title: Inflated responsibility and the use of stop rules for catastrophic worrying.
abstract: The present paper reports the results of two experiments designed to test some predictions from a mood-as-input explanation of catastrophic worrying (). In particular, these experiments attempted to identify whether worriers possess characteristics that would contribute to the use of relatively strict 'as many as can' closure rules for catastrophising. Experiment 1 demonstrated that high worriers begin a catastrophising task with higher self-reported levels of responsibility towards fully considering all issues involved, than low worriers. Experiment 2 suggested that inflated responsibility has a causal effect on perseveration at the catastrophising task (rather than being a simple non-causal by-product of excessive worrying), and that inflated responsibility exacerbates catastrophising only in conjunction with negative mood. This suggests a relatively complex relationship between responsibility and mood, where there are mood conditions in which high responsibility does not generate greater persistence than low responsibility. These findings are consistent with predictions from a mood-as-input account of catastrophic worrying, and provide evidence for a putative mechanism that mediates the influence of variables such as inflated responsibility on perseveration.
authors.affiliation: School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QH, UK.
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Startup
authors.forename: G C L
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Davey
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010551:Personality; D012941:Social Responsibility; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires