Socioeconomic status and social anxiety: attentional control as a key missing variable?

2022/09/03 by Nele Claes, A. Smeding, Annique Smeding +2
Neuroscience · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes #Impact of Technology on Adolescents #Stress Responses and Cortisol

paper · doi:10.1080/10615806.2022.2118723

openalex publication_date 2022/09/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The aim was to examine the role of attentional control as a psychological factor involved in socioeconomic status-related mental health differences, and specifically in social anxiety. Based on the literature on socioeconomic status differences in cognitive abilities and attentional control theory, we hypothesized that attentional control would account for the relation between socioeconomic status and social anxiety. We tested this hypothesis in an integrative model also including trait anxiety and subjective socioeconomic status. DESIGN: Cross-sectional. METHOD: Online, 439 French adults were recruited via social media. They completed self-reported measures of attentional control, objective socioeconomic status, subjective socioeconomic status, social anxiety, and trait anxiety. RESULTS: Using Structural Equation Modelling, findings showed a positive association between objective (but not subjective) socioeconomic status and attentional control, which in turn was related to social anxiety. Exploratory analyses showed that only income, as objective socioeconomic status indicator, was associated with attentional control. CONCLUSIONS: The current study is the first to support that low socioeconomic status individuals report less attentional control and more social anxiety symptoms. This suggests that attentional control is a psychological factor involved in social anxiety inequalities.

Citations

• Assessment and Development of Executive Function (EF) During Childhood
• Screening for social anxiety disorder in the clinical setting: using the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale
• Soil Survey of Benton County
• Lifetime Prevalence and Age-of-Onset Distributions of DSM-IV Disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication
• Bias in Cross-Sectional Analyses of Longitudinal Mediation: Partial and Complete Mediation Under an Autoregressive Model
• Relationship of subjective and objective social status with psychological and physiological functioning: Preliminary data in healthy, White women.
• Neurocognitive development in socioeconomic context: Multiple mechanisms and implications for measuring socioeconomic status
• The etiology of social anxiety disorder: An evidence-based model
• Annual Research Review: On the relations among self‐regulation, self‐control, executive functioning, effortful control, cognitive control, impulsivity, risk‐taking, and inhibition for developmental psychopathology
• Cognitive Stimulation as a Mechanism Linking Socioeconomic Status With Executive Function: A Longitudinal Investigation
• Power Analysis for Parameter Estimation in Structural Equation Modeling: A Discussion and Tutorial
• Anxiety-related attentional biases and their regulation by attentional control.

Related

• Parental control and adolescent social anxiety: A focus on emotional regulation strategies and socioeconomic influences in China
• The effect of social anxiety on social attention in naturalistic situations
• Cognitive Variables in Social Anxiety Disorder in Children and Adolescents: A Network Analysis
• Threat prioritisation under limited awareness in social anxiety: a review of masking and suppression paradigms
• Depressed and anxious moods mediate relations among perceived socialization, self-focused attention, and dysfunctional attitudes