Understanding Attentional Control in Adolescent Anxiety: Associations Between Anxiety Symptoms and Performance Across Four Attentional Control Tasks

Diplôme Master Understanding Attentional Control in Adolescent Anxiety: Associations Between Anxiety Symptoms and Performance Across Four Attentional Control Tasks eng 2026-01-29 2025-12-21 author Johnson Samantha Marie 969625 director Bavelier Daphné 737548 Section de psychologie (PSICO) 80 Although Attentional Control Theory predicts that anxiety impairs attentional control, particularly on speed measures, empirical evidence in adolescents remains limited and inconsistent. The literature varies across attentional control subcomponents, the employed task, performance measures (accuracy vs. speed), and affective content. To address this gap, this thesis examined how anxiety symptoms relate to attentional control in adolescents across multiple tasks and performance measures. A sample of 22 adolescents aged 11 to 15 years with subclinical anxiety from the ongoing WellPlay project completed four attentional control tasks. Associations between anxiety symptoms and task performance were examined using Spearman’s rank-order correlations. Overall, most anxiety-performance associations were weak or nonsignificant, indicating that, in this adolescent sample, anxiety symptoms were not robustly or consistently associated with attentional control. Contrary to ACT-based predictions, anxiety was not reliably associated with slower speed-based performance, nor was performance selectively impaired under negatively valenced distraction. Accuracy-based measures were largely unaffected, with a small number of unexpected positive associations observed under specific conditions. These findings highlight adolescence as a developmental period in which anxiety–attentional control relationships may differ from adult-based theories. Dewey 150 Maitrise universitaire en psychologie 108 Section de psychologie 71 false 1373 Brain & Learning Lab 735bcbc7-20de-4837-b462-9e13d966ff02 Master thesis Private Thesis_09.02.26.pdf 5384613 application/pdf accbd96552db6a2e46f79a3c950de5ff584fa319cf0aa78fc0d667d72ce305c0 closedAccess Faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l'éducation / Section de psychologie

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Johnson, Samantha Marie

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