The quality of parent-infant relationships and early childhood shyness predict teen anxiety

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-12/sfri-tqo121114.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 18-Dec-2014

Contact: Hannah Klein
Society for Research in Child Development
The quality of parent-infant relationships and early childhood shyness predict teen anxiety

Infants who frequently react to unfamiliar objects, people, and situations by becoming afraid and withdrawing are referred to as having a behaviorally inhibited temperament. As these infants grow up, many continue to be inhibited or reticent when they experience new things, including meeting new people. Inhibited children are more likely than their peers to develop anxiety problems, especially social anxiety, as they get older. A new longitudinal study has found that behavioral inhibition that persists across early childhood is associated with social anxiety in adolescence, but only among youth who were insecurely attached to their parents as infants.

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