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Community Violence Exposure and Generalized Anxiety Symptoms: Does Executive Functioning Serve a Moderating Role Among Low Income, Urban Youth?

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Abstract

Although community violence exposure (CVE) confers risk for generalized anxiety symptoms, not all youth who are exposed to violence exhibit such symptoms, suggesting that other factors moderate this relation. One candidate for moderation is executive functioning (EF), which is linked to both CVE and generalized anxiety symptoms. Nevertheless, little research has examined whether EF moderates the CVE-anxiety relation. To address this gap, we examined associations among CVE (i.e., direct victimization and witnessed violence), EF abilities (i.e., emotional control and shifting), and parent- and child-reported generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms among low income, urban youth (N = 104, 50 % male, M = 9.93 ± 1.22 years). In terms of main effects, lower levels of emotional control were associated with increased parent-reported GAD symptoms, whereas lower levels of shifting abilities were associated with increased parent- and child-reported GAD symptoms across both subtypes of CVE. EF abilities moderated the relation between direct victimization and both parent- and child-reported GAD symptoms, but did not moderate the relation between witnessed violence and GAD symptoms. Post-hoc probing indicated that when youth were exposed to higher levels of direct victimization, those with lower EF abilities exhibited elevated GAD symptoms. However, the level of direct victimization did not impact the level of GAD symptoms among youth with higher EF abilities. Findings have implications for prevention and intervention programs among at-risk youth who are exposed to community violence.

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Acknowledgments

We are particularly indebted to the families, principals, and school staff who participated in this research. Thank you to Dr. Tania Giovannetti and Dr. Thomas Olino for valuable feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Temple University, Weiss Hall 1701 N. 13th Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19122-6011, USA

    Darcy E. Burgers & Deborah A. G. Drabick

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  1. Darcy E. Burgers
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  2. Deborah A. G. Drabick
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Correspondence to Darcy E. Burgers.

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Funding

This study was funded in part by grants from Temple University Office of the Vice President for Research and College of Liberal Arts and NIMH 1 K01 MH073717-01 A2 awarded to Dr. Deborah Drabick.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent and assent were obtained from all parent and child participants, respectively.

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Burgers, D.E., Drabick, D.A.G. Community Violence Exposure and Generalized Anxiety Symptoms: Does Executive Functioning Serve a Moderating Role Among Low Income, Urban Youth?. J Abnorm Child Psychol 44, 1543–1557 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-016-0144-x

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