Gender differences in the transactional associations between anxiety sensitivity and emotion regulation over time

Abstract

Although anxiety sensitivity (AS) and disturbances in emotion regulation (ER) are both transdiagnostic factors thought to predispose toward internalizing pathology, little is known about associations between these constructs over time. Further, no work has examined the modulating impact of gender on these associations, despite previous work identifying gender differences in both AS and ER. Data were collected from 275 adults (M_age = 35.7; 52% women) at two timepoints, six months apart (baseline=March 2021, follow-up=September 2021), using an online crowdsourcing platform. Multigroup cross-lagged analyses showed that, across genders, lower baseline ER predicted higher AS at follow-up (p < .001), over and above baseline AS, but the reverse was not true. Additionally, this association was moderated by gender (∆Wald’s χ² =8.33, p < .01), such that lower baseline ER predicted higher follow-up AS in men (p < .001), but not women (p = .35). Our findings suggest the presence of gender differences in the longitudinal, transactional associations between transdiagnostic risk factors important for the maintenance and exacerbation of future internalizing pathology. For example, men may be engaging in less adaptive ER strategies (e.g., suppression), resulting in a failure to downregulate future AS. Present results inform etiological models of internalizing disorders.