Girls' and Mothers' Social Anxiety, Social Skills, and Loneliness: Associations After Accounting for Depressive Symptoms
Abstract
This study examined, in 102 mother-daughter dyads, whether (a) girls' social skills and loneliness are related to girls' social anxiety, after adjusting for girls' depressive symptoms, and (b) mothers' social functioning (social anxiety, social skills, and loneliness) is related to girls' social anxiety, after accounting for girls' social functioning (social skills and loneliness) and mothers' and girls' depressive symptoms. After accounting for girls' depression, girls' loneliness (and not social skills) was related to girls' self-reported social anxiety and girls' social skills (and not loneliness) were related to mothers' reports of girls' social anxiety. Mothers' social functioning accounted for significant variance in girls' social anxiety, beyond that accounted for by girls' social functioning and mothers' and girls' depression. Mothers' loneliness and fear of negative evaluation showed significant relations to girls' social anxiety when variance attributable to other variables was partialed out, whereas mothers' social skills and social avoidance and distress did not. Directions for future research on social anxiety are highlighted.
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Lonely people often show high anxiety and hypervigilant responses to negative social stimuli.
“Lonely individuals often show high levels of anxiety51,52, and hypervigilant responses to negative social stimuli, suggestive of heightened recruitment of attentional and self-preservation mechanisms53.”
From Neural mechanisms of social homeostasis (2019) · cites this paper as [52]
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- Authors
- Stednitz, J. N., & Epkins, C. C.
- Affiliations
- Texas Tech University (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2006-02
- Volume
- 35
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 148-154
- ISSN
- 1537-4416 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-4424
- OpenAlex
- W2031655690
- Cited by
- 44
- References
- 29
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 2 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 2 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 3.69
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
- Keywords
- social anxiety, loneliness, social skills, depressive symptoms, mother-daughter dyads, fear of negative evaluation, social avoidance, adolescent girls, mother-adolescent relationship
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Anxiety, Association, Child, Child Behavior, Depression, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Loneliness, Maternal Behavior, Mother-Child Relations, Mothers, Phobic Disorders, Surveys and Questionnaires, Severity of Illness Index, Social Behavior, Socioeconomic Factors, Parenting
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