Social anxiety is a common mental disorder with an average age of onset in early adolescence. Current theories focus largely on risk factors that are present from early in life, but reasons for onset of the disorder as youth move into adolescence are rarely discussed. We recently proposed a model of the onset of certain mental disorders during the adolescent years based on characteristics of adolescent development. While this model will require longitudinal testing, the current article establishes concurrent associations between relevant variables in a cohort of 528 preadolescents (M age = 11.2 years) at baseline. Youth with social anxiety disorder differed significantly from other youth on measures of social comparison (including physical appearance comparisons, self-rated attractiveness, and negative peer comparisons on social media) as well as positive peer connections (including self-reported school belonging, number of friends, victimization, and peer affiliation). A structural equation model showed that symptom levels of social anxiety were directly related to social comparisons and peer connections, as well as indirectly associated with pubertal development and social comparisons. This pattern was not moderated by sex of youth.

中文翻译：

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在青春期之前测试社交焦虑的并发模型

社交焦虑症是一种常见的精神障碍，平均发病年龄在青春期早期。目前的理论主要集中在生命早期就存在的危险因素，但是很少讨论青少年进入青春期后发病的原因。我们最近根据青少年发育特征提出了一种在青少年时期发生某些精神障碍的模型。尽管此模型需要纵向测试，但当前的文章在基线的528名青春期前队列（M年龄= 11.2岁）中建立了相关变量之间的并发关联。社交焦虑症的年轻人在社交比较（包括外表比较，自我评价的吸引力，社交媒体上的负面同peer比较）以及正面同peer联系（包括自我报告的学校归属，朋友数量，受害和同peer隶属关系）。结构方程模型表明，社交焦虑的症状水平与社交比较和同伴关系直接相关，与青春期发育和社交比较间接相关。青年性别并未缓解这种模式。