Avoidant control difficulty and aversive incentive appraisals: Additional evidence of an energization effect

There is evidence that certain physiological and subjective indices of stress are relatively great when control over aversive outcomes is moderately difficult and relatively reduced when control over such outcomes is either easy or impossible. A possible explanation is suggested by Brehm's recent theory of motivation, which asserts that energy mobilization and the perceived unpleasantness of an aversive event will (a) increase with the difficulty of avoidant behavior so long as avoidance is believed to be possible and worthwhile, and (b) be low when avoidant behavior is impossible, not worthwhile, or simply unavailable. This article reports two experiments that examined appraisals of an aversive incentive under conditions where avoidance was expected to be easy, difficult, and impossible. The first demonstrated the complete nonmonotonic pattern of appraisals predicted by the energization theory, something that has proved elusive in previous investigations. The second study demonstrated this as well and, in addition, showed a correspondence between subjects' incentive appraisals and their cardiovascular responses immediately before and during an avoidance task period. Implications and alternative interpretations are discussed.This research was supported in part by a Faculty Research Award from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.     

Perceived difficulty,energization, and the magnitude of goal valence

This paper examines the proposition that the mobilization of energy and consequent magnitude of valence of a potential outcome (e.g., goal) is a function of what the individual perceives can and must be done in order to attain or avoid the outcome. An outcome that is difficult to attain or avoid requires a relatively high level of energization and will be relatively attractive, if positive, or unpleasant, if negative. Outcomes that are easy or impossible to attain or avoid require little or no energization and will be relatively low in attractiveness, if positive, or low in unpleasantness, if negative. This formulation was supported by four experiments that demonstrated (a) attractiveness of a goal is a nonmonotonic function of perceived difficulty of attaining it; (b) unpleasantness of a potential negative outcome is a nonmonotonic function of perceived difficulty of avoiding it; (c) the nonmonotonic effect of perceived difficulty on goal attractiveness disappears once instrumental behavior has been completed; and (d) the nonmonotonic effect of perceived difficulty on unpleasantness of a potential negative outcome occurs in immediate but not distant anticipation of initiating instrumental behavior. Alternative explanations, theoretical problems, and implications are discussed.     

Associations between emotional avoidance,anxiety sensitivity,and reactions to an observational fear challenge procedure

Research has shown that emotional avoidance and anxiety sensitivity are associated with more self-reported fear and distress in response to laboratory fear challenge procedures. The present study aimed to expand upon this work and examined how emotional avoidance and anxiety sensitivity are related to emotional and physiological responses to an observational fear challenge procedure. To accomplish this aim, a carefully screened, non-clinical sample (N = 43) was administered the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ), a measure of emotional avoidance, and the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI). Participants then engaged in an observational fear challenge paradigm. During the fear challenge, participants watched mock panic attacks while emotional (e.g., fear and panic) and skin conductance levels were assessed. Consistent with expectation, emotional avoidance and anxiety sensitivity were positively associated with more self-reported fear and more severe panic symptoms to the challenge procedure. However, anxiety sensitivity was more highly associated with self-reported fear and panic symptoms in response to the challenge procedure than emotional avoidance. Emotional avoidance and anxiety sensitivity were not associated with levels of physiological arousal to the observational fear challenge procedure. Discussion focuses on the interplay between emotional avoidance, anxiety sensitivity, and the development of vicarious fear responses and how these constructs may contribute to the pathogenesis of anxiety disorders.     

Test anxiety and ego-threatening stress: Over- (and under-) estimation of emotional reactivity

Abstract

This study examined discrepancies between subjective and objective measures of state anxiety as a function of test anxiety in undergraduates. Under evaluative stress conditions, state anxiety was assessed in terms of (a) self-reported cognitive and somatic anxiety, (b) behavioral reactivity (motor and facial tension, avoidance comments and avoidance of eye contact), (c) physiological arousal (heart rate and skin resistance), and (d) cognitive and motor task performance. Participants high in test anxiety showed disproportionately greater self-reported than objective state anxiety. In contrast, those low in test anxiety showed lower self-reported than objective anxiety. The high- and the low-test-anxiety groups differed only in self-reported emotional reactivity. In line with current cognitive theories of anxiety, overestimation of reactivity in high-test anxiety, as well as underestimation in low-test anxiety, are conceptualized as a hypervigilance bias and an avoidance bias, respectively, in processing internal cues, i.e., prioritization and inhibition of attention to one's own behavioral and physiological signs of distress.     

Incidental learning as a function of anticipated task difficulty

Three experiments were conducted to demonstrate the effects of motivational arousal, due to anticipated task difficulty, on retention of familiar and unfamiliar incidental materials. Brehm, Wright, Solomon, Silka, and Greenberg (1983) have provided evidence that motivational arousal in immediate anticipation of a task is a nonmonotonic function of task difficulty, with difficult tasks producing a relatively higher level of motivational arousal than easy or impossible tasks. It was predicted that increased motivational arousal would facilitate retention of incidentally presented familiar materials (presumably more easily retained) and interfere with retention of incidentally presented unfamiliar materials (presumably less easily retained). In Study 1, subjects anticipating either an easy or a difficult task were exposed to familiar and unfamiliar first names. The predicted interaction between task difficulty and familiarity on recall of the first names was reliably supported. In Study 2, an impossible task condition was added. The results indicated that an effective impossible condition had not been created. In a third study designed as a procedural modification of Study 2, the predicted nonmonotonic interaction was found. Theoretical implications are discussed.These experiments were ably conducted by Ralph Young, whose help is gratefuly acknowledged. We would like to express our gratitude to Jack Brehm for invaluable suggestions concerning this research.     

Task difficulty, cardiovascular response, and the magnitude of goal valence

Sixty-four young women expected to perform an easy, moderately difficult, or extremely difficult memory task with the opportunity to earn a small incentive for good performance. Cardiovascular (heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure) and subjective measures were taken immediately prior to task performance. Both systolic blood pressure (SBP) responses and ratings of goal attractiveness were nonmonotonically related to expected task difficulty, with the most pronounced SBP elevations and highest goal attractiveness in the moderately difficult task condition. Product-moment correlations among cardiovascular response measures revealed a strong positive association between systolic and diastolic pressure (but not heart rate) change in the easy condition, positive relationships among all measures in the moderately difficult condition, and no significant correlations in the extremely difficult condition. Subjective measures of arousal were not affected by the task difficulty manipulation. Principal findings are discussed in terms of a theoretical model proposed by Brehm (1979) that states that motivation varies as a nonmonotonic function of the difficulty of goal attainment. Intercorrelations among cardiovascular response variables are considered in terms of their possible indication of the mechanisms underlying blood pressure changes associated with variations in motivation.     

The impact of anxiety on sexual arousal in women

This study examined the impact of state anxiety, trait anxiety, and anxiety sensitivity on physiological and self-report measures of sexual arousal and sexual function in a non-clinical sample of women. Physiological sexual responses to an erotic stimulus were assessed using vaginal photoplethysmography, and subjective reactions were measured using questionnaires. Results suggested a curvilinear relationship between state anxiety and physiological sexual arousal (vaginal pulse amplitude; VPA). Trait anxiety and anxiety sensitivity were correlated with self-reported sexual arousal outside the laboratory. The findings may be interpreted in light of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) influences on sexual arousal and potential cognitive interference mechanisms associated with anxiety.     

The discrepant repressor: differentiation between low anxiety, high anxiety, and repression of anxiety by autonomic-facial-verbal patterns of behavior

This study examined the notion that personality questionnaires can be used to predict different styles of coping with anxiety as expressed by individual differences in patterns of autonomic, verbal, and nonverbal reactions. In line with earlier modifications of the repression-sensitization concept, the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS) and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (SDS) were used to select four groups of 12 subjects each from a pool of 206 male students in Germany: low-anxious subjects (low MAS, low SDS), repressors (low MAS, high SDS), high-anxious subjects (high MAS, low SDS), and defensive high-anxious subjects (high MAS, high SDS). Several measures of autonomic arousal, facial activity, and self-reported affect were obtained during a potentially anxiety-arousing free-association task and during a number of control conditions, including a funny film. Significant differences in baseline-corrected heart rate and self-reported anxiety as well as rated facial anxiety all indicated that repressors exhibited a discrepancy between low self-reported anxiety and high heart rate and facial anxiety; low-anxious subjects reported an intermediate level of anxiety, although they showed low heart rate and facial anxiety; high-anxious subjects had consistently high values on all three variables; and the defensive high-anxious group showed an intermediate level of anxious responding. These group differences were specific to the task of freely associating to phrases of mixed (sexual, aggressive, neutral) content (but not to other experimental situations) and to self-reported anxiety (but not to other self-rated emotions or task difficult), indicating that they reflect individual differences in coping with anxiety.     

Autonomic arousal as a cognitive cue in stressful situations1

The need for further investigation and integration in a real world situation is demonstrated in a critical review of the literature on autonomic feedback and attribution of arousal in stressful situations. In the present study, actual autonomic arousal, arbitrary feedback of arousal, and attributions for arousal were manipulated in a dental clinic where the subjects were awaiting oral surgery. The main prediction was that cognized arousal (due either to perception of actual arousal or to arbitrary feedback about arousal level) in the absence of a nonemotional attribution for that cognized arousal would lead to higher subjective report of anxiety and to greater avoidance than would be found with either of these conditions unmet. The results on the subjective report measure generally supported this hypothesis. In addition, arbitrary feedback about arousal level did not interact with the actual arousal manipulation; nor did it produce changes in pulse rate or blood pressure, further supporting a cognitive interpretation of the effects of autonomic arousal on subjective report. However, the study illustrates difficulties in inducing beneficial beliefs in the real world. And the manipulations generally did not affect the behavioral measure, probably due to the expected consequences of that behavior.     

The relationship among guilt, dysphoria, anxiety and obsessions in a normal population--an attempted replication

The results of a previous study indicated that guilt as rated on the Perceived Guilt Index (PGI), predicted unpleasant intrusive thoughts, but self-reported anxiety and depression did not. In the present investigation, subjects indicated whether or not they experienced both pleasant and unpleasant intrusive thoughts, their frequency and a rating of how pleasant or unpleasant these thoughts were. They also completed self report ratings of depression, anxiety, obsessional ritualizing, and the PGI. Results of a regression analysis indicate that the best standardised questionnaire predictor of unpleasant intrusive thoughts is depression as rated on the BDI, and anxiety as rated on the BAI. The best standardised questionnaire predictor of pleasant intrusive thoughts is low anxiety. The PGI does not independently predict pleasant or unpleasant intrusive thoughts.     

恋爱关系中触摸和依恋对嫉妒的影响

选取恋爱中的青年,探讨触摸类型、依恋和嫉妒的关系。实验1选取50名大学生,采用想象情境范式,探究触摸类型（分为“无触摸、脸部触摸和腰部触摸”三种条件）对嫉妒的影响。选择害怕、生气、尴尬、性唤起、悲伤和妒忌作为测量指标。结果显示,三种条件下嫉妒情绪无显著差异。实验2选取113名青年,将无触摸条件分为远距离和近距离两种,进一步探讨触摸类型、依恋和嫉妒的关系。依恋的测量选用亲密关系经验问卷,分为焦虑、回避两个维度。结果发现：（1）在远距离无触摸条件下,依恋焦虑和悲伤、害怕、妒忌、生气正相关;（2）近距离无触摸条件下,依恋回避和悲伤、妒忌、生气负相关;（3）脸部触摸条件下,依恋焦虑和害怕、性唤起正相关。总的来看,爱情依恋对嫉妒情绪的影响受到触摸类型的调节。     

Cognitive Bias to Internal Sources of Information in Anxiety

Discrepancies between (a) self-reported psychosomatic symptoms and (b) actual fitness under non-stress (Study 1), as a function of trait anxiety, were examined, as well as discrepancies between (a) self-reported cognitive and somatic state anxiety and (b) objective measures of behavioural reactivity, physiological arousal, and performance under social-evaluative stress (Study 2). Results indicated that persons high in trait anxiety exaggerated distress in both conditions: They showed disproportionately greater self-reported concerns than actual problems. In contrast, those low in anxiety minimized distress (lower self-reported than actual problems). These discrepancy phenomena are explained in terms of biases in the processing of internal sources of information.     

Dissonance motivation: Its nature,persistence, and reinstatement

This paper examines whether arousal is a necessary component of the motivation to reduce dissonance. Alternative responses to attitude-behavior inconsistency include attitude change, explaining the behavior by a consonant cognition (i.e., low choice), and attributing the dissonance-induced state to an alternative source, such as the purported side effects of an ingested “drug.” For conditions in which there are few consonant cognitions (i.e., high choice), a comparison of different “drug” conditions in which attitude change does or does not occur was expected to clarify which components of the dissonance-induced state mediate attitude change. Attitude change occurred in high choice conditions where the “drug” was described as pleasant, but not in high choice conditions where the “drug” was described as unpleasant or in a low choice condition. In addition, when the “drug” was descibed as arousing there was, if anything, more attitude change than when the “drug” was described as nonarousing. These results suggest that unpleasantness and not arousal per se is the motivating factor in dissonance reduction. The effects of the passage of time and reinstating the counterattitudinal behavior on the alternative responses to attitude-behavior inconsistency were also examined. Subjects returned 2 weeks later, stated their attitudes, recalled their original counterattitudinal essay, and again stated their attitudes. Although there was a general decrease in attitude change during this period, the pattern of attitude change remained basically the same. Attitude change following reinstatement increased from its original level only in those conditions where it had been initially attenuated through misattribution or a consonant cognition.     

Offset control during recurrent 20% carbon dioxide-enriched air induction: relation to individual difference variables

Although control over aversive events maintains a central role in contemporary models of anxiety pathology, particularly panic disorder, there is little understanding about the emotional consequences of specific types of control processes. In the present study, offset control over 8 20% carbon dioxide-enriched air administrations was experimentally manipulated in a large nonclinical population (n = 96) varying in anxiety sensitivity (high or low) and gender. Dependent measures included self-reported anxiety, affective reports of valence, arousal, emotional control, and physiological indices of heart rate and skin conductance. High anxiety-sensitive participants who lacked offset control reported significantly greater elevations in self-reported anxiety, emotional displeasure, arousal, and dyscontrol relative to their yoked counterparts with offset control. In contrast, low anxiety-sensitive individuals responded with similar levels of cognitive and affective distress regardless of the offset control manipulation. Although the provocation procedure reliably produced bodily arousal relative to baseline, at a physiological level of analysis, no significant differences emerged across conditions. These findings are discussed in relation to offset control during recurrent interoceptive arousal, with implications for better understanding anxiety about abrupt bodily sensations.     

Age differences in emotional reactions: arousal and age-relevance count

Recent findings suggest positivity effects in older adults' attention and memory, but few studies have examined such effects on the level of emotional reactivity. In this study, 52 young and 52 older adults rated 172 pictures of the International Affective Picture System, differing in arousal and age-relevance, in terms of valence and discrete emotions. Age differences in the ratio of pleasantness reactions to pleasant pictures vs. unpleasantness reactions to unpleasant pictures as well as age differences in absolute levels of unpleasantness and pleasantness reactions suggest that positivity effects in older adults' subjective emotional reactions are reduced under high arousal. There is also evidence that positivity effects may be restricted to stimuli with low relevance in old age.     

Trait anxiety,stress, and learning a test of Saltz's hypothesis

Behavioral predictions from Saltz's, Spence's, and Spielberger's interpretations of trait anxiety were tested in a complex verbal learning task. Fifty-three high-anxious and 52 low-anxious male college students were randomly distributed to test conditions of failure-stress, pain-stress, or neutral instructions. The learning data revealed that high-anxious-failure and low-anxious-pain Ss were disrupted and supported Saltz's hypothesis; self-reported anxiety (A-State scale, STAI) was observed only in high-anxious-failure Ss and supported Spielberger's theory of the arousal of state anxiety as a function of trait anxiety. However, the contradiction between self-reported anxiety and learning behavior in low-anxious-pain Ss indicated that the verbal report of these Ss was an inaccurate or insensitive index of arousal.     

Attentional bias to emotional stimuli is altered during moderate- but not high-intensity exercise

Little is known regarding how attention to emotional stimuli is affected during simultaneously performed exercise. Attentional biases to emotional face stimuli were assessed in 34 college students (17 women) using the dot-probe task during counterbalanced conditions of moderate- (heart rate at 45% peak oxygen consumption) and high-intensity exercise (heart rate at 80% peak oxygen consumption) compared with seated rest. The dot-probe task consisted of 1 emotional face (pleasant or unpleasant) paired with a neutral face for 1,000 ms; 256 trials (128 trials for each valence) were presented during each condition. Each condition lasted approximately 10 min. Participants were instructed to perform each trial of the dot-probe task as quickly and accurately as possible during the exercise and rest conditions. During moderate-intensity exercise, participants exhibited significantly greater attentional bias scores to pleasant compared with unpleasant faces (p < .01), whereas attentional bias scores to emotional faces did not differ at rest or during high-intensity exercise (p > .05). In addition, the attentional bias to unpleasant faces was significantly reduced during moderate-intensity exercise compared with that during rest (p < .05). These results provide behavioral evidence that during exercise at a moderate intensity, there is a shift in attention allocation toward pleasant emotional stimuli and away from unpleasant emotional stimuli. Future work is needed to determine whether acute exercise may be an effective treatment approach to reduce negative bias or enhance positive bias in individuals diagnosed with mood or anxiety disorders, or whether attentional bias during exercise predicts adherence to exercise.     

Cognitive intrusions in a non-clinical population. I. Response style, subjective experience, and appraisal

The present study identified distinctive response styles to unpleasant cognitive intrusions to further understanding of intrusive phenomena similar to those observed in obsessive-compulsive disorder and other anxiety disorders. Response styles were studied among 125 university students who completed a questionnaire describing and evaluating seven cognitive intrusions and inventories of depressive, anxious, and compulsive symptoms. Almost all subjects (99%) reported intrusions and 92% included effortful strategies in response to intrusions in their repertoire. Large differences were observed in the dominant strategy used. Three distinctive dominant response styles were identified including no effortful response (26%) and two effortful styles, attentive thinking (34%), and escape/avoidance (40%). The two groups using effortful strategies were more anxious and reported more difficulty removing intrusions. The group using escape/avoidance strategies reported more sadness, worry, guilt, and disapproval than subjects reporting no effortful response. The attentive thinking group reported more varied forms and more frequently triggered intrusions then the no effortful response group. Within subject analyses support the group comparisons and showed that intrusions eliciting escape/avoidance strategies were evaluated more disapprovingly than thoughts eliciting attentive thinking. The results are discussed in terms of Salkovskis' (Behavior Research and Therapy, 27, 677–682, 1985) formulation of obsessive-compulsive disorder and Borkovec's (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 23, 481–482, 1985) and Barlow's (Anxiety and its disorders: The nature and treatment of anxiety and panic, 1988) discussions of worry and generalized anxiety.     

Event-related potentials of emotional memory: encoding pleasant,unpleasant, and neutral pictures

Emotional events tend to be remembered better than nonemotional events. We investigated this phenomenon by measuring two event-related potential (ERP) effects: the emotion effect (more positive ERPs for pleasant or unpleasant stimuli than for neutral stimuli) and the subsequent memory effect (more positive ERPs for subsequently remembered items than for subsequently forgotten items). ERPs were measured while subjects rated the emotional content of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures. As was expected, subsequent recall was better for pleasant and unpleasant pictures than for neutral pictures. The emotion effect was sensitive to arousal in parietal electrodes and to both arousal and valence in frontocentral electrodes. The subsequent memory effect at centroparietal electrodes was greater for emotional pictures than for neutral pictures during an early epoch (400-600 msec). This result suggests that emotional information has privileged access to processing resources, possibly leading to better memory formation.     

The impact of task difficulty upon perceptions of arousal and goal attractiveness in an avoidance paradigm

Measures of goal attractiveness, self-perceived energization, and self-perceived tension were taken immediately before 55 young male subjects were to perform an easy, difficult, or impossible motor activity in order to avoid an unpleasant noise. Results showed a greater magnitude of goal valence, and higher energization and tension in the difficult task condition than in the easy task condition. Subjects in the impossible task condition reported reduced energy relative to subjects in the difficult task conditions; however, tension and goal attractiveness scores did not differ significantly between these conditions. Theoretical implications are discussed.