Objectives: Studies have found older adults report fewer anxiety symptoms than younger adults. As behavioral avoidance is theoretically associated with maintaining anxiety, this study sought to examine age-related differences in avoidance and anxiety in a cross-cultural sample of older ( = 60, 60-92 years) and younger adults ( = 70; 17-24 years).

Methods: Community dwelling participants from Australia and the United States of America completed self-report measures of anxiety, worry, and depression. Participants also self-rated levels of avoidance to 133 common fearful situations using a card sort task.

Results: Older adults reported significantly less avoidance of age-adjusted social and medical scenarios, more avoidance of aggressive scenarios, with no significant difference for animal or agoraphobic scenarios when compared to younger adults. Age-related effects were no longer significant in full models, in which the main effect of anxiety explained variance in avoidance for social, medical, animal, agoraphobic, but not aggression scenarios.

Conclusions: Age differences in avoidance behavior were accounted for by differences in anxiety symptoms, except for avoidance of aggressive scenarios, which was not associated with anxiety. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Age differences in levels of avoidance of common fearful situations were found, and may be associated with differences in anxiety symptom severity.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07317115.2023.2204079DOI Listing

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