Elsevier

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

Volume 8, Issue 3, July–September 1994, Pages 247-258
Journal of Anxiety Disorders

Social phobia and response to challenge procedures: Examining the interaction between anxiety sensitivity and trait anxiety

https://doi.org/10.1016/0887-6185(94)90006-XGet rights and content

Abstract

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) has been posited to amplify anxiety reactions, because anxiety itself may become a fear stimulus in high AS persons. Based in part on theoretical statements by McNally (1989), we predicted that AS and trait anxiety would interact to produce anxiety following potentially threatening experiences. To investigate this possibility, we examined the responses of 62 social phobics to two challenge procedures: (1) a modified Stroop task consisting of socially threatening, physically threatening, and color comparison words and (2) a behavior test in which subjects were exposed to a simulation of a personally relevant feared situation. The combined main effects of AS and trait anxiety were not predictive of anxiety response to either procedure. Nevertheless, in two of five cases, the interaction between AS and trait anxiety accounted for a statistically significant increment in variance relative to the combined main effects of these two variables; in a third case, the increment in variance was marginally significant. Moreover, in all three cases, the direction of this interaction was in the predicted direction. Although these results are preliminary and require replication, they illustrate the potential utility of examining the interaction between AS and trait anxiety and the relevance of the AS construct to social phobia.

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    Portion of this paper were presented at the 1992 meeting of the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy, Boston, MA. Susan M. Orsillo is now at the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Boston Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

    We thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. This study was supported in part by Grant MH44119 to Richard G. Heimberg from the National Institute of Mental Health.

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