Autistic Traits and Social Anxiety in Chinese College Students: The Longitudinal Mediating Role of Rumination

Resumo

Background Autistic traits (ATs) and social anxiety (SA) are closely associated; however, few studies have investigated the potential mediating mechanism of this relationship using longitudinal data. This study examined: (1) the developmental trajectories of ATs, rumination, and SA among college students; (2) whether the baseline levels of ATs predicted the developmental trajectories of SA; and (3) whether the trajectories of rumination mediated this longitudinal association. Methods This study enrolled 397 college students to complete Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire, Discriminative Response Scale, and SA Disorder Dimension three times over the course of a year. Three unconditional latent growth models (LGMs) were first used to explore the trajectories of ATs, rumination, and SA, respectively. Then, a conditional LGM was used to examine the direct longitudinal association between ATs and SA. Finally, a structural equation model was further used to examine the longitudinal mediating role of rumination between ATs and SA. Results For college students, ATs remained relatively stable, whereas rumination and SA declined across the study period. Furthermore, ATs positively predicted the intercept of SA ( β = 0.66, p < 0.001), and negatively predicted the slope of SA ( β = −0.29, p < 0.001). More importantly, higher baseline levels of rumination mediated ATs on the baseline value of SA (0.14, 95% confidence interval [CI] [0.08 0.22]), and slower rates of decline of rumination m

Tipo

Artigo

Área

Psicologia

Ano

2025

Idioma

Inglês

Licença

CC BY

DOI

10.1155/da/6103362

Como citar (ABNT)

HOU, Lulu; SHI, Wendian. Autistic Traits and Social Anxiety in Chinese College Students: The Longitudinal Mediating Role of Rumination. Depression and Anxiety, v. 2025, n. 1, 2025. DOI: 10.1155/da/6103362.