Enhanced attentional capture in trait anxiety

Attentional Control Theory (ACT) proposes that anxiety is specifically associated with more attentional distraction by salient stimuli. Moreover, there is some suggestion that worry is one mechanism whereby anxiety impairs attentional control. However, direct evidence for these hypotheses is lacking. In the current study we addressed limitations of previous work by examining the relationships between trait anxiety and worry and attentional distraction by a salient, task-irrelevant color singleton in a visual search task. Results revealed that trait anxiety, but not worry, was related to increased attentional distraction (i.e., capture) by the color singleton. The current results suggest that anxiety is associated with a general enhancement of bottom-up processes involved in motivational significance detection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Individual differences in anxiety and executive functioning: A multidimensional view

The relationship between individual differences in anxiety and executive functioning was investigated in a sample of young adults. Verbal and spatial working memory, resistance to interference, negative priming, and task‐switching measures were used to assess three executive functioning dimensions: updating, inhibition, and shifting. An additional index of basic psychomotor speed was added to this cognitive battery. According to the multidimensional interaction model of anxiety proposed by Endler (1997), state (cognitive–worry and autonomic–emotional) and trait (related to social evaluation, physical danger, ambiguous situations, and daily routines) anxiety were assessed in this evaluation context. Results indicated that shifting and inhibition (negative priming) efficiency were negatively related to state (cognitive–worry) and trait (related to social evaluation) anxiety. However, there was a relative advantage of subjects higher in social evaluation apprehensions in their memory updating performance. The results are consistent with several predictions of the attentional control theory (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007), and are relevant for research regarding the interaction of situational, personality, and cognitive functioning dimensions.     

The interplay of trait worry and trait anxiety in determining episodic retrieval: The role of cognitive control

Worrying is a key concept in describing the complex relationship between anxiety and cognitive control. On the one hand, cognitive control processes might underlie the specific tendency to engage in worrying (i.e., trait worry), conceptualized as a future-oriented mental problem-solving activity. On the other hand, the general tendency to experience the signs and symptoms of anxiety (i.e., trait anxiety) is suggested to impair cognitive control because worrisome thoughts interfere with task-relevant processing. Based on these opposing tendencies, we predicted that the effect of the two related constructs, trait anxiety and trait worry, might cancel out one another. In statistics, such instances have been termed suppressor situations. In four experiments, we found evidence for such a suppressor situation: When their shared variance was controlled, trait worry was positively whereas trait anxiety was negatively related to performance in a memory task requiring strategic, effortful retrieval. We also showed that these opposing effects are related to temporal context reinstatement. Our results suggest that trait worry and trait anxiety possess unique sources of variance, which differently relate to performance in memory tasks requiring cognitive control.     

成就目标定向、测验焦虑与工作记忆的关系

在工作记忆广度测验情境下,以152名中学生为被试,考察成就目标定向、测验焦虑和工作记忆的关系。结果表明四种成就目标定向与测验焦虑和工作记忆间具有不同的关系模式：成绩-接近目标与较低的测验焦虑水平和较高的工作记忆广度相关;掌握-接近目标与担忧、情绪化,与工作记忆广度相关不显著;成绩-回避目标与测验焦虑中的担忧和情绪化正相关,与工作记忆广度负相关;掌握-回避目标与担忧和情绪化存在正相关,与工作记忆广度存在接近显著的相关。测验焦虑是成绩-接近和成绩-回避目标影响工作记忆的中介变量。在测验焦虑中,情绪化对工作记忆的干扰大于担忧的干扰     

竞赛特质焦虑干扰抑制功能:对注意控制理论的检验

基于注意控制理论,采用反向眼跳范式,邀请48名运动员参加2项实验,考察竞赛特质焦虑对抑制功能的干扰效应。实验1(25人)为单因素组间设计,探讨竞赛特质焦虑对加工效能和操作成绩的影响。结果发现,竞赛特质焦虑提高眼跳方向错误率,不影响眼跳潜伏期,部分支持竞赛特质焦虑降低加工效能的假设;竞赛特质焦虑不影响按键准确率,支持竞赛特质焦虑不影响操作成绩的假设。实验2(23人)为两因素混合设计,在压力情境下探讨竞赛特质焦虑对加工效能和操作成绩的影响。结果发现,无论是在压力还是非压力情境下,竞赛特质焦虑均提高眼跳方向错误率,延长眼跳潜伏期,但不影响按键准确率,支持压力下竞赛特质焦虑降低加工效能而对操作成绩影响效果不明显的假设。综合2项实验,竞赛特质焦虑干扰抑制功能表现为降低抑制功能的加工效能但对操作成绩的影响效果不明显。本研究提示,注意控制理论适用于解释竞技运动领域焦虑与操作表现的关系。     

Reliability and validity of japanese children's trait and state worry and emotionality scales

There is a belief in both Japan and the U.S. that high levels of test anxiety interfere with performance. However, there are no measures of anxiety (i.e., worry or emotionality) for Japanese children. In this study, since the consequences of testing are even more salient in Japan than the U.S., it was expected that levels of anxiety, both trait and state, would be higher in Japan than the U.S. Further, we expected that the two-factor structure (worry and emotionality) of both trait and state anxiety scales would be verified and that females would exhibit more anxiety than males. In general, the results for the state worry and emotionality scale were consistent with expectations. On the trait scales, anxiety was less than the United States version. Further, there was not a two-factor structure. There was no effect of sex on any of the anxiety measures.     

Anxiety‐induced performance catastrophes: Investigating effort required as an asymmetry factor

Two studies are reported that test the hypothesis that previous support for the cusp catastrophe model of anxiety and performance, and the hysteresis effect in particular, could have been due to a complex interaction between cognitive anxiety and effort required rather than between cognitive anxiety and physiological arousal. We used task difficulty to manipulate effort required in a letter transformation task. Experiment 1 (N=32) used high levels of trait anxiety together with a competitive environment to induce state anxiety. Experiment 2 (N=20) used a competitive environment with social pressure and ego threat instructions to induce high levels of worry. Both studies revealed significant three‐way interactions as hypothesized with follow‐up tests showing some support for the hysteresis hypothesis in Study 1, and strong support for the hysteresis hypothesis in Study 2. The findings support a processing efficiency theory explanation of anxiety‐induced performance catastrophes and indicate that two cusp catastrophe models of performance may exist; one that incorporates the interactive effects of cognitive anxiety and physiological arousal upon performance and the other that incorporates the interactive effects of cognitive anxiety and effort required upon performance.     

Trait anxiety, defensiveness, and the structure of worry

A principal components analysis of the ten scales of the Worry Questionnaire revealed the existence of major worry factors or domains of social evaluation and physical threat, and these factors were confirmed in a subsequent item analysis. Those high in trait anxiety had much higher scores on the Worry Questionnaire than those low in trait anxiety, especially on those scales relating to social evaluation. Scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale were negatively related to worry frequency. However, groups of low-anxious and repressed individuals formed on the basis of their trait anxiety and social desirability scores did not differ in worry. It was concluded that worry, especially in the social evaluation domain, is of fundamental importance to trait anxiety.     

When children forget to remember: Effects of reduced working memory availability on prospective memory performance

The preparatory attentional and memory processes theory (PAM) of prospective memory (PM) proposes that prospective remembering is influenced by the variation in the availability of WM resources. Consequently, PM should be impaired when WM resources are reduced either by direct WM manipulation or by individual differences associated with restricted WM performance. Our study tested this prediction in school-age children by examining the independent and interactive effects of three factors known to deplete availability of WM resources: increased processing demands of a concurrent arithmetic task, additional WM span requirements, and high trait anxiety. A sample of 10-year-old children (N = 128) performed a PM task, embedded in an ongoing arithmetic task, which progressively imposed greater WM processing demands. Half of these participants also concurrently carried out an embedded WM span task. The results supported the PAM hypothesis, showing that children’s PM was compromised by the restriction of WM resources, whether this resulted from increasing the processing demands on the ongoing task, from imposing additional WM span requirements, or from high trait anxiety. However, these WM-depleting factors exerted additive effects rather than an interactive impact, suggesting that they might each deplete different aspects of WM resource availability necessary for prospective remembering. Overall findings imply that children’s PM success is not only associated to their WM capacity but it mostly depends upon how many of those WM resources are available to be devoted to the PM requirement.     

Relationship of worry and emotionality to test performance in a juku environment

The relationships between trait and state worry and emotionality and performance in a Juku environment were explored; these Japanese anxiety data were also compared in an international context. The Juku or ‘cram school’ provides additional after-school instruction to improve the probability of students getting into select private junior high schools. The subjects were 362 students in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. Test anxiety was measured by the Japanese Children's Trait Worry and Emotionality Scale and the Japanese Children's State Worry and Emotionality Scale. The performance tests measured achievement in mathematics, social studies, Japanese language, and science. As expected, the relationship between the state worry measures and performance was stronger than between either state emotionality or the trait measures. The data also indicate that trait anxiety was dramatically less here than in other international contexts while state anxiety was moderately less.     

Worry, anxiety, and preferred length of sleep

Sixty-three female and 43 male undergraduates responded to a "worry" scale, a trait anxiety measure, and a question asking preferred length of sleep to clarify conflicting findings regarding the relationship between worry and anxiety and length of sleep (e.g., Hartmann, 1973; Hicks & Pellegrini, 1977; Kumar & Vaidya, 1984). Worry and length of sleep were positively correlated, supporting Hartmann's contentions. Anxiety was related to sleep in a U-shaped curvilinear fashion. Anxiety and worry were substantially correlated (r = .60) for subjects above the median on worry but were not correlated for subjects below the median. Worry may be the underlying construct in the positive relationship between anxiety and length of sleep for highly anxious persons. Comparison of high worry-low anxiety and low worry-high anxiety groups also suggests that our understanding of the relationships among sleep, anxiety, and worry may benefit from the simultaneous consideration of worry and anxiety factors.     

Worry about terror among young adults living in ongoing security uncertainty

The aim of the current study was to investigate worry about terror as a mediating variable, with the exogenous variables being media viewing, differentiation of self, and trait anxiety, and the endogenous variables being somatic symptoms and perceptions of security‐related stress. Participants were divided into two groups by age/academic level: 248 high school students and 191 university students. A pathway correlation model was used to investigate worry about terror as a mediating variable. The central finding was that worry about terror was a significant mediating variable in the relationship between the extent of media viewing following terror events and the level of perception of security‐related stress. That is, young people who said they worried a lot reported a high level of stress relating to the terror events they saw covered in the media. In addition, trait anxiety was found to have an effect on stress perception only via the level of worry about terror. This means that high levels of stress are not experienced by all highly trait‐anxious people, but only by those who suffer from higher levels of worry about terror.     

Individual differences in trait anxiety and goal-commitment predict updating efficiency on the reading span task

According to attentional control theory (ACT; Eysenck et al. in Emotion 7(2):336–353, 2007) anxious individuals recruit motivation on demanding tasks, which helps prevent performance shortfalls. We used a quasi-experimental design to examine the relationship between trait anxiety (operationalised using questionnaire scores), situational stress (manipulated using ego threat instructions) and motivation (indexed using a self-report goal-commitment scale) in predicting effectiveness (accuracy) and efficiency (accuracy divided by RT) on the reading span task. After controlling for depression, the variables were not related to effectiveness; however there was a significant trait anxiety × goal-commitment interaction on reading span efficiency. Higher trait anxiety predicted better efficiency at higher goal-commitment, and poorer efficiency at lower goal-commitment, and these relationships were independent of situational stress. Results are interpreted in terms of ACT.     

Trait anxiety, trait depression, worry, and memory

A study is reported which investigated the proposal that high trait anxiety is associated with a memory bias for worry themes. Forty-five participants were categorised as being high or low trait anxious on the basis of scores on the (Spielberger et al., 1983) (Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Form Y) (1983)). The participants were requested to rate a number of worry and non-worry statements for how much they generally thought about the issues represented by them. Analysis of the ratings given by the participants showed that low trait anxiety individuals thought about the non-worry items significantly more than worry items. The high trait anxiety participants, however, showed little or no difference in the amount of time spent thinking about worry and non-worry themes. In a subsequent free recall task of the statements it was observed that the low trait anxiety group recalled significantly more non-worry than worry items, whereas there was no such difference for the high trait group. It was also found that the degree of memory bias was related to both positive affectivity and trait anxiety. The implications of such findings are discussed.     

Achievement goals and gender effects on multidimensional anxiety in national elite sport

ObjectivesThe present paper examined the roles of achievement orientation, perception of the motivational climate, and perceived ability on performance trait anxiety in a sample of national level elite athletes. Gender differences in these relationships were also examined.DesignCross-sectional.MethodsOne hundred and ninety national elite athletes (male, n=101 and female, n=89) from individual sport completed Norwegian measures of goal orientation, perceived motivational climate, perceived ability, and multidimensional performance anxiety.ResultsFemale and male national elite athletes were similar in achievement orientations and had similar perceptions of the motivational climate. Females reported higher levels of performance worry, concentration disruption and somatic anxiety than males. Orientations did not predict performance anxiety for either gender, however perceptions of a performance climate predicted performance worry for both genders, and concentration disruption for females. Perceived ability predicted less performance worry for females and males. Perceived ability did not moderate the effects of the perceived motivational climate on performance anxiety, and neither did the results meet the criteria for testing mediation.ConclusionsThe extant motivational climate has an effect on performance anxiety, and coaches would be well advised to consider this when working with national elite athletes.     

The effects of worry and rumination on affect states and cognitive activity

The effects of worry and rumination on affective states and mentation type were examined in an unselected undergraduate sample in Study 1 and in a sample of individuals with high trait worry and rumination, high rumination, and low worry/rumination in Study 2. Participants engaged in worry and rumination inductions, counterbalanced in order across participants to assess main and interactive effects of these types of negative thinking. During mentation periods, the thought vs. imaginal nature and the temporal orientation of mentations were assessed 5 times. Following mentation periods, negative and positive affect, relaxation, anxiety, and depression were assessed. Both worry and rumination produced increases in negative affect and decreases in positive affect. Worry tended to generate greater anxiety, and rumination tended to generate greater depression. Interactive effects were also found indicating that worry may lessen the anxiety experienced during subsequent rumination. Moreover, worry lessened the depressing effects of rumination. Worry was associated with significantly greater thought than imagery, compared to rumination. Rumination involved a progression from mentation about the past to mentation about the future over time. Implications for understanding the generation of negative affect and comorbid anxiety and depression are discussed.     

The role of fear of anxiety and intolerance of uncertainty in worry: An experimental manipulation

The tendency to fear emotional experiences, such as anxiety, may be an important factor in the maintenance of excessive worry, which is the central feature of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). The goal of the present study was to clarify the role of fear of anxiety in worry by assessing whether the experimental manipulation of fear of anxiety affects worry level. The study also assessed the combined effects of fear of anxious responding and intolerance of uncertainty (a factor already linked to pathological worry) on level of worry by grouping participants according to their tolerance for uncertainty. The results indicated that participants whose fear of anxiety was increased showed higher levels of worry compared to participants whose fear of anxiety was decreased. This finding provides preliminary support for the causal role of fear of anxiety in worry. Moreover, the results showed that increased fear of anxiety in combination with an intolerance for uncertainty led to the highest levels of worry, which suggests that these constructs have an additive effect on worry. The findings lend support to the integration of new conceptualizations of psychopathology with existing models of excessive worry, which could ultimately increase treatment efficacy for GAD.     

Interacting effects of worry and anxiety on attentional disengagement from threat

Recent work suggests that the ability to disengage attention from threatening information is impaired in people who suffer from anxiety and dysphoria. It has been suggested that this impaired ability to disengage from threat might specifically be associated with the tendency to perseverate about threat (i.e., worry), which is a main characteristic of anxiety disorders and a wide range of other psychopathologies. However, no studies have yet addressed this issue. The present study examined whether trait worry as well as worry intensity after experimental worry induction are associated with impaired ability to disengage attention from threatening cues (angry faces), independently from or in conjunction with anxiety. Sixty-one participants performed a visual cueing experiment that required detection of a target stimulus at one of two possible locations. Prior to the target neutral, happy or angry facial cues appeared at one of these two locations; when there is a relatively long period between the cue and the target (>300 ms), an overall faster responding to invalidly cued trials relative to validly cued trials is believed to indicate inhibition of return (IOR) to a recently attended location. A reduced IOR for angry faces was only found when both trait worry and anxiety were high. When anxiety was kept constant, both trait worry and state worry were associated with enhanced IOR for neutral faces instead. The results seem to suggest that specific threat-related deficiencies in IOR may be a function of the co-occurrence of worry and anxiety.     

Japanese children's trait and state worry and emotionality in a high-stakes testing environment

Our previous research using both Japanese Children's Trait and State Worry and Emotionality Scales indicated that there were several issues that needed resolution in a high-stakes testing environment. High-stakes testing environments are those in which there are serious consequences to the individual of how well he or she scores on a particular test. In this study, the high-stakes environment was characterized by higher state worry and emotionality but not higher trait worry and emotionality scores than in the previous study. A clear two-factor solution was found for the state measures but not for the trait measures. Males performed better on the achievement tests than females. The relationship of state anxiety to performance was non-linear. State worry was more highly predictive of poor performance than state emotionality.     

Working Memory Capacity in High Trait-anxious and Repressor Groups

The verbal reasoning performance of high-anxious (high trait anxiety, low defensiveness), defensive high-anxious (high trait anxiety, high defensiveness), repressor (low trait anxiety, high defensiveness), and low-anxious (low trait anxiety, low defensiveness) groups was examined under high and low memory load conditions. As predicted by the processing efficiency theory (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992), the slowing of reasoning speed with the high memory load was disproportionately great for the high-anxious and defensive high-anxious groups. The effects of high memory load on reasoning speed were the same for the low-anxious and repressor groups, suggesting that both groups had equivalently low levels of worrying (and other anxiety related) task-irrelevant thoughts. Theoretical implications of these, and other findings, for the understanding of repressors were discussed.