Trait anxiety and prior exposure to non-stressful stimuli: effects on psychophysiological arousal and anxiety

Wilken, Jeffrey; Smith, Barry D.; Tola, Kenneth; Mann, Mark

doi:10.1016/s0167-8760(00)00082-9

Cited by 77 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 19 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Furthermore, similar effects were found in high traitanxious individuals following exposure to stressful events (e.g., Wilken et al, 2000). Considering the autonomic inflexibility, not only seen in anxiety patients (HoehnSaric & McLeod, 2000, for a review), but also in worry (Thayer, Friedman, & Borkovec, 1996), the inability to effortlessly inhibit negatively valenced verbal thought activity seen in worry could perhaps correspond to the effect of preattentive bias (i.e., the inability to automatically inhibit the processing of threatening language cues) that, in addition, may well be the vulnerability marker in worry and anxiety.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

“…These individual are, for example, more likely to show selective attention to threat cues, which is further assumed to be a vulnerability factor that predisposes to anxiety disorders (e.g., Eysenck, 1997;Williams et al, 1997). Furthermore, high trait-anxious participants' responses have been found to be significantly lower (compared to low trait-anxious) on measures of autonomic reactivity (e.g., Jezova, Makatsori, Duncko, Moncek, & Jakubek, 2004;Wilken, Smith, Tola, & Mann, 2000) when confronted with stressors. The diminished autonomic reactivity in response to stressful events has, in turn, been interpreted as maladaptive responses (e.g., Hoehn-Saric & McLeod, 2000).…”

Section: Repressive Coping Stylementioning

confidence: 98%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Does the Way in Which We Perceive the World Make Us Susceptible to Anxiety?

Jansson¹

2005

PsycEXTRA Dataset

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One major focus of anxiety research in recent years has been the identification of cognitive factors that promote increased vulnerability to anxiety. Cognitive formulations propose that anxiety is characterised by an increased tendency to attend to negatively valenced emotional information, and that this bias may play a causal role in the development and maintenance of clinical anxiety. Evidence suggests that this anxiety-linked processing bias occurs even in conditions in which the stimuli are masked in order to prevent awareness of the content (i.e., preattentive bias). The present thesis focused principally on the preferential processing of threat-related information that occurs outside awareness. Two different outcome measures were used to index preferential preattentive processing of threat-related information in non-clinical populations: The emotional Stroop task was used to index selective attention to masked presentation of threatening word stimuli, whereas skin conductance responses were used to index selective autonomic responses to masked presentation of threatening pictorial stimuli. The empirical studies in the present thesis showed that elevated levels of trait anxiety promote preferential preattentive processing of negatively valenced information, whereas elevated levels of social desirability (interpreted as defensiveness) generally prevent preferential preattentive processing of negatively valenced information, especially among those at higher levels of trait anxiety, irrespective of outcome measure used. Moreover, previous research has demonstrated that a person's most common emotional reaction when encountering a stressful event is causally influenced by that person's habitual tendency to selectively encode the most threatening aspects of all available information. Thus, preattentive bias (as measured with the emotional Stroop task) was used to predict the emotional responses (as seen on self-reported emotional distress and autonomic reactivity) following exposure to a laboratory stressor. This study showed that preattentive bias to negative information had significant effects on both self-reported and physiological measures in response to a laboratory stressor, but in diametrically opposite directions. Specifically, whereas preattentive bias was positively associated with self-reported negative emotional response, it was negatively associated with a physiological indicator of emotional response. The results were discussed in terms of an inability to automatically inhibit the processing of threatening cues, which seems to be a vulnerability marker for anxiety. Whether this bias is ultimately sufficient for the development of clinical anxiety remains to be examined in future research. Additionally, more information is needed before it can be established that the emotional Stroop task can be viewed as a reliable diagnostic tool for determining an individual's anxiety status.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Section: Repressive Coping Stylementioning

confidence: 98%

Does the Way in Which We Perceive the World Make Us Susceptible to Anxiety?

Jansson¹

2005

PsycEXTRA Dataset

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These traits interact with environmental factors to influence how individuals appraise a situation and subsequently behave, with traits more relevant to the environmental context exerting a greater influence (Kenrick & Funder, 1988;Tett & Guterman, 2000). Individual differences, such as experience with a given situation, influence individuals' behavior in a similar manner to personality traits (Anshel, Robertson, & Caputi, 1997;Lazarus, 1993;Wilken, Smith, Tola, & Mann, 2000). While a range of individual characteristics influence how an individual behaves across different situations, a smaller subset of situation relevant characteristics may play a more influential role when confronted with a threat to posture.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personality traits and individual differences predict threat-induced changes in postural control

Zaback

Cleworth

Carpenter

et al. 2015

Human Movement Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Importantly, when anticipatory anxiety is increased, trait anxiety appears to play a role in how participants perform, but not how they feel. Although differences in autonomic response have been observed in anxiety disorders and in high versus low trait-anxious individuals [e.g., Arena and Hobbs, 1995;Carillo et al, 2001;Fuller, 1992;Gonzalez-Bono et al, 2002;Harrison and Turpin, 2003;Hubert and de Jong-Meyer, 1992;Stamps et al, 1979], there remains uncertainty regarding whether individual differences in trait anxiety modulate autonomic response when anxiety is triggered [Gonzalez-Bono et al, 2002;Mauss et al, 2003;Wilken et al, 2000]. The results of our studies clearly suggest that individual differences in trait anxiety do not influence autonomic response associated with anticipatory anxiety.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 44%

The influence of trait anxiety on autonomic response and cognitive performance during an anticipatory anxiety task

Barrett

Armony

2006

Depress. Anxiety

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The interaction between emotion and cognition is thought to be intimately involved in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. In a set of studies, we investigated whether trait anxiety modulates cognitive performance and autonomic activity during an anticipatory anxiety task. Participants completed a letter-size decision-making task with two alternating 28-32 s background screen color-blocks. One of the colors was associated with the presentation of an aversive noise [unconditioned stimulus (UCS)]. Participants were aware of the background color that would (CTX+) and would not (CTX-) be paired with the UCS but did not know when or how often the UCS would be presented. Two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, the UCS was presented during the decision-making task in the CTX+ color-blocks using a partial reinforcement schedule. Different noises were presented each time to increase unpredictability and prevent habituation. In Experiment 2, the UCS was never presented during the decision-making task. Results suggested that only the paradigm used in Experiment 1 was successful in eliciting anticipatory anxiety. In Experiment 1, continuously measured skin conductance response (SCR) data suggested that anxiety was significantly greater during CTX+ compared to CTX- trials; no SCR differences were found between high and low trait-anxious participants. Results further indicated that high trait-anxious participants responded significantly faster on the decision-making task during CTX+ compared to CTX- trials, whereas low trait-anxious participants displayed the opposite pattern. Our results reveal an interesting dissociation between the effects of individual differences in trait anxiety on autonomic activity and cognitive performance during an anticipatory anxiety task.

show abstract

Trait anxiety and prior exposure to non-stressful stimuli: effects on psychophysiological arousal and anxiety

Cited by 77 publications

References 19 publications

Does the Way in Which We Perceive the World Make Us Susceptible to Anxiety?

Does the Way in Which We Perceive the World Make Us Susceptible to Anxiety?

Personality traits and individual differences predict threat-induced changes in postural control

The influence of trait anxiety on autonomic response and cognitive performance during an anticipatory anxiety task

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About