Anxiety and Depression

Anxiety and Depression

Developmental models of anxiety and depression also treat adolescence as an important period, especially in terms of the emergence of gender differences in prevalence rates that persist through adulthood (Rudolph, 2009). Starting in early adolescence, compared with males, females have rates of anxiety that are about twice as high and rates of depression that are 1.5 to 3 times as high (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Although the rates vary across specific anxiety and depression diagnoses, rates for some disorders are markedly higher in adolescence than in childhood or adulthood. For example, prevalence rates for specific phobias are about 5% in children and 3%–5% in adults but 16% in adolescents. Anxiety and depression are particularly concerning because suicide is one of the leading causes of death during adolescence. Developmental models focus on interpersonal contexts in both childhood and adolescence that foster depression and anxiety (e.g., Rudolph, 2009). Family adversity, such as abuse and parental psychopathology, during childhood sets the stage for social and behavioral problems during adolescence. Adolescents with such problems generate stress in their relationships (e.g., by resolving conflict poorly and excessively seeking reassurance) and select into more maladaptive social contexts (e.g., “misery loves company” scenarios in which depressed youths select other depressed youths as friends and then frequently co-ruminate as they discuss their problems, exacerbating negative affect and stress). These processes are intensified for girls compared with boys because girls have more relationship-oriented goals related to intimacy and social approval, leaving them more vulnerable to disruption in these relationships. Anxiety and depression then exacerbate problems in social relationships, which in turn contribute to the stability of anxiety and depression over time.

Outside Resources

Podcasts: Society for Research on Adolescence website with links to podcasts on a variety of topics, from autonomy-relatedness in adolescence, to the health ramifications of growing up in the United States.

http://www.s-r-a.org/sra-news/podcasts

Study: The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) is a longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of adolescents in grades 7-12 in the United States during the 1994-95 school year. Add Health combines data on respondents’ social, economic, psychological and physical well-being with contextual data on the family, neighborhood, community, school, friendships, peer groups, and romantic relationships.

http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/addhealth

Video: This is a series of TED talks on topics from the mysterious workings of the adolescent brain, to videos about surviving anxiety in adolescence.

http://tinyurl.com/lku4a3k

Web: UNICEF website on adolescents around the world. UNICEF provides videos and other resources as part of an initiative to challenge common preconceptions about adolescence.

http://www.unicef.org/adolescence/index.html

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Authors

Jennifer Lansford

Jennifer E. Lansford is a Research Professor at the Duke University Center for Child and Family Policy and Social Science Research Institute. Her work focuses on the development of aggression and other behavior problems in children and adolescents, emphasizing how family, peer, and cultural contexts affect these outcomes.

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Adolescent Development by Jennifer Lansford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available in our Licensing Agreement.