Attentional and Expectancy Bias in Anxiety Vulnerability: Independent or Interdependent Pathways?

There is considerable evidence that an inflated tendency to have negative rather than benign expectancies concerning upcoming situations contributes to heightened anxiety vulnerability. To date, the cognitive mechanisms that underpin this anxiety-linked negative expectancy bias remain unknown. In a separate line of research, it has been established that heightened anxiety vulnerability is characterised by an attentional bias to negative information. While it is possible that these two types of bias independently contribute to elevated anxiety vulnerability, an interesting alternative possibility is that attentional bias to negative information may contribute to negative expectancy bias, which in turn contributes to elevated anxiety vulnerability. In order to distinguish the validity of these two possibilities, the current study employed a novel methodological approach in which participants were exposed to an attentional task which presented emotionally valenced information relevant to an upcoming situation. Participants’ attentional bias towards negative relative to benign information was assessed, as was their expectancy bias concerning the relative negativity of this upcoming situation. As anticipated, negative attentional bias and negative expectancy bias both correlated with trait anxiety. However, the association between negative attentional bias and trait anxiety was indirect, and this association was significantly mediated by negative expectancy bias. Thus, the findings support the hypothesis that attentional bias to negative information contributes to negative expectancy bias, which in turn contributes to elevated anxiety vulnerability.