Anxiety and the interpretation of ambiguity: a text comprehension study.
Beck's influential cognitive account of anxiety has led to the prediction that individuals vulnerable to anxiety should favor threatening interpretations of ambiguity (e.g., Beck & Clark, 1988; Beck, Emery, & Greenberg, 1986). The current study introduces a novel adaptation of the RSVP technique, previously used in text comprehension research, to evaluate this hypothesis. Results suggest that a group of 24 high trait anxious students did indeed selectively impose threatening interpretations on unconstrained ambiguous sentences. In contrast, a matched group of 24 low trait anxious students appeared to selectively impose non-threatening interpretations on such ambiguous sentences. These findings are fully consistent with the predicted anxiety-linked interpretative bias. Specific testable hypotheses are developed concerning the types of interpretative idiosyncrasies that plausibly may contribute to pathological anxiety.
MacLeod
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Department of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Perth.
Cohen
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IL
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D001143:Arousal; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D013067:Speech Perception; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires