Early Manifestation of the
Social/non-Social Anxiety
Distinction in Williams Syndrome
-
1
Macquarie University, Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Australia
-
2
Macquarie University, Department of Psychology, Australia
Despite evidence of high rates of non-social anxiety disorders in Williams Syndrome (Dykens, 2003), population rates of Social Phobia are exceptionally low (Leyfer et al., 2006) and WS individuals are renowned for their outgoing, sociable personalities (for example, Gosch & Pankau, 1994, 1997). The aim of the present study was to examine early manifestations of this dissociation in young children with WS by observing behavior in response to both socially and non-socially threatening situations. In light of findings suggesting the face is particularly motivating for children with WS (Mervis et al., 2003), we were also interested to compare the children’s behavior when a stranger’s face was visible with their behavior when it was covered.
A group of ten children with Williams syndrome, aged 3 to 6 years, and two typically-developing control groups, matched on chronological and mental age respectively, took part in individual 30-minute play sessions. During the play session, children’s behavior in response to situations designed to be either physically or socially threatening was assessed. The physical threat component involved the child hiding alone in a cupboard and unstructured playtime with three ‘threatening’ toys. The social threat aspect of the play session incorporated a number of components. Firstly, the child’s behavior towards an adult stranger was observed, both during unstructured and structured play. Secondly, the child’s behavior towards an adult stranger with their face completely covered was observed. Finally, the child’s behavior in social performance situations (karaoke and impressions games) was observed.
No group differences were found on the physical threat component of the play session. In contrast, a number of group differences emerged on the social threat component. The WS group were more likely to initiate interaction and engage with the stranger in both the masked and unmasked conditions. Interestingly, the WS group spent a larger proportion of time engaged with the stranger during the unstructured play session but no group differences were found for the structured play session. Observation of behavior on the social performance tasks showed that the WS group were more likely to sing along to the karaoke but were comparable to both control groups in their behavior on the impressions tasks.
In contrast to the hypothesis, there was no evidence to suggest that young children with WS differed from controls in their anxiety toward non-social threat. However, the results suggest that the sociability characteristic of older children and adults with WS is already evident in young children, even when a stranger’s face is covered. This indicates that the salience of the face does not entirely drive social approach behaviors in WS. Consistent with a two-factor model of social inhibition (Asendorf, 1990), the results further suggest that children with WS may primarily differ from typically developing children with respect to their behavior towards strangers rather than their behavior in social performance or evaluative situations.
Conference:
12th International Professional Conference on Williams Syndrome, Garden Grove,CA, United States, 13 Jul - 14 Jul, 2008.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Multidisciplinary Poster Session
Citation:
Dodd
H,
Porter
MA,
Peters
GL and
Rapee
RM
(2009). Early Manifestation of the
Social/non-Social Anxiety
Distinction in Williams Syndrome.
Conference Abstract:
12th International Professional Conference on Williams Syndrome.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.07.034
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
04 May 2009;
Published Online:
04 May 2009.
*
Correspondence:
H. Dodd, Macquarie University, Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Sydney, Australia, hdodd@maccs.mq.edu.au