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.
Vancleef
Linda M G
LM
Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. l.vancleef@dmkep.unimaas.nl
Peters
Madelon L
ML
De Jong
Peter J
PJ
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