Tough James, Grafton Ben, MacLeod Colin, Van Bockstaele Bram
Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion, School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Gent, Belgium.
Behav Sci (Basel). 2025 Apr 15;15(4):531. doi: 10.3390/bs15040531.
Anxiety reactivity, i.e., the degree to which state anxiety becomes elevated, has been used as a measure of emotional resilience in anticipation of potentially stressful events and has been found to correlate with elevations in event-related negative expectancy bias. The present study aimed to replicate this finding and investigate whether negative expectancy bias is also associated with low emotional resilience in the wake of the event, measured as anxiety perseveration, i.e., the degree to which state anxiety remains elevated after the event. A sample of undergraduate students was informed they would watch a film montage and presented with the choice to access negative or benign information relevant to the film montage. They were asked to rate their negative expectancy bias and state anxiety both before and after accessing this information, which permitted a measure of anxiety reactivity and negative expectancy bias elevation. Participants then watched the film montage and rated their experience and state anxiety again, which allowed for a measure of anxiety perseveration. The results revealed that negative expectancy bias predicted anxiety reactivity and predicted anxiety perseveration indirectly through its impact on the perceived negativity of the event. Although further investigation is required, these findings suggest interventions targeting negative expectancy bias may improve emotional resilience both in anticipation of and in the wake of stressful events.
焦虑反应性，即状态焦虑升高的程度，已被用作衡量在预期潜在应激事件时情绪恢复力的指标，并且已发现其与事件相关的消极预期偏差的升高相关。本研究旨在重复这一发现，并调查消极预期偏差是否也与事件发生后的低情绪恢复力相关，情绪恢复力以焦虑持续存在来衡量，即事件发生后状态焦虑仍保持升高的程度。一组本科生被告知他们将观看一部电影蒙太奇，并被给予选择获取与该电影蒙太奇相关的消极或良性信息的机会。他们被要求在获取此信息之前和之后对自己的消极预期偏差和状态焦虑进行评分，这使得能够衡量焦虑反应性和消极预期偏差的升高。参与者随后观看电影蒙太奇，并再次对他们的体验和状态焦虑进行评分，这使得能够衡量焦虑持续存在情况。结果显示，消极预期偏差预测了焦虑反应性，并通过其对事件感知消极性的影响间接预测了焦虑持续存在情况。尽管需要进一步研究，但这些发现表明，针对消极预期偏差的干预措施可能会在预期应激事件时以及事件发生后提高情绪恢复力。
