but not motor performance.

Socioeconomic and Cognitive Roots of Trait Anxiety in Young Adults

In 54 participants (41% women) from the Czech arm of the European Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood, a national birth cohort with prospectively collected data from their birth until young adulthood, we aimed to study the association between early-life socioeconomic deprivation (ELSD), cognitive ability in adolescence, trait anxiety and resting state functional connectivity of the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) in young adulthood. We found that ELSD was associated with lower cognitive ability in adolescence (at age 13) as well as higher trait anxiety in young adulthood (at age 23/24). Higher cognitive ability in adolescence predicted lower trait anxiety in young adulthood. Resting state functional connectivity between the right LPFC and a cluster of voxels including left precentral gyrus, left postcentral gyrus and superior frontal gyrus mediated the relationship between lower cognitive ability in adolescence and higher trait anxiety in young adulthood. These findings indicate that lower cognitive ability and higher trait anxiety may be both consequences of socioeconomic deprivation in early life. The recruitment of the right LPFC may be the underlying mechanism, through which higher cognitive ability may ameliorate trait anxiety.