Understanding the Emergence of Social Anxiety in Children with Behavioral Inhibition

Behavioral Inhibition (BI) is a temperament characterized in early childhood by distress to novelty and avoidance of unfamiliar people and is one of the best known risk factors for the development of social anxiety. However, nearly 60% of children with BI do not go on to meet criteria for social anxiety disorder. In this review we present an approach to understanding differential developmental trajectories among children with BI. We review research using laboratory-based tasks which isolate specific attention processes that enhance versus mitigate risk for social anxiety among behaviorally inhibited children and studies that suggest BI is associated with heightened detection of novelty or threat.
Source: Biological Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Review Source Type: research