Tracing “Fearbola”: Psychological Predictors of Anxious Responding to the Threat of Ebola

“The DASS-21 has demonstrated good reliability and construct validity in both clinical and non-clinical samples (Henry and Crawford 2005).”

“Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21; Antony et al. 1998) The DASS-21 is a short-form version of the 42-item DASS (Lovibond anf Lovibond, 1995) that assesses subjective distress over the past week along three subscales: depression, anxiety, and stress.”

“Three distractor items (e.g., ‘‘please answer Always True for this item’’) were also included among the measures to increase the probability that only valid responses from attentive participants would be included in analyses (Meade and Craig 2012).”

“Because cognitive models of pathological anxiety emphasize the therapeutic effects of corrective information (e.g., Abramowitz et al. 2011; Clark 1986), one might predict that those possessing greater understanding about Ebola would report less anxious responding to the possibility of a domestic outbreak.”

“Relatedly, anxiety sensitivity, the tendency to misconstrue benign anxious arousal sensations as dangerous (Taylor et al. 2007), may also predict Ebola fear and safety behavior performance.”

“The DS-R, revised from the original DS (Haidt et al. 1994), is a 25-item measure of respondents’ propensity to experience disgust across multiple domains.”

“Indeed, Olatunji et al. (2007a) found that body vigilance was strongly correlated with health anxiety symptoms in both clinical and nonclinical adult samples.”

“Not only can general distress be associated with poor physical health (Scott et al. 2007; Niles et al. 2014), but both anxiety and depression involve negative interpretive biases that are often involved in anxiety related to health and illness (e.g., catastrophizing; Reif et al. 1998).”

“Items are rated from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much) and were inspired by those used by Wheaton et al. (2012) to assess H1N1 (swine flu) fears.”

“The peak of the 2014 Fearbola panic saw only four total U.S. human cases (only two of which were contracted locally), yet 2009–2010 witnessed approximately 60.8 million H1N1 U.S. cases (Shrestha et al. 2011).”

“In contrast, mechanisms such as the laws of contagion, similarity, or sympathetic magic (see Cisler et al. 2009) may have been more relevant for U.S. residents reporting greater Ebola fear.”

“Third, disgust sensitivity, or one’s propensity to experience disgust across multiple domains, has also been identified as a key feature of contamination fear (Cisler et al. 2010; Olatunji and Sawchuk 2005).”

“2014 ), but both anxiety and depression involve negative interpretive biases that are often involved in anxiety related to health and illness (e.g., catastrophizing; Reif et al.”

“Although such health-related ''safety behaviors'' may reduce associated distress in the short-term (Abramowitz and Moore 2007) , research suggests that these behaviors maintain anxiety in the long-term (see Helbig-Lang and Petermann 2010) .”

“, avoiding public contaminants) causes individuals to become more concerned with the risks of contamination (Deacon and Maack 2008; Olatunji et al. 2011).”

“, avoiding public contaminants) causes individuals to become more concerned with the risks of contamination (Deacon and Maack 2008; Olatunji et al. 2011).”

“Informed by the limited body of recent research on anxiety among students in response to pandemic illnesses such as SARS (e.g., Wong et al. 2007), avian flu (e.g., Lau et al. 2008), and H1N1 (e.g., Wheaton et al. 2012), we considered a variety of constructs that might predict the fear of Ebola, as…”

“Although such health-related ‘‘safety behaviors’’ may reduce associated distress in the short-term (Abramowitz and Moore 2007), research suggests that these behaviors maintain anxiety in the long-term (see HelbigLang and Petermann 2010).”

“Indeed, Olatunji et al. (2007a) found that body vigilance was strongly correlated with health anxiety symptoms in both clinical and nonclinical adult samples.”

“Not only can general distress be associated with poor physical health (Scott et al. 2007; Niles et al. 2014), but both anxiety and depression involve negative interpretive biases that are often involved in anxiety related to health and illness (e.g., catastrophizing; Reif et al. 1998).”

“Specifically, constant communication regarding the disease may have promoted desirable health behaviors (e.g., hand-washing) and simultaneously (or alternatively) incited panic akin to that observed during the SARS, avian flu, and Swine flu epidemics over the last decade (Sandman 2009 ; Van den Bulck and Custers 2009)…”

“Third, disgust sensitivity, or one’s propensity to experience disgust across multiple domains, has also been identified as a key feature of contamination fear (Cisler et al. 2010; Olatunji and Sawchuk 2005).”

“2007 ), avian flu (e.g., Lau et al.”

“…dysfunctional beliefs (e.g., threat overestimates) are meaningful factors in the etiology of pathological anxiety that should be targeted during treatment (e.g., Fergus 2014; Obsessive–Compulsive Cognitions Working Group 1997, 2003, 2005; Salkovskis and Warwick 2001; Taylor and Asmundson 2004).”

“Our findings, however, can be seen as consistent with previous work suggesting that accurate information (e.g., illness incidence statistics) is unrelated to anxiety symptoms (e.g., Moritz and Pohl 2009) .”

“, hand-washing) and simultaneously (or alternatively) incited panic akin to that observed during the SARS, avian flu, and Swine flu epidemics over the last decade (Sandman 2009; Van den Bulck and Custers 2009).”

“Earlier work examining responses to the Ebola and H1N1 outbreaks similarly found that fear of contracting these diseases was correlated with overall distress (Blakey, Reuman, Jacoby, & Abramowitz, 2015; Wheaton, Abramowitz, Berman, Fabricant, & Olatunji, 2012).”

“Indeed, previous research shows that anxiety sensitivity and body vigilance predict anxious responding to health status in general (e.g., Gerolimatos & Edelstein, 2012; Krautwurst, Gerlach, Gomille, Hiller, & Witthöff, 2014; Schmidt, Lerew, & Trakowski, 1997) , as well as to specific disease outbreaks (e.g., Blakey et…”

“In a student sample (N=107) gathered during J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f the peak period of concern over contracting Ebola in the United States in late 2014, the physical concerns subscale of the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI-3; Taylor et al., 2007) and disgust sensitivity (assessed with the Disgust Scale-Revised;…”