Cited by 45Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesMemory and Neural Mechanisms

Prospective intolerance of uncertainty is associated with maladaptive temporal distribution of avoidance responses: An extension of Flores, Lopez, Vervliet, and Cobos (2018)

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Flores, Amanda, López, Francisco J., Vervliet, Bram, Cobos, Pedro L.·2020·Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry

Abstract

Background and objectives Excessive maladaptive avoidance has been claimed to be one of the mechanisms through which intolerance of uncertainty (IU) may play its causal role in the development and maintenance of several anxiety and compulsive disorders. Consistently, Flores et al. (2018) found that individuals with higher Prospective IU (P-IU), a specific IU subfactor, display excessive avoidance response repetitions in a free-operant discriminative task to avoid an aversive noise. In the present study we tested the hypothesis that P-IU not only predicts the amount of avoidance responses but also how well the temporal distribution of such responses fits the temporal distribution of threats.Methods Further correlation and hierarchical regression analysis of Flores et al.'s (2018) data served to test this hypothesis. We evaluated two aspects of the temporal distribution of responses: a) for how long participants were performing the responses; b) the behavioral discrimination between threatening and safe time periods.Results The results showed that scoring high in P-IU was positively associated with longer periods of time dedicated to avoiding and with worse behavioral discrimination between threatening and safe time periods. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that later addition of inhibitory intolerance of uncertainty and trait anxiety did not significantly improved the explained variance.Limitations Our results are exclusively based on the use of a low-cost avoidance response, and the present study does not clarify the precise mechanisms that lead high P-IU people to engage in non-optimal avoidance response distribution through time.Conclusions These results suggest that excessive avoidance is also driven by uncertainty of threat timing and highlight the relevance of P-IU as a vulnerability factor for excessive and outspread avoidance behaviors.

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Crossref · 10.1016/j.jbtep.2019.101527

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Authors
Flores, A., López, F. J., Vervliet, B., & Cobos, P. L.
Affiliations
  • Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Málaga (ES)
  • KU Leuven (BE)
Corresponding author
Cobos, Pedro L.
Venue
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2020-09
Volume
68
Pages
101527
ISSN
0005-7916 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2995088100
Cited by
45
References
47
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 1
FWCI
9.41
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Lirias (submittedVersion)
  • Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga (University of Málaga) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
  • KU Leuven (PF/10/ 005, PGC2018-096863-B-I00, PSI2014-56061-P)
  • Seventh Framework Programme (PIOF-GA-2013-627743)
  • Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
Keywords
intolerance of uncertainty, avoidance behavior, behavioral discrimination, anxiety disorders, compulsive disorders, inhibitory intolerance of uncertainty, trait anxiety
MeSH terms
Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders, Avoidance Learning, Female, Humans, Male, Prospective Studies, Uncertainty, Young Adult

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