title: Automatic evaluations in clinically anxious and nonanxious children and adolescents.
abstract: Automatic evaluations of clinically anxious and nonanxious children (n = 40, aged 8-16, 18 girls) were compared using a pictorial performance-based measure of automatic affective associations. Results showed a threat-related evaluation bias in clinically anxious but not in nonanxious children. In anxious participants, automatic evaluations of anxiety-relevant stimuli were more negative than those of negative stimuli. In nonanxious participants, evaluations of negative and anxiety-relevant stimuli did not differ. Furthermore, anxious youth had stronger negative evaluations of anxiety-relevant stimuli than nonanxious children. Automatic evaluations of positive, neutral, and negative stimuli did not differ between groups. Threat-related evaluations were predictive of parent-reported, but not child-reported, anxiety.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. L.Vervoort@uva.nl
authors.forename: Leentje
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Vervoort
authors.forename: Lidewij H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Wolters
authors.forename: Sanne M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Hogendoorn
authors.forename: Pier J M
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Prins
authors.forename: Else
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: de Haan
authors.forename: Maaike H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Nauta
authors.forename: Frits
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Boer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000339:Affect; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018579:Patient Selection; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires