Anxiety symptomatology: the association with distress tolerance and anxiety sensitivity

Research focused on psychological risk factors for anxiety psychopathology has led to better conceptualization of these conditions as well as pointed toward preventative interventions. Anxiety sensitivity (AS) has been well-established as an anxiety risk factor, while distress tolerance (DT) is a related construct that has received little empirical exploration within the anxiety psychopathology literature. The current investigation sought to extend the existing literature by examining both DT and the relationship between DT and AS across a number of anxiety symptom dimensions, including panic, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive anxiety. Participants (N = 418) completed a number of measures that assessed DT, AS, anxiety symptomatology, and negative affect. Findings indicated that DT was uniquely associated with panic, obsessive compulsive, general worry, and social anxiety symptoms, but that DT and AS were not synergistically associated with each of these symptom dimensions. These findings indicate that an inability to tolerate emotional distress is associated with an increased vulnerability to experience certain anxiety symptoms.     

Principal self-efficacy: relations with burnout, job satisfaction and motivation to quit

The purpose of this study was to explore relations between principals?? self-efficacy, burnout, job satisfaction and principals?? motivation to quit. Principal self-efficacy was measured by a recently developed multidimensional scale called the Norwegian Principal Self-Efficacy Scale. Burnout was measured by a modified version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Job satisfaction and motivation to quit were measured by two scales developed for the purpose of this study, respectively. Participant in the study were 1,818 principals from the population of Norwegian principals. Data was collected by means of an electronic questionnaire. Two structural equation models were tested which specified principal self-efficacy as an exogenous variable and burnout, job satisfaction and motivation to quit as endogenous variables. The data was analyzed by means of SEM analysis for latent variables using the AMOS 18 program. Both models had acceptable fit to data. The results revealed that principal self-efficacy was positively related to job satisfaction and motivation to quit and negatively related to burnout. Burnout and job satisfaction were negatively related. Burnout was positively related to motivation to quit whereas job satisfaction was negatively related. The study highlights important relations between self-efficacy, burnout, job satisfaction and motivation to quit and extends the literature on principal self-efficacy and its relation to other concepts. The results of the study are discussed together with limitations and suggestions for further research.     

Anxiety sensitivity cognitive concerns drive the relation between anxiety sensitivity and symptoms of depression

Depression is typically treated as a homogeneous construct despite evidence for distinct cognitive, affective, and somatic symptom dimensions. Anxiety sensitivity (AS; the fear of consequences of anxiety symptoms) is a cognitive risk factor implicated in the development of depressive symptoms. However, it is unclear how lower order AS dimensions (i.e. physical, cognitive, and social concerns) relate to depressive symptom factors. Confirmatory factor analysis, followed by structural equation modeling, were conducted to examine the factor structure of depression and to then examine the relations between these factors and the lower order factors of AS. This study was conducted in a sample of 374 adults (M age = 35.5, 54.3% female) with elevated levels of psychopathology (89.2% meeting criteria for at least one DSM-5 diagnosis, 25.6% primary depressive disorder). In this study a two-factor model of depression, composed of Cognitive and Affective/Somatic factors, was superior to one- and three-factor solutions. AS cognitive concerns were related to both cognitive and affective/somatic symptoms of depression. Neither of the other AS dimensions was related to depression symptom dimensions. These findings provide a better understanding of the relations between AS and depression symptoms.     

School principal self-efficacy for instructional leadership: relations with engagement,emotional exhaustion and motivation to quit

The current study explored relations between principal self-efficacy for instructional leadership, emotional exhaustion, engagement, and motivation to quit the work as a principal. Participants in...     

Anxiety sensitivity in adolescents: factor structure and relationships to trait anxiety and symptoms of anxiety disorders and depression

The current study examined the anxiety sensitivity construct in a large sample of normal Dutch adolescents aged 13-16 years (n=819). Children completed the Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI; Silverman, W. K., Fleisig, W., Rabian, B. & Peterson, R. A. (1991). Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 20, 162-168) and measures of trait anxiety, anxiety disorder symptoms and depression. Results showed that (1) anxiety sensitivity as indexed by the CASI seems to be a hierarchically organized construct with one higher-order factor (i.e., anxiety sensitivity) and three or four lower-order factors, (2) anxiety sensitivity and trait anxiety were strongly correlated, (3) anxiety sensitivity was substantially connected to symptoms of anxiety disorders (in particular of panic disorder and agoraphobia) and depression, and (4) anxiety sensitivity and trait anxiety both accounted for unique proportions of the variance in anxiety disorder symptoms. Altogether these findings are in agreement with those of previous research in adult and child populations, and further support the notion that anxiety sensitivity should be viewed as an unique factor of anxiety vulnerability.     

Reduction of anxiety sensitivity in relation to nicotine withdrawal symptoms during smoking cessation: an examination among successful quitters

Anxiety sensitivity has been implicated as a potential risk factor for post-quit withdrawal symptoms. The present study examined relations between the extent of change in anxiety sensitivity and the course of nicotine withdrawal symptoms experienced during the initial two weeks of a quit attempt among treatment-seeking smokers. The sample consisted of 29 adult daily smokers (34% female; M_age = 47.7, SD = 13.1) who successfully quit and maintained their abstinence. After adjusting for the effects of gender, treatment condition, use of nicotine replacement therapy, nicotine dependence, alcohol use problems, baseline levels of anxiety sensitivity, and reductions in negative affect, greater reductions in anxiety sensitivity were related to faster decreases in withdrawal symptoms. The current data suggest that there may be merit to employ anxiety sensitivity reduction methods for the management of emergent withdrawal symptoms in smoking cessation treatment.     

Anxiety sensitivity as a predictor of panic disorder symptoms: a prospective 3-year study

Background and Objectives: Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is the fear of anxiety symptoms, a feature proven to be an important vulnerability factor for anxiety pathogenesis. The aim of this study was to examine whether AS (as well as its factors) predicts the onset of panic disorder symptoms when controlling for the contribution of trait anxiety.

Design: We conducted a prospective 3 year follow up study.

Methods: The participants, students at the Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb (N?=?1087), completed an Anxiety Sensitivity Index and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Trait form) and, after a period of three years, were asked to self-assess criteria for panic disorder (according to the DSM-5).

Results: The predictive validity of AS for the onset of panic disorder symptoms, regardless of trait anxiety, was confirmed. Furthermore, the physical concerns dimension of AS was the only significant predictor of panic disorder symptoms. The optimal cutoff score of 25 on the ASI provides poor to moderate accuracy indices in detecting participants who will manifest panic disorder symptoms in the next three years.

Conclusion: This study contributes to our current understanding of AS as a prospective risk factor for panic disorder symptoms.     

Anxiety sensitivity as a specific and unique marker of anxious symptoms in youth psychiatric inpatients

We addressed several questions regarding the relation of anxiety sensitivity to anxious symptoms among 47 youth psychiatric inpatients (18 boys, 29 girls), ages 9–17 (M = 14.23, SD = 1.89). Participants completed measures of anxiety sensitivity, anxious and depressive symptoms, trait anxiety, and positive and negative affect; chart diagnoses were available. Consistent with hypotheses, we found that (a) anxiety sensitivity was associated with anxious symptoms, even controlling for trait anxiety and depressive symptoms; and (b) anxiety sensitivity displayed symptom specificity to anxious versus depressive symptoms (i.e., was associated with anxiety controlling for depression but not with depression controlling for anxiety). Furthermore, regarding factors of anxiety sensitivity, we obtained mixed support for our prediction that phrenophobia would be associated with both depression and anxiety, whereas fear of physical arousal would be associated with anxiety but not depression. Implications for the construct validity of anxiety sensitivity were discussed.     

Perceived health: a test of incremental validity in relation to smoking outcome expectancies, motivation to smoke and desire to quit smoking

This study examined the role of perceived health in predicting theoretically-relevant aspects of smoking behavior among 161 young adult regular smokers (67 females; mean age = 21.9 years (SD = 7.2), cigarettes per day (M) = 12.2 (SD = 5.7)) recruited from the general community. Consistent with prediction, results indicated that relative to anxiety sensitivity, gender, number of cigarettes smoked per day and nicotine dependence, perceived physical health uniquely and significantly predicted expectancies for negative affect reduction and expectancies that smoking would lead to negative personal consequences. Additionally, perceived health incrementally predicted motivation to smoke to reduce negative affect. In contrast to expectation, perceived health was unrelated to motivation to quit smoking. Results are discussed in relation to the role of perceived health as a cognitive vulnerability factor for specific types of smoking patterns.     

Anxiety and sensitivity to eye gaze in emotional faces

This paper reports three studies in which stronger orienting to perceived eye gaze direction was revealed when observers viewed faces showing fearful or angry, compared with happy or neutral, emotional expressions. Gaze-related spatial cueing effects to laterally presented fearful faces and centrally presented angry faces were also modulated by the anxiety level of participants, with high- but not low-state anxious individuals revealing enhanced shifts of attention. In contrast, both high- and low-state anxious individuals demonstrated enhanced orienting to averted gaze when viewing laterally presented angry faces. These results provide novel evidence for the rapid integration of facial expression and gaze direction information, and for the regulation of gaze-cued attention by both the emotion conveyed in the perceived face and the degree of anxiety experienced by the observer.     

Self-efficacy for instructional leadership: relations with perceived job demands and job resources,emotional exhaustion,job satisfaction,and motivation to quit

Social Psychology of Education - The purpose of this study was to explore associations between school principals’ self-efficacy for instructional leadership, their perceptions of work-related...     

Effects of approach and withdrawal motivation on interactive economic decisions

Although recent economic models of human decision making have recognised the role of emotion as an important biasing factor, the impact of incidental emotion on decisions has remained poorly explored. To address this question, we jointly explored the role of emotional valence (i.e., positive vs. negative) and motivational direction (i.e., approach vs. avoidance) on performance in a well-known economic task, the Ultimatum Game. Participants had to either accept or reject monetary offers from other players, offers that vary in their degree of unfairness. A main effect of motivational direction, but not valence, was observed, with withdrawal-based emotion (disgust and serenity) prompting more rejections relative to approach-based emotion (anger and amusement) and a neutral state. These results further confirm that subtle incidental moods can bias decision making, and suggest that motivational state may be a useful framework to study such decisions. Implications with regard to emotion, cognitive neuroscience, and clinical psychology are discussed.     

Anxiety sensitivity interacts with marijuana use in the prediction of anxiety symptoms and panic-related catastrophic thinking among daily tobacco users

The present investigation evaluated whether anxiety sensitivity interacted with marijuana use in relation to the prediction of panic-relevant variables among young adult tobacco smokers (n=265). Approximately 73% of the sample was composed of current marijuana smokers, with 78.5% of this sub-sample using marijuana more than once per week. As expected, after covarying cigarettes per day, alcohol use, and negative affectivity, the interaction between marijuana use and anxiety sensitivity predicted anxiety symptoms and agoraphobic cognitions. Partially consistent with prediction, the interaction between frequency of marijuana use and anxiety sensitivity predicted only anxiety symptoms. These results are discussed in relation to better understanding the potential role of regular marijuana use and anxiety sensitivity for panic-relevant emotional vulnerability among regular tobacco smokers.     

Anxiety and sensitivity to gaze direction in emotionally expressive faces

This study investigated the role of neutral, happy, fearful, and angry facial expressions in enhancing orienting to the direction of eye gaze. Photographs of faces with either direct or averted gaze were presented. A target letter (T or L) appeared unpredictably to the left or the right of the face, either 300 ms or 700 ms after gaze direction changed. Response times were faster in congruent conditions (i.e., when the eyes gazed toward the target) relative to incongruent conditions (when the eyes gazed away from the target letter). Facial expression did influence reaction times, but these effects were qualified by individual differences in self-reported anxiety. High trait-anxious participants showed an enhanced orienting to the eye gaze of faces with fearful expressions relative to all other expressions. In contrast, when the eyes stared straight ahead, trait anxiety was associated with slower responding when the facial expressions depicted anger. Thus, in anxiety-prone people attention is more likely to be held by an expression of anger, whereas attention is guided more potently by fearful facial expressions.     

Anxiety sensitivity and auditory perception of heartbeat

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is the fear of sensations associated with autonomic arousal. AS has been associated with the development and maintenance of panic disorder. Given that panic patients often rate cardiac symptoms as the most fear-provoking feature of a panic attack, AS individuals may be especially responsive to cardiac stimuli. Consequently, we developed a signal-in-white-noise detection paradigm to examine the strategies that high and low AS individuals use to detect and discriminate normal and abnormal heartbeat sounds. Compared to low AS individuals, high AS individuals demonstrated a greater propensity to report the presence of normal, but not abnormal, heartbeat sounds. High and low AS individuals did not differ in their ability to perceive normal heartbeat sounds against a background of white noise; however, high AS individuals consistently demonstrated lower ability to discriminate abnormal heartbeats from background noise and between abnormal and normal heartbeats. AS was characterized by an elevated false alarm rate across all tasks. These results suggest that heartbeat sounds may be fear-relevant cues for AS individuals, and may affect their attention and perception in tasks involving threat signals.     

Anxiety sensitivity in smokers with indicators of cardiovascular disease

There is growing recognition of the importance of understanding the nature of the associations between anxiety and cardiovascular disease (CVD), although limited research has examined mechanisms that may explain the anxiety-CVD link. Anxiety sensitivity (fear of anxiety-relevant somatic sensations) is a cognitive-affective risk factor implicated in the development of anxiety psychopathology and various behavioral risk factors for CVD, although has not been examined among individuals with CVD. Adult daily smokers (n = 619; 50.9% female; M_age = 44.0, SD = 13.67) completed an online survey that included the Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3 (ASI-3) and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ). The presence of CVD was assessed via the presence of ≥1 of the following: heart attack, heart murmur, positive stress test, heart valve abnormality, angina, and heart failure. Smokers with CVD indicators (n = 66, 10.7%) had significantly higher scores on the ASI-3 (M = 33.5, SD = 22.15), relative to smokers without CVD (M = 22.0, SD = 17.92; Cohen’s d = .57). Those with CVD were significantly more likely to have moderate or high anxiety sensitivity (66.7%) relative to those without CVD (49.4%). Physical and social concerns about the meaning of somatic sensations were common among smokers with CVD.     

Anxiety sensitivity and attentional bias to threat interact to prospectively predict anxiety

The purpose of the present study was to examine anxiety sensitivity, attentional bias to threat (ABT), and the aggregate influence of these constructs as prospective predictors of anxiety. Participants (N = 176) completed a baseline assessment session which included the completion of self-report measures of anxiety and anxiety sensitivity, as well as an eye-tracking task in which eye movements were recorded during the viewing of neutral and threat images. Measures of anxiety and anxiety sensitivity were completed again as part of an online questionnaire battery at a 1-year follow-up session. As predicted, baseline anxiety sensitivity and ABT predicted anxiety at 1-year follow-up even after accounting for baseline anxiety. However, these main effects were qualified by a significant interaction effect such that those high in anxiety sensitivity at baseline reported relatively higher anxiety at the 1-year follow-up, but only if they also exhibited higher levels of ABT at baseline. Results suggest that individuals with this combination of vulnerability factors (high levels of both anxiety sensitivity and ABT) may be at particularly high risk for developing anxiety and may benefit from preemptive efforts to reduce ABT.     

Unique association of approach motivation and mania vulnerability

Bipolar disorder involves experiences of both mania and depression over time, and measures of mania-risk and depression-risk therefore tend to be correlated, making it difficult to disentangle the shared versus unique aspects of mania and depression vulnerability. In theory, strong approach motivation is uniquely linked with mania risk, but this relation tends to be obscured unless co-occurring depression risk is statistically controlled. In this study, 461 college students completed the General Behaviour Inventory (GBI)—a validated questionnaire of bipolar disorder vulnerability—and they reported their degree of approach motivation in response to four vignettes that varied in relative incentive versus threat strength. After controlling for the effect of depression vulnerability, mania vulnerability was associated with approach motivation, particularly in response to more threatening scenarios, and this association remained significant even when controlling for dispositional threat and incentive responsiveness, current symptoms, mood, self-esteem, and optimism. The results are consistent with models that regard heightened approach motivation as a unique aspect of mania vulnerability.     

Anhedonic symptoms of depression are linked to reduced motivation to obtain a reward

People with depression report reduced motivation to obtain a reward and reduced affective responses to reward. However, studies focusing on the relation between anhedonia and deficits in reward processing are scarce. Furthermore, studies investigating wanting through cardiovascular reactivity and liking through facial electromyography in human beings are also scarce. In this study, we used the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale score as a continuous predictor variable of anhedonia and we manipulated two within-person conditions (wanting vs. liking). Participants earned money if their performance on a memory task exceeded a particular standard. As expected, effort-related cardiovascular reactivity and self-reports during the anticipatory phase were lower for participants scoring high on anhedonia. Moreover, task performance outcomes were worse for highly anhedonic participants. However, the zygomaticus major muscle’s activity during the consummatory phase was unrelated to the anhedonia score. The present study underlines the importance of anhedonic symptoms, particularly in reduced anticipatory motivation to obtain a reward.