Avoidance of Negative Feedback in Teenage Girls Linked to Increased Anxiety: New Study Insights

A recent study conducted by psychologists at the University of Kansas reveals a surprising connection between the way teenage girls respond to social feedback and the development of anxiety over time. Over a three-year period, researchers observed 90 adolescent girls, aged 13 to 15, during stress-inducing speech tasks while wearing eye-tracking glasses. The girls delivered two-minute speeches to two different judges—one providing positive, encouraging responses and the other maintaining a neutral, potentially critical demeanor.

Results showed that girls who actively avoided looking at the potentially negative or critical judge during their speeches experienced higher levels of anxiety three years later, even after accounting for their initial anxiety levels. This finding challenges common assumptions, as previous research often suggested that a focus on negative cues might increase anxiety risk. Instead, this study indicates that avoiding threatening social cues could be a significant risk factor.

The study employed realistic, real-world scenarios rather than static images, making its findings particularly relevant. The 'attention bias,' or how individuals direct focus in social contexts, appears to play a nuanced role in adolescent mental health. For these girls, avoiding negative feedback might reflect an overprotective or avoidant coping strategy that inadvertently exacerbates anxiety.

Further research from the same team includes examining how parental attention to threat influences this dynamic. Eye-tracking data from mothers observed during their daughters' speeches suggest that maternal vigilance toward threats could also impact anxiety development. The ultimate goal is to better understand these attention patterns to inform prevention and intervention strategies for anxiety disorders in youth.

The findings, published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, underscore the importance of addressing attention patterns in adolescent mental health. Recognizing the complex role of social feedback processing can help develop targeted therapies tailored to this vulnerable age group.