Relating individual differences in internalizing symptoms to emotional attention set-shifting in children

Abstract

A growing body of evidence points to links between internalizing symptoms and various executive functioning deficits, and especially to inhibition and set-shifting difficulties. However, there is limited developmental research regarding the impact of internalizing symptoms on the shifting function, particularly during middle childhood. The current study investigated attention shifting in a sample of 108 early school age children (7–11 years) using a task-switching paradigm which required participants to alternate between emotional and nonemotional judgments. Results indicated that higher levels of internalizing symptoms (anxiety and depression) had a detrimental effect on performance efficiency (measured by response times) but not on response accuracy. This effect was only observed on emotional (and not on nonemotional) repetition trials and did not affect switching trials; moreover, it was only present when feedback was presented to participants. The findings partially support the predictions of the Attentional Control Theory in a developmental sample and suggest that individual differences in internalizing symptoms play a role in children's ability to flexibly alternate between emotional judgments.

Keywords:

• internalizing
• anxiety
• depression
• emotional attention set-shifting
• attentional control
• children

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the children, parents, and school staff members who were involved in this project.

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, CNCS – UEFISCDI, project number [PNII-ID-PCCE-2011-2-0045].

Notes

1. This is consistent with previous findings of informant discrepancies in the assessment of internalizing symptoms (see De Los Reyes & Kazdin, 2005, for a review).

2. The agreement between the parental and child internalizing scores (measured as the absolute difference between the parent and child score) did not correlate with the age of the children, r(84) = −.11, p = .19, two-tailed.

3. Keeping this limitation in mind, we note that the addition of valence to the main model did not change the direction or magnitude of the switching effect.

Additional information

Funding

Funding: This work was supported by a grant from the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, CNCS – UEFISCDI, project number [PNII-ID-PCCE-2011-2-0045].