The Developmental Trajectories of Adolescent Anxiety: A Growth Mixture Modeling Approach

Xiang Yanhui; Hou Rongxia

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250106

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2025, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (1) : 53-63. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250106

Developmental & Educational Psychology

The Developmental Trajectories of Adolescent Anxiety: A Growth Mixture Modeling Approach

Xiang Yanhui^1,2,3,4, Hou Rongxia^2,3,4

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Abstract

Anxiety is a type of negative emotional experience that puts the individual in a state of physiological tension and high arousal, with symptoms such as nervousness, restlessness, and insomnia. Anxiety is common among adolescents and can lead to many physical and psychological problems. Therefore, studying the developmental characteristics of anxiety in adolescence has important practical implications. Most of the predecessors have discussed the risk outcomes of anxiety (gambling, substance abuse, suicide, etc.), but few have discussed the dynamic characteristics of adolescent anxiety. In addition, previous studies mainly rely on Western adolescents, and the development of anxiety in Chinese adolescents is less often studied. Therefore, based on latent growth modeling and growth mixture modeling, this study explored the development trend of adolescent anxiety in junior middle school students in China for the first time, to provide an important theoretical and practical basis for preventing anxiety symptoms and improving the mental health level of adolescents.
The anxiety level of students in 2 junior high schools was assessed 3 times in 2 years by cluster sampling method. In this study, the anxiety subscale in the simplified Chinese version of the Depression-Anxiety-Stress Scale (DASS-21) was used to measure the anxiety level of junior high school students. There were 684 adolescents participating in the first wave, 698 in the second wave, 600 in the third wave, and 483 in all three measurements. The results of the Chi-square test and t-test indicate that there were no significant differences between the loss subjects and the effective subjects in terms of gender (χ²(1)=2.45, p > .05), father's education level (χ²(6)=7.71, p > .05), mother's education level (χ²(6)=3.88, p > .05), subjective socioeconomic status (χ²(9)=10.41, p > .05), and anxiety level (t(652)=-1.28, p > .05). This indicates that there was no structured loss of subjects, and as a result, we deleted the data of the missing samples. Finally, the sample included in this study was 483 adolescents who participated in all three waves. They were in the seventh (239) and eighth (244) grades at the time of the first wave, with an average age of 13.05 ± .75 years. Of these, 255 (52.80%) were male, 217 (44.93%) were female, and 11 (2.28%) did not report their gender. In this study, SPSS 26.0 and Mplus 8.3 were used for data analysis. Firstly, latent growth modeling was established to explore the overall developmental trend of adolescent anxiety. Secondly, a growth mixture modeling was constructed to explore the heterogeneity of the development trend of adolescent anxiety, in which the model with 2 categories was the best-fitting model. Finally, we examined the moderating role of gender in the developmental characteristics of adolescent anxiety.
The results showed that: (1) Within 2 years, the anxiety level of junior high school students showed a linear decline trend; (2) There were 2 developmental trajectories of adolescent anxiety——low-risk group and high-risk group: 89.65% of adolescents belonged to the low-risk group, the initial anxiety level was low, and the anxiety level decreased with time; 10.35% of adolescents were classified into the high-risk group, with the initial anxiety levels being high and remaining relatively stable; (3) Gender played a moderating role in the developmental trend of adolescent anxiety. In terms of the overall developmental trend of adolescent anxiety, the anxiety level of girls was significantly higher than that of boys. In terms of the heterogeneous developmental trajectory of adolescent anxiety, girls were more likely to belong to the high-risk group.
For the first time, this study used tracking data to unveil the developmental patterns of anxiety among Chinese middle school students via growth mixture modeling. The findings revealed that the majority of adolescents exhibited a declining trend in anxiety levels, with only a small fraction experiencing sustained high anxiety. This research holds significant implications for understanding the trajectory of anxiety development among Chinese adolescents and contributes valuable insights to the study of their emotional development. Moreover, it provides an essential theoretical and practical foundation for targeted prevention and intervention strategies for adolescent anxiety.

Key words

adolescence / anxiety / growth mixture modeling / longitudinal study

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Xiang Yanhui, Hou Rongxia. The Developmental Trajectories of Adolescent Anxiety: A Growth Mixture Modeling Approach[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2025, 48(1): 53-63 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250106

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