Investigating the effect of intolerance of uncertainty on catastrophic worrying and mood

Meeten, Frances; Dash, Suzanne; Scarlet, A.L.S.

doi:10.1016/j.brat.2012.08.003

Cited by 41 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…There is empirical evidence that this is the case. For example, Dash & Davey (2012) found that experimentally-induced negative mood facilitated the endorsement of cognitive appraisals known to increase systematic processing, and also facilitated the endorsement of the deployment of goal-directed rules for worrying. A mediation analysis also confirmed that the relationship between negative mood and measures of worrying were mediated by the intention to use goaldirected rules for worry and cognitive appraisals that would generate effortful systematic processing during worry.…”

Section: The Role Of Moodmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, they possess elevated evidence requirements for decision-making (Tallis, Eysenck & Mathews, 1991) that would indicate that they should explore all possibilities before terminating a worry bout. Trait worry has also been related to measures of perfectionism (Pratt, Tallis & Eysenck, 1997;Frost, Lahart & Rosenblate, 1990), feelings of responsibility for negative outcomes (Wells & Papageorgiou, 1998), intolerance of uncertainty (Dugas, Freeston & Ladouceaur, 1997;Meeten, Dash, Scarlet & Davey, 2012), and inflated concerns over mistakes (Stober & Joorman, 2001). …”

Section: Biases In the Deployment Of Goal-directed Rules For Worryingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ambady & Gray, 2002), and the effect of negative mood on the deployment of goal-directed rules for worry (e.g. Dash & Davey, 2012), the use of negative mood as evaluative information (e.g. Startup & Davey, 2001), and the effect of the deployment of goal-directed rules for worry on worry perseveration (e.g.…”

Section: Interactions Between Cognitive Affective and Attentional Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pathological worriers who have symptoms severe enough to warrant a clinical diagnosis do exhibit these types of characteristics that will facilitate the use of mood as information during a worry task. Chronic worriers (1) tend to have significantly poorer problem-solving confidence than nonworriers, suggesting a lack of confidence in their expertise and ability to successfully solve problems of the type addressed by worrying (Davey, 1994;Laugesen & Dugas, 2000;Davey & Levy, 1998), (2) they tend to initiate worrying in an attempt to explain, understand and repair their negative mood, and so will view their mood as being highly relevant to the worry task (Davey & Meeten, 2011;Schwarz & Clore, 1983), and (3) they tend to adopt information processing strategies that inflict a high cognitive load, such as systematic information processing (Dash & Davey, 2012), or which deplete working memory capacity (Hayes, Hirsch & Mathews, 2008;Leigh & Hirsch, 2011). All of these characteristics will tend the worrier to using mood as information when implicitly evaluating goalattainment during the worry task.…”

Section: The Role Of Moodmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The perseverative worry bout: A review of cognitive, affective and motivational factors that contribute to worry perseveration

Meeten

2016

Biological Psychology

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This paper reviews the cognitive, affective and attentional factors that contribute to individual perseverative worry bouts. We describe how automatic biases in attentional and interpretational processes contribute to threat detection and to the inclusion of negative intrusive thoughts into the worry stream typical of the "what if …?" thinking style of pathological worriers. The review also describes processes occurring downstream from these perceptual biases that also facilitate perseveration, including cognitive biases in beliefs about the nature of the worry process, the automatic deployment of strict goal-directed responses for dealing with the threat, the role of negative mood in facilitating effortful forms of information processing (i.e. systematic information processing styles), and in providing negative information for evaluating the success of the worry bout. We also consider the clinical implications of this model for an integrated intervention programme for pathological worrying.

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Section: The Role Of Moodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Biases In the Deployment Of Goal-directed Rules For Worryingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Interactions Between Cognitive Affective and Attentional Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Role Of Moodmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The perseverative worry bout: A review of cognitive, affective and motivational factors that contribute to worry perseveration

Meeten

2016

Biological Psychology

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“…Despite the success and longevity of the model, the mechanisms by which IU exerts influence on worry remain less clear . Different cognitive and behavioral constructs may be involved at different stages of worry (Meeten, Dash, Scarlet, & Davey, 2012;Thielsch, Andor, & Ehring, 2015); as such, prospective longitudinal designs appear necessary to understand how IU and other constructs initiate and perpetuate repetitive negative thinking and cyclical interrelationships with disorder symptoms (e.g., Oglesby et al, this issue;Thielsch et al, 2015).…”

Section: What Is Unknown?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Intolerance of uncertainty in emotional disorders: What uncertainties remain?

Shihata

McEvoy

Mullan

et al. 2016

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

237

189

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The current paper presents a future research agenda for intolerance of uncertainty (IU), which is a transdiagnostic risk and maintaining factor for emotional disorders. In light of the accumulating interest and promising research on IU, it is timely to emphasize the theoretical and therapeutic significance of IU, as well as to highlight what remains unknown about IU across areas such as development, assessment, behavior, and relationships to emotional disorders. The present paper was designed to provide a synthesis of what is known and unknown about IU, and, in doing so, proposes broad and novel directions for future research to address the remaining uncertainties in the literature.Keywords: intolerance of uncertainty, review, emotional disorders, transdiagnostic, disorder-specific, research agenda WHAT UNCERTAINTIES REMAIN? 3 Intolerance of Uncertainty in Emotional Disorders: What Uncertainties Remain?The current paper briefly reviews what is known about intolerance of uncertainty (IU) before highlighting what remains unknown. Due to rapidly increasing interest and research focus on IU, culminating in the current special issue, a review is both timely and necessary to set a future research agenda. This paper will review IU with respect to conceptual foundations and definitional issues, development, assessment, behavioral consequences, associations to threat and risk, other cognitive vulnerability factors, emotional disorders, as well as clinical applications.Within each of these domains, what is currently known will first be briefly reviewed followed by what remains unknown. The major contribution of the current paper is the description of future research avenues to address the known unknowns. Conceptual Foundations of Intolerance of Uncertainty What is known?Models of psychopathology posit that uncertainty is a central feature in anxiety-related experience (Carleton, 2016) and the incapacity to endure unknowns appears to be a robust vulnerability factor associated with a range of psychological disorders (Grupe & Nitschke, 2013;Hong & Cheung, 2015). IU was originally defined as a broad construct that reflects "cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions to uncertainty in everyday life situations" (Freeston, Rhéaume, Letarte, Dugas, & Ladouceur, 1994, p. 792). Freeston and colleagues (1994) speculated that people with IU may engage in worry to increase their sense of certainty and control when faced with ambiguity. The definition of IU evolved as research on IU shifted from an initial focus on generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) to other disorders. A revised and broader definition described IU as a predisposition to negatively perceive and respond to uncertain information and situations irrespective of its probability and outcomes (Ladouceur, Blais, WHAT UNCERTAINTIES REMAIN? 4 Freeston, & Dugas, 1998;Ladouceur, Gosselin, & Dugas, 2000). IU has also been conceptualized as a cognitive filter and as the excessive tendency to perceive and interpret negative events as unacceptable (Buhr & Dugas...

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