Cognitive specificity and positive-negative affectivity: complementary or contradictory views on anxiety and depression?
A principal factor analysis, conducted on a mixed psychiatric outpatient sample (N = 470), identified both common and specific dimensions underlying anxiety and depression. Although an initial single-factor extraction accounted for a significant proportion of variance in cognitive and symptom measures of anxiety and depression, a two-factor solution, in which anxiety and depression formed separate dimensions, proved to be the better solution. MANOVAS performed on pure depressed, pure anxious, and mixed anxious/depressed subgroups provided evidence of a specific cognitive profile for anxiety and depression. The mixed subsample evidenced greater severity, a mixed cognitive and symptom profile, and character traits that may indicate increased vulnerability to psychological disturbance. Results are discussed in terms of Beck's (1976) cognitive content-specificity hypothesis and the positive-negative affect model (Watson & Tellegen, 1985).
Clark
D A
DA
Psychology Department, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada.
Beck
A T
AT
Stewart
B
B
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010556:Personality Tests