The Role of Peers in the Development of Social Anxiety in Adolescent Girls: A Systematic Review
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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW
The Role of Peers in the Development of Social Anxiety in Adolescent Girls: A Systematic Review Leanne Pickering1,2 · Julie A. Hadwin1 · Hanna Kovshoff1 Received: 9 January 2019 / Accepted: 27 April 2019 © The Author(s) 2019
Abstract Pathways to social anxiety often reflect a set of complex and interacting factors that include both intrinsic and environmental factors. Theoretical models of social anxiety have highlighted that children and adolescents’ peer experiences can increase risk for social anxiety. This systematic review explored the role of peers in the development of social anxiety in adolescent girls. It aimed to identify peer-related risk factors (i.e., peer acceptance, peer attachment, friendship quality, peer support, and victimisation) that place adolescents at risk for social anxiety, and to highlight those that are specific to girls. The findings showed that while low peer acceptance was significantly associated with increased social anxiety for boys and girls, limited close friendships, negative friendship experiences and relational victimisation were highlighted as risk factors specific to girls. The review suggested that researchers might usefully start to develop frameworks that capture generic, as well as gender-specific risk for social anxiety in adolescence. These will enable the development of prevention and intervention methods to support girls at increased risk and that focus on improving the quality of peer relationships. Keywords Social anxiety · Gender · Girls · Peers · Mental health · Risk
Introduction Anxiety is a feeling of worry or fear that occurs in response to the anticipation of future threat (American Psychiatric Association; APA 2013). Anxiety disorders are reported to be the most prevalent mental health need in the general population (Kessler et al. 2009), with worldwide prevalence rates estimated to be approximately 6.5% in children and adolescents (Polanczyk et al. 2015). In a survey of mental health of UK children and adolescents, Green et al. Goodman (2005) found that approximately 4% of adolescent boys and 5% of girls had a clinically recognised anxiety disorder. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s40894-019-00117-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Hanna Kovshoff [email protected] 1
Centre for Innovation in Mental Health – Developmental Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton S017 1BJ, UK
Present Address: Children, Adults, Families, Health and Education, West Sussex County Council, Centenary House, Durrington Lane, Worthing, West Sussex BN13, UK
2
Researchers have found that individuals who experience a higher number of anxiety disorders during adolescence are at increased risk of later anxiety disorders and educational underachievement (Woodward and Fergusson 2001). Further studies have found that adolescent anxiety better predicts psychosocial outcomes in adulthood than childhood anxiety
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