Interpreting ambiguous health and bodily threat: are individual differences in pain-related vulnerability constructs associated with an on-line negative interpretation bias?
The present study examined the association between pain-related anxiety and an on-line interpretation bias for putative physical health threat. Healthy volunteers (n=80) completed measures on Anxiety Sensitivity, Injury/illness Sensitivity, Fear of Pain and Pain Catastrophizing. Furthermore, they performed an interpretation task, in which spontaneous (on-line) inferences were indirectly assessed from reaction times and accuracy of a lexical decision to the final word of an ambiguous description. Results demonstrated a general facilitation of responses to final words that endorsed a health-threatening resolution of ambiguity (e.g., illness). This effect correlated positively with individual levels of Fear of Pain, but was found to be unrelated to levels of Anxiety Sensitivity, Injury/illness Sensitivity or Pain Catastrophizing. Implications of the findings and recommendations for future research are discussed.
Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. l.vancleef@dmkep.unimaas.nl
Linda M G
LM
Vancleef
Madelon L
ML
Peters
Peter J
PJ
De Jong
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D015982:Bias; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008875:Middle Aged; D010146:Pain / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D010147:Pain Measurement; D012677:Sensation; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult