Friendship Experiences and Anxiety Among Children: A Genetically Informed Study

This study examined (a) whether, in line with a gene-environment correlation (rGE), a genetic disposition for anxiety puts children at risk of having anxious friends or having no reciprocal friends; (b) to what extent these friendship experiences are related to anxiety symptoms, when controlling for...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of clinical child and adolescent psychology 2016-09, Vol.45 (5), p.655-667
Main Authors: Poirier, Catherine Serra, Brendgen, Mara, Girard, Alain, Vitaro, Frank, Dionne, Ginette, Boivin, Michel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Anxiety
Anxiety - genetics
Anxiety - psychology
Anxiety disorders
At risk
Child
Children
Contagion
Educational Strategies
Female
Friends - psychology
Friendship
Gene-Environment Interaction
Genetic susceptibility
Grade 4
Humans
Interpersonal Relations
Male
Monozygotic
Problem solving
Questionnaires
Resistance (Psychology)
Self Report
Social anxiety
Social contagion
Surveys and Questionnaires
Teaching
Teaching methods
Twins
Twins - genetics
Twins - psychology
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Summary:This study examined (a) whether, in line with a gene-environment correlation (rGE), a genetic disposition for anxiety puts children at risk of having anxious friends or having no reciprocal friends; (b) to what extent these friendship experiences are related to anxiety symptoms, when controlling for sex and genetic disposition for this trait; and (c) the additive and interactive predictive links of the reciprocal best friend's anxiety symptoms and of friendship quality with children's anxiety symptoms. Using a genetically informed design based on 521 monozygotic and ic twins (264 girls; 87% of European descent) assessed in Grade 4 (M age = 10.04 years, SD = .26), anxiety symptoms and perceived friendship quality were measured with self-report questionnaires. Results indicated that, in line with rGE, children with a strong genetic disposition for anxiety were more likely to have anxious friends than nonanxious friends. Moreover, controlling for their genetic risk for anxiety, children with anxious friends showed higher levels of anxiety symptoms than children with nonanxious friends but did not differ from those without reciprocal friends. Additional analyses suggested a possible contagion of anxiety symptoms between reciprocal best friends when perceived negative features of friendship were high. These results underline the importance of teaching strategies such as problem solving that enhance friendship quality to limit the potential social contagion of anxiety symptoms.
ISSN:1537-4416
1537-4424
DOI:10.1080/15374416.2014.987382