School of Psychological Science, Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
PLoS One. 2021 May 13;16(5):e0251350. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251350. eCollection 2021.
People vary in the frequency with which they worry and there is large variation in the degree to which this worry disrupts their everyday functioning. Heightened tendency to experience disruptive worry is characterised by an attentional bias towards threat. While this attentional bias is often considered maladaptive, it can be adaptive when it concerns threat cues signalling dangers that can be mitigated through personal action. In this case, the resulting worry may increase the likelihood of this action being taken, with beneficial rather than disruptive consequences for everyday functioning. Thus, depending on its focus, attentional bias to threat could potentially drive worry that is high or low in disruptiveness. The current study addressed this possibility, by testing the novel hypothesis that the degree to which worry is disruptive is a function of the degree to which this attentional bias concerns all threat cues, rather than being restricted to threat cues signalling controllable dangers. Participants completed a novel probe task assessing their attention to threat cues signalling a future danger that could be controlled on some blocks, but not on others. Thus, the task revealed the degree to which their selective attention to threat cues was 'aligned' with danger controllability, by being more evident on blocks that permitted participant control of the danger signalled by the threat cues. The results indicate, contradicting the hypothesis under test, participants who reported high levels of disruptive worry demonstrated alignment of attentional bias to variations in danger controllability, whereas this was not the case for participants who reported high levels of non-disruptive worry. While caution is needed in the interpretation of the results due to methodological limitations, this study provides a new conceptual and methodological framework for future research on the attentional basis of individual differences in the tendency to experience disruptive vs non-disruptive worry.
人们在担忧的频率上存在差异，而且这种担忧对他们日常功能的干扰程度也存在很大差异。体验干扰性担忧的倾向增强的特点是对威胁的注意力偏向。虽然这种注意力偏向通常被认为是适应不良的，但当它涉及到表示可以通过个人行动减轻的危险的威胁线索时，它也可以是适应性的。在这种情况下，由此产生的担忧可能会增加采取行动的可能性，从而对日常功能产生有益而非干扰性的影响。因此，根据其焦点，对威胁的注意力偏向可能会导致干扰性或非干扰性的担忧程度增加。本研究通过测试一个新的假设来解决这个问题，即担忧的干扰程度是注意力偏向所有威胁线索的程度的函数，而不是仅限于表示可控制危险的威胁线索。参与者完成了一项新的探测任务，评估他们对未来危险的威胁线索的注意力，这些危险在某些块上是可以控制的，但在其他块上则不行。因此，该任务通过在允许参与者控制威胁线索所表示的危险的块上更加明显，揭示了他们对威胁线索的选择性注意力与危险可控性的“一致性”程度。结果表明，与测试中的假设相反，报告高水平干扰性担忧的参与者表现出对危险可控性变化的注意力偏向的一致性，而报告高水平非干扰性担忧的参与者则不是这样。由于方法学限制，需要谨慎解释结果，但本研究为未来研究体验干扰性与非干扰性担忧的个体差异的注意力基础提供了一个新的概念和方法学框架。
