The naturalistic reinforcement of worry from positive and negative emotional contrasts: Results from a momentary assessment study within social interactions
Section snippets
Participants
Participants were recruited from a psychology subject pool using the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire-IV (GAD-Q-IV; Newman et al., 2002). They received course credit for their participation in the study. Inclusion criteria required meeting full diagnostic criteria for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) on the GAD-Q-IV (Newman et al., 2002) and having the diagnosis confirmed using the Diagnostic Interview for Anxiety, Mood, and OCD and Related Neuropsychiatric Disorders (DIAMOND; Tolin
Results
Please see Table 2 for descriptive statistics. Table 3 presents results for negative affect. Associations reported herein are described as “small,” “medium,” or “large” corresponding to their Cohen’s d values. Pre-interaction worry was concurrently associated with higher negative affect with a large effect size, ß = 0.92, SE = 0.04, t(2045) = 21.89, p < .001, d = 0.97. On average, there was also a small and significant decrease in negative affect from pre-social interaction to post-social
Discussion
The present study examined the maintenance of pathological worry via reinforcement and punishment using ecologically valid methods of event-contingent EMA. In particular, we were interested in the effects of worry on concurrent and subsequent positive and negative affect. Results provide empirical support for several key tenets of CAM. First, higher worry prior to social interactions was associated with higher concurrent negative emotion and lower concurrent positive emotion. Thus, worry not
Funding
This research was supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health, United States Research Grant MH115128.
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- 1
Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University.
- 2
Department of Psychology, Long Island University, CW Post Campus.
- 3
Department of Psychiatry, Michigan Medicine, The University of Michigan. This research was supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health Research Grant MH-39172.
- 4
ORCID: 0000-0003-0873-1409
- 5
ORCID: 0000-0002-0580-779X
- 6
ORCID: 0000-0003-3525-3975
- 7
ORCID: 0000-0001-6044-7208
- 8
ORCID: 0000-0002-8826-7783
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ORCID: 0000-0001-6891-2733