1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«In this study, [the authors] investigated fear circuitry function in youths with a history of high and low maternal harsh parenting displaying high or low levels of chronic, non-clinical anxiety, so as to shed light on the neural mechanisms that link and/or distinguish early adversity and trait anxiety in healthy adolescents.» (p. 198-199)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
L’échantillon est composé de 84 jeunes âgés de 13 à 16 ans. Ils proviennent de deux études longitudinales, soit de l’Étude longitudinale du développement des enfants du Québec (ELDEQ) et du projet En 2001… J’avais 5 ans.

Instruments :
Questionnaires

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«Taken together, although preliminary, the present findings suggest specific associations of harsh parenting and trait anxiety with fear circuitry function […].» (p. 207) The authors showed that «a harsh parenting history may predispose youths for psychopathology not only because of a hypersensitivity to threat but also due to a less targeted suppression of fear responses and/or a less efficient modulation of attention to threat. […] No further differences were observed between high and low anxiety groups, independently of harsh parenting levels, in terms of discrimination conditioning, both at the neural and at the behavioral/ physiological levels. However, increased fear ratings to CS- were found in high relative to low anxiety, despite equivalent levels of discrimination conditioning. […] This, however, seems to be present only in a context of low adversity. Indeed, anxiety differences seemed to be driven by the low harsh parenting groups, suggesting that harsh parenting may have a modulatory influence on anxiety. [The authors] suggest that a history of harsh parenting may lead to a unique anxious phenotype, which is separate from anxious manifestations of other sources.» (p. 207)