A priori expectancy bias and its relation to shock experience and anxiety: a naturalistic study in patients with an automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator.
Patients with an automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator (AICD) may offer an unique naturalistic opportunity to study whether expectancy biases develop because of precipitating aversive or traumatic experiences and/or because of elevated anxiety. An expectancy bias and its associations with AICD discharge and anxiety was examined in 24 AICD patients with a thought experiment. While patients without AICD discharge exhibited no expectancy bias, patients with discharge experiences were found to expect that stimuli depicting medical emergency situations will be followed by an aversive consequence. The magnitude of their expectancy bias was positively correlated with their anxiety level. In the group with AICD discharge, patients with low anxiety levels exhibited no bias, while patients with high anxiety levels exhibited a rather strong bias. It seems that the experience of an aversive or traumatic event, here an AICD discharge, is a necessary (but not sufficient) precipitating event for the development of an expectancy bias. If such an event happens, trait anxiety level presumably determines if and how strong the expectancy bias will be.
Pauli
P
P
Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, Germany. pauli@psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de
Wiedemann
G
G
Dengler
W
W
Kühlkamp
V
V
D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D015982:Bias; D017147:Defibrillators, Implantable / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D012769:Shock / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires