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Dunning DL, Parker J, Griffiths K, Bennett M, Archer-Boyd A, Bevan A, Ahmed S, Griffin C, Foulkes L, Leung J, Sakhardande A, Manly T, Kuyken W, Williams JMG, Blakemore SJ, Dalgleish T. Sustaining attention in affective contexts during adolescence: age-related differences and association with elevated symptoms of depression and anxiety. Cogn Emot 2024:1-13. [PMID: 38712807 DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2348730] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2023] [Accepted: 04/13/2024] [Indexed: 05/08/2024]
Abstract
Sustained attention, a key cognitive skill that improves during childhood and adolescence, tends to be worse in some emotional and behavioural disorders. Sustained attention is typically studied in non-affective task contexts; here, we used a novel task to index performance in affective versus neutral contexts across adolescence (N = 465; ages 11-18). We asked whether: (i) performance would be worse in negative versus neutral task contexts; (ii) performance would improve with age; (iii) affective interference would be greater in younger adolescents; (iv) adolescents at risk for depression and higher in anxiety would show overall worse performance; and (v) would show differential performance in negative contexts. Results indicated that participants performed more poorly in negative contexts and showed age-related performance improvements. Those at risk of depression performed more poorly than those at lower risk. However, there was no difference between groups as a result of affective context. For anxiety there was no difference in performance as a function of severity. However, those with higher anxiety showed less variance in their reaction times to negative stimuli than those with lower anxiety. One interpretation is that moderate levels of emotional arousal associated with anxiety make individuals less susceptible to the distracting effects of negative stimuli.
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Affiliation(s)
- D L Dunning
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
- Health Research Methods Unit, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK
| | - J Parker
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
| | - K Griffiths
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
| | - M Bennett
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
| | - A Archer-Boyd
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
| | - A Bevan
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
| | - S Ahmed
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - C Griffin
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - L Foulkes
- School of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK
| | - J Leung
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - A Sakhardande
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - T Manly
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
| | - W Kuyken
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - J M G Williams
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - S-J Blakemore
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
- Department of Psychology, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
| | - T Dalgleish
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
- Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridge, UK
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Ahmed S, Foulkes L, Leung JT, Griffin C, Sakhardande A, Bennett M, Dunning DL, Griffiths K, Parker J, Kuyken W, Williams JMG, Dalgleish T, Blakemore SJ. Susceptibility to prosocial and antisocial influence in adolescence. J Adolesc 2020; 84:56-68. [PMID: 32858504 PMCID: PMC7674583 DOI: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2020.07.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2019] [Revised: 07/17/2020] [Accepted: 07/29/2020] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
Introduction Adolescents are particularly susceptible to social influence and previous studies have shown that this susceptibility decreases with age. The current study used a cross-sectional experimental paradigm to investigate the effect of age and puberty on susceptibility to both prosocial and antisocial influence. Methods Participants (N = 520) aged 11–18 from London and Cambridge (United Kingdom) rated how likely they would be to engage in a prosocial (e.g. “help a classmate with their work”) or antisocial (e.g. “make fun of a classmate”) act. They were then shown the average rating (in fact fictitious) that other adolescents had given to the same question, and were then asked to rate the same behaviour again. Results Both prosocial and antisocial influence decreased linearly with age, with younger adolescents being more socially influenced when other adolescents’ ratings were more prosocial and less antisocial than their own initial rating. Both antisocial and prosocial influence significantly decreased across puberty for boys but not girls (independent of age). Conclusions These findings suggest that social influence declines with increasing maturity across adolescence. However, the exact relationship between social influence and maturity is dependent on the nature of the social influence and gender. Understanding when adolescents are most susceptible to different types of social influence, and how this might influence their social behaviour, has important implications for understanding adolescent social development.
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Affiliation(s)
- S Ahmed
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, WC1N 3AR, UK.
| | - L Foulkes
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, WC1N 3AR, UK
| | - J T Leung
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, WC1N 3AR, UK
| | - C Griffin
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, WC1N 3AR, UK
| | - A Sakhardande
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, WC1N 3AR, UK
| | - M Bennett
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK
| | - D L Dunning
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK
| | - K Griffiths
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK
| | - J Parker
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK
| | - W Kuyken
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 7JX, UK
| | - J M G Williams
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 7JX, UK
| | - T Dalgleish
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK
| | - S J Blakemore
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, WC1N 3AR, UK; Department of Psychology, Downing Street, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, UK
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