The language of worry: Examining linguistic elements of worry models

Despite strong evidence that worry is a verbal process, studies examining linguistic features in individuals with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) are lacking. The aim of the present study is to investigate language use in individuals with GAD and controls based on GAD and worry theoretical models. More specifically, the degree to which linguistic elements of the avoidance and intolerance of uncertainty worry models can predict diagnostic status was analysed. Participants were 19 women diagnosed with GAD and 22 control women and their children. After participating in a diagnostic semi-structured interview, dyads engaged in a free-play interaction where mothers' language sample was collected. Overall, the findings provided evidence for distinctive linguistic features of individuals with GAD. That is, after controlling for the effect of demographic variables, present tense, future tense, prepositions and number of questions correctly classified those with GAD and controls such that a considerable amount of the variance in diagnostic status was explained uniquely by language use. Linguistic confirmation of worry models is discussed.     

The surprising empathic abilities of rodents

Many believe empathy and related pro-social behaviors to be the sole province of humans. The evolutionary antecedents of such phenomena, however, have been observed in lower mammals. By demonstrating empathy-based helping behavior in rats, a recently published study has provided clear-cut evidence that pro-social behaviors are not limited to humans.     

The moderating role of positive beliefs about worry in the relationship between stressful events and worry

Some theorists suggest that worry is elevated by positive beliefs when stressful events occur. Although several cross-sectional studies have revealed an association between positive beliefs and worry, few longitudinal studies have been conducted on this topic. Moreover, the effect of positive beliefs as a moderator on worry when stressful events occur has not been investigated. Against this background, the present study conducted a two-wave longitudinal survey to examine the moderating role of positive beliefs. One hundred and ninety-four college students voluntarily completed questionnaires. Hierarchical regression analysis showed a prospective relationship between the experience of stressful events and the subjective report of worry. Moreover, this relationship was moderated by an interaction with positive beliefs; stressful events were a stronger predictor of the extent of worry for individuals with a high level of positive beliefs than for those with a low level of positive beliefs. The moderating role of positive beliefs suggests that the level of positive beliefs amplifies the threat of worry caused by stressful events.     

Examining incremental explanatory power in accounting for worry severity: negative metacognitive beliefs uniquely predict worry severity following a worry episode

Background and Objectives: Contemporary conceptual models posit that different core variables contribute to worry, including intolerance of uncertainty (IU), metacognitive beliefs, and experiential avoidance. To date, a concurrent investigation of the incremental explanatory power of these variables in accounting for worry severity remains unexamined. The present study sought to address that gap in the literature.

Design/Methods: Participants endorsing frequent worry (N?=?127) completed self-report measures assessing IU, metacognitive beliefs, and experiential avoidance during an online session. Participants later attended an in-person lab-based session where they completed a worry episode and in-vivo worry severity was assessed following the worry episode.

Results: IU, negative metacognitive beliefs, and experiential avoidance each shared a bivariate association with post-episode worry severity. However, in multivariate analyses, only baseline worry severity and negative metacognitive beliefs surrounding the dangerousness and uncontrollability of worry predicted post-episode worry severity.

Conclusions: The present results further underscore links between negative metacognitive beliefs and worry.     

The surprising effect of partner flaws and qualities on romantic affect

We examined whether the intensity of romantic affect is a function of deterrence to that affect (i.e., a reason for not feeling the affect) and explored the effect of deterrents that are relevant to the stimulus instigating the emotion. In line with the Emotional Intensity Theory, we found that positive affect toward the romantic partner was reduced by a minor salient partner flaw, was maintained intense by a moderately important flaw, and was reduced by a very important partner flaw. Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1. In Study 3, romantic negative affect in the form of anger at the romantic partner was a nonmonotonic function of the importance of a salient positive partner characteristic. Anger was reduced by a minor partner quality, was maintained intense by a moderately important quality, and was reduced by a very important partner quality. Theoretical and practical implications for romantic relationships are discussed.     

The effect of worry on cardiovascular response to phobic imagery

Cardiovascular response to phobic exposures has been shown to reflect the degree of emotional processing of phobic material and relates in important ways to outcome in exposure therapy. The present study investigated the effect of worry on such processing. Speech anxious subjects visualized a phobic scene for 10 trials. Three groups differed according to whether they engaged in relaxed, neutral, or worrisome thinking just prior to each scene presentation. Although the three types of thinking had no effect on cardiovascular activity during the thinking periods, subjects in the worry group displayed significantly less heart rate response to the phobic image than those in the neutral condition who had significantly less response than the relaxed condition. However, the worry group showed significantly greater subjective fear to the images than the neutral condition, with the relaxed group near to the level of the worry group and not significantly different from either of the other two conditions. The results suggest that worry may inhibit emotional processing and thus preserve cognitive/affective fear structure, and are discussed in terms of Gray's (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 5, 469-534, 1982) theory of the behavioral inhibition system and semantic satiation effects in cognitive psychology.     

The surprising potency of implicit egotism: A reply to Simonsohn

This article addresses Simonsohn's (2011) critique of field studies of implicit egotism. We argue that Simonsohn provides no compelling theoretical reason to believe that implicit egotism should be valid only in the laboratory. In addition, we argue that a careful analysis of most of Simonsohn's studies of implicit egotism shows that they provide little or no power to reveal real effects of implicit egotism. We conclude that it is more constructive to try to identify theoretically derived moderators of implicit egotism than to try to document that it is always spurious in the field.     

The actor-observer asymmetry in attribution: a (surprising) meta-analysis

The actor-observer hypothesis (E. E. Jones & R. E. Nisbett, 1971) states that people tend to explain their own behavior with situation causes and other people's behavior with person causes. Widely known in psychology, this asymmetry has been described as robust, firmly established, and pervasive. However, a meta-analysis on 173 published studies revealed average effect sizes from d = -0.016 to d = 0.095. A moderator analysis showed that the asymmetry held only when the actor was portrayed as highly idiosyncratic, when hypothetical events were explained, when actor and observer were intimates, or when free-response explanations were coded. In addition, the asymmetry held for negative events, but a reverse asymmetry held for positive events. This valence effect may indicate a self-serving pattern in attribution, but across valence, no actor-observer asymmetry exists.     

The experience of worry in parent–adult child relationships

This study examined the experience of worry in the parent–adult child relationship. A mother, father, and adult son or daughter from 213 families participated (N= 639). Parents and adult children commonly worried about one another and their worry reflected individual characteristics (e.g., neuroticism) and relationship characteristics (e.g., importance of the relationship and ambivalence). In addition, how much adults and their parents worried about one another influenced the other party’s perceptions of relationship quality. Specifically, adults and parents rated their relationships more positively and more negatively when the other party reported worrying about them more and communicating their worries to them more frequently. Findings underscore the importance of including experiences such as worry in research on emotional complexities in the parent–adult child relationship.     

A cognitive model of pathological worry

We present an evidence-based model of pathological worry in which worry arises from an interaction between involuntary (bottom-up) processes, such as habitual biases in attention and interpretation favouring threat content, and voluntary (top-down) processes, such as attentional control. At a pre-conscious level, these processes influence the competition between mental representations when some correspond to the intended focus of attention and others to threat distracters. Processing biases influence the probability of threat representations initially intruding into awareness as negative thoughts. Worry in predominantly verbal form then develops, influenced by conscious processes such as attempts to resolve the perceived threat and the redirection of attentional control resources to worry content, as well as the continuing influence of habitual processing biases. After describing this model, we present evidence for each component process and for their causal role in pathological worry, together with implications for new directions in the treatment of pathological worry.     

The Cartesian cogito,epistemic logic and neuroscience: Some surprising interrelations

This paper was first read at the 1988 Annual Meeting of the International Institute of Philosophy in Stockholm, Sweden. The theme of the meeting was Descartes and the Contemporary Philosophy of Mind, which helped to explain the angle of my approach and the first few sentences of the paper. Morally, this paper thus should appear with the rest of the proceedings of the Stockholm meeting in a later number of this journal. However, the interrelations of my paper and Lucia Vaina's are so close that it makes best sense to publish them together.     

The effects of modifying interpretation bias on worry in generalized anxiety disorder

This study investigated whether facilitating a benign interpretive bias decreases negative thought intrusions in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Clients were randomly allocated to an interpretation modification condition in which they repeatedly accessed benign meanings of emotionally ambiguous homographs and scenarios, or to a control condition in which they accessed threat and benign meanings with equal frequency. Worry frequency was assessed using a breathing focus task that involved categorising the valence of thought intrusions before and after an instructed worry period. Interpretation bias was assessed during the modification tasks, and on a different measure of interpretation bias (sentence completion) following a period of worry. The experimental procedure modified interpretations made during training, and in the later sentence completion task. Furthermore, compared to the control group, the benign group showed fewer negative thought intrusions during breathing focus (as rated by both participants and an assessor). These findings show that it is possible to induce a more benign interpretive bias in GAD clients and that this reduces negative thought intrusions.     

Cognitive variables related to worry among adolescents: avoidance strategies and faulty beliefs about worry

Studies aiming to better understand worry have neglected children and adolescents. This constitutes an important limitation considering that excessive worry is frequent among adolescents and that patients suffering from excessive worries associate the beginning of their disorder with adolescence. This study evaluates the cognitive variables associated with worry in a sample of 777 adolescents. It attempts to determine whether cognitive avoidance and false beliefs about the usefulness of worries are present and associated with worries in adolescence. The results showed that participants with a high level of worry used more avoidance strategies and held more beliefs about worry. The results also revealed that avoidance of stimuli that trigger unpleasant thoughts and thought substitution were the major avoidance strategies related to worry among adolescents. The belief that worry helps to avoid future negative events was also related to worry. These findings may suggest that adolescents' worries are maintained by processes similar to those observed among adults.     

Reduced constituent category application in surprising combinations

In a previous study (R. R. C. Hutter & R. J. Crisp, 2005), the authors suggested that one way in which perceivers resolve the dilemma of shared membership of incongruent category combinations is by generating emergent attributes. However, the authors also found evidence that a corresponding process of reduced constituent facilitation occurs. In the present research, the authors aimed to isolate this phenomenon using a response-time methodology. Participants were exposed to subliminal unsurprising or surprising gender-occupation category-combination primes. The authors observed facilitation in overall response times on a subsequent lexical decision task to constituent attributes when the combination primed was unsurprising compared with surprising, but only for female and not for male combinations. The authors suggest that perceivers reduce their application of constituent attributes when processing surprising versus unsurprising combinations.