title: Autobiographical memories prompted by automatic thoughts in panic disorder and social phobia.
abstract: This study examined the retrieval of autobiographical memories when prompted by automatic thoughts that were representative of maladaptive schema content specific to 2 anxiety disorders. Participants with panic disorder (n = 20), those with social phobia (n = 22) and non-anxious participants (n = 20) indicated the first specific memory that came to mind when cued with panic-related, social phobia-related and control automatic thoughts. Panic participants retrieved memories cued with panic disorder-related automatic thoughts more quickly than social phobic and non-anxious participants, and social phobic participants retrieved memories cued with social phobia-related automatic thoughts more quickly than non-anxious participants. Relative to non-anxious participants, participants in both patient groups retrieved more anxious/worried memories when cued with automatic thoughts related to their diagnosis and more fearful memories when cued with either type of diagnosis-related automatic thought. Results indicate that panic and social phobic participants were characterized by general threat-relevant autobiographical memory biases.
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, Nova Southeastern University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. awenzel@mail.med.upenn.edu
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wenzel
authors.forename: Cassandra K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Cochran
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001332:Automatism; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D016584:Panic Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D011930:Reaction Time