The Effects Of Trait Anxiety On Adolescent Risk-Taking Behavior

Previous studies have shown that adolescents are characterized by high risk-taking and high sensorial seeking,and their high risk-taking behaviors are more likely to be driven by emotional factors because they are in the period of agitation with the strongest emotions and sensibility.Anxiety is a basic and negative emotion,which can affect individuals’ decision-making behavior.In recent years,there have been a lot of studies on the causes of adolescent risk-taking behavior,but rarely on the roles of their emotions.Therefore,based on the two-system model theory,general crime theory and self-control energy model,this study introduced self-control,sensation seeking and ego depletion and other variables,and constructed a moderated mediation model to explore the influence of anxiety on adolescent risk-taking behavior and verify its possible influencing mechanism.Study 1 investigated the trait anxiety,trait self-control,sensation-seeking and risk-taking behavior levels of 1,791 adolescents(from junior one to grade two)in hunan province by questionnaire method,to investigate the relationship between individual anxiety level and risk-taking behavior,and to verify the mediating role of trait self-control and the moderating role of sensation-seeking.At the same time,study 1 also explored the developmental trend of these variables with grade and age.The results indicated that:(1)During the period of 12-17 years old(from junior one to senior three),anxiety and risk-taking behaviors increased with the increase of age(grade),both peaked at 17 years old(senior three)and then decreased;Self-control decreased with the increase of age(grade)and peaked at 17 years old(senior three),Then it went up;However,sensation seeking and age(grade)generally showed an inverted "U" shape.During the period of 12-15 years(from junior one to senior one),the sensation seeking increased with the increase of age(grade),reached its peak at 15 years(senior one),and then decreased.(2)Anxiety positively predicted adolescents’ risky behaviors,and trait self-control played a mediating role between adolescents’ anxiety and risky behaviors,and sensation seeking moderated the latter half of the mediating process.In the second study,147 adolescents in Hunan province were manipulated in their self-control state,and their risky behaviors were measured by a simulated balloon mission.Trait anxiety and trait self-control were also measured.The results showed that: under different state self-control conditions trait self-control has different mechanisms affecting anxiety and risk-taking behavior.To be specific,trait self-control mediated the effect of anxiety on risk-taking behavior under the condition of low state self-control,but the mediating effect of trait self-control disappeared under the condition of high state self-control.Therefore,the study concluded that:(1)Trait self-control can mediate the effect of anxiety on risk-taking behavior,that is,the higher an individual’s anxiety level is,the lower his self-control ability is,thus improves his risk-taking behavior level.However,the mediating role of trait self-control disappears when individuals’ self-control resources decrease.(2)Sensory seeking can regulate the mediating role of trait self-control between anxiety and risk-taking behaviors.The higher the level of sensory seeking,the greater the predictive effect of trait self-control on risk-taking behaviors.