The causal role of interpretive bias in anxiety reactivity
Abstract
Elevated anxiety vulnerability is associated with a tendency to interpret ambiguous stimuli as threatening, but the causal basis of this relationship has not been established. Recently, procedures have been developed to systematically manipulate interpretive bias, but the impact of such manipulation on anxiety reactivity to a subsequent stressor has not yet been examined. In the present study, training procedures were used to induce interpretive biases favoring the threatening or nonthreatening meanings of ambiguous information in a sample of 48 undergraduate students. Following this interpretive training, participants' emotional reactions to a stressful video were assessed. The finding that the manipulation of interpretive bias modified emotional reactivity supports the hypothesis that interpretive bias can indeed play a causal role in anxiety vulnerability.
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Contrary to predictions that the tendency to benignly interpret ambiguous situations should decrease the negative mood response particularly under conditions of emotional provocation, we did not find this in the present data.
“Furthermore, contrary to predictions that the tendency to benignly interpret ambiguous situations should decrease the negative mood response particularly under conditions of emotional provocation [63], we did not find this in the present data.”
From How to boost positive interpretations? A Meta-Analysis of the effectiveness of cognitive bias modification for interpretation (2014) · cites this paper as [63]
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“…who were trained to interpret ambiguity in a non-anxious manner had an attenuated self-reported anxious reaction to a subsequent stressor (e.g., Wilson, MacLeod, Mathews, & Rutherford, 2006; see also Mackintosh, Mathews, Yiend, Ridgeway, & Cook, 2006) and showed improvements in a subsequently…”
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“Although previous research has shown that this seems to be the case in adults (e.g., Mathews & Mackintosh, 2000; Salemink et al., 2007a,b; Wilson et al., 2006), it remains to be seen whether such effects can also be demonstrated in child populations.”
BackgroundResultCognitive bias modification of interpretations: A viable treatment for child and adolescent anxiety?
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“Experimental studies have also demonstrated a causal association between negative interpretation bias and anxiety reactivity (Mathews and Mackintosh, 2000; Wilson et al., 2006).”
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“Studies using similar stress tasks report that participants trained to make threatening interpretations display significant elevations of state anxiety following a stressor, whereas those in benign conditions do not show pronounced changes (Wilson et al. 2006; Lester et al. 2011).”
BackgroundResultCognitive mechanisms underlying the emotional effects of bias modification
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“In addition, high neuroticism is linked to attentional vigilance to threats including illness symptoms (Derryberry & Reed, 1994; Wilson et al., 2006).”
Interacting effects of worry and anxiety on attentional disengagement from threat.
Verkuil, B., Brosschot, J., Putman, P., & Thayer, J. (2009) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2008.11.003 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
Modifying cognitive errors promotes cognitive well being: a new approach to bias modification.
Lester, K., Mathews, A., Davison, P., Burgess, J., & Yiend, J. (2011) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2011.01.001 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
Woud, M. L., & Becker, E. S. (2014) · Cognitive Therapy and Research · doi:10.1007/s10608-014-9605-0 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
Biased interpretation in perfectionism and its modification
Yiend, J., Savulich, G., Coughtrey, A., & Shafran, R. (2011) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2011.10.004 · Cited by 59 · see citing works
Interpretation bias in preschool children at risk for anxiety: a prospective study.
Dodd, H., Hudson, J., Morris, T. M., & Wise, C. K. (2012) · Journal of Abnormal Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0024589 · Cited by 64 · see citing works
Neuroticism and interpretive bias as risk factors for anxiety and depression
Vinograd, M., Williams, A., Sun, M., Bobova, L., Wolitzky-Taylor, K. B., Vrshek-Schallhorn, S., Mineka, S., Zinbarg, R., & Craske, M. (2020) · Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/2167702620906145 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Hertel, P. T., Mor, N., Ferrari, C., Hunt, O., & Agrawal, N. (2014) · Clinical Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/2167702614529111 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
Frenkel, T. I., & Bar-Haim, Y. (2011) · Biological Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2011.08.001 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
“Based on such findings, iased processing of ambiguously threatening facial cues has been mplicated as an etiologic and maintaining factor in anxiety (e.g., athews and Mackintosh, 2000; Mathews and MacLeod, 2002; athews et al., 2007; Wilson et al., 2006).”
BackgroundMethodHoppitt, L., Illingworth, J. L., MacLeod, C., Hampshire, A., Dunn, B., & Mackintosh, B. (2014) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2013.10.008 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
Selective Mutism: An Update and Suggestions for Future Research
Scott, S., & Beidel, D. C. (2011) · Current Psychiatry Reports · doi:10.1007/s11920-011-0201-7 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
“It is suggested that children with anxiety may be hypersensitive to perceived threat [ 38 ], resulting in a vulnerability to intense emotional experiences and reactions [39, 40].”
BackgroundPark, G., Vasey, M. W., Kim, G., Hu, D. D., & Thayer, J. F. (2016) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01164 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
“In contrast, people who made more positive interpretations of surprised faces showed reduced activity in the amygdala as well as increased activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), which has been typically linked with regulatory function (Kim et al., 2003, 2004).”
BackgroundInterpretation Biases in Paranoia
Savulich, G., Freeman, D., Shergill, S., & Yiend, J. (2015) · Behavior Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.beth.2014.08.002 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
Is manipulation of mood a critical component of cognitive bias modification procedures?
Standage, H., Ashwin, C., & Fox, E. (2010) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2009.08.005 · Cited by 52 · see citing works
Training Ruminators to Inhibit Negative Information: A Preliminary Report
Daches, S., & Mor, N. (2013) · Cognitive Therapy and Research · doi:10.1007/s10608-013-9585-5 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
“Because CBM procedures initially targeted anxiety, they have typically focused on modifying biases in selective attention (Hakamata et al. 2010) or interpretation (e.g., Mathews and Mackintosh 2000; Wilson et al. 2006).”
Dual Cognitive and Biological Correlates of Anxiety in Autism Spectrum Disorders
Hollocks, M. J., Pickles, A. R., Howlin, P., & Simonoff, E. A. (2016) · Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · doi:10.1007/s10803-016-2878-2 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
“Some evidence suggests that cognitive biases precede the onset of an anxiety disorder, and that manipulating these biases can induce a positive or negative mood (Lothmann et al. 2011; Wilson et al. 2006).”
BackgroundValidation of a novel attentional bias modification task: the future may be in the cards
Notebaert, L., Clarke, P. J. F., Grafton, B., & MacLeod, C. (2015) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2014.12.007 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
The role of emotion regulation in socially anxious children and adolescents: a systematic review
Golombek, K., Lidle, L. R., Tuschen‐Caffier, B., Schmitz, J., & Vierrath, V. (2019) · European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · doi:10.1007/s00787-019-01359-9 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
How Does Cognitive Bias Modification Affect Anxiety? Mediation Analyses and Experimental Data
Salemink, E., van den Hout, M., & Kindt, M. (2009) · Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy · doi:10.1017/s1352465809990543 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
Effects of Cognitive Bias Modification Training via Smartphones
Yang, R., Cui, L., Feng, L., Xiao, J., Zhang, Q., & Oei, T. P. S. (2017) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01370 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
“While several psychotherapeutic procedures have been used to treat these biases (Tobon et al., 2011), recently, an increasing amount of research has focused on the use of Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) procedures (Mackintosh et al., 2006; Wilson et al., 2006).”
BackgroundMethodSavulich, G., Shergill, S., & Yiend, J. (2012) · Journal of Experimental Psychopathology · doi:10.5127/jep.016711 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
Cognitive bias modification training in adolescents reduces anxiety to a psychological challenge
Lau, J. Y. F., Belli, S. R., & Chopra, R. (2013) · Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1177/1359104512455183 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
Implicit interpretation biases affect emotional vulnerability: A training study
Tran, T. B., Siemer, M., & Joormann, J. (2011) · Cognition & Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699931.2010.532393 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
“These findings are similar to prior studies in which participants in the negative compared to the positive training group demonstrated worse outcomes on anxiety following a stressor (Mackintosh et al., 2006; Wilson et al., 2006).”
ResultLester, K., Seal, K., Nightingale, Z. C., & Field, A. (2010) · Journal of Anxiety Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2009.09.004 · Cited by 46 · see citing works
Experimental modification of interpretation bias regarding social and animal fear in children.
Lester, K. J., Field, A. P., & Muris, P. (2011) · Journal of Anxiety Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2011.03.006 · Cited by 45 · see citing works
Telman, M. D., Holmes, E., & Lau, J. Y. F. (2013) · Child Psychiatry and Human Development · doi:10.1007/s10578-013-0386-6 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
“A wide range of stressors has been used, from insolvable anagrams [36], emotional videos [30], imagined feared situations [38, 39] and negative mood inductions [40].”
BackgroundResultEffects of modifying the interpretation of emotional ambiguity
Mathews, A. (2012) · Journal of Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1080/20445911.2011.584527 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
“However, even when no mood change was observed during training (as is typical with methods involving single ambiguous words), differential emotional reactivity has been revealed via responses to a subsequent stress task (e.g., Hoppitt, Mathews, Yiend, & Mackintosh, 2010b; Wilson et al., 2006).”
BackgroundInfluentialLester, K., Field, A., & Muris, P. (2011) · Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology · doi:10.1080/15374416.2011.618449 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
“Several studies have shown that anxiety vulnerability effects can occur irrespective of whether mood changes occur during CBM-I (Hirsch et al., 2007; Hoppitt et al., 2010; Wilson et al., 2006).”
BackgroundResultGeneralisation of modified interpretive bias across tasks and domains
Salemink, E., van den Hout, M., & Kindt, M. (2010) · Cognition & Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699930802692053 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
“Generalisability to other tasks might be limited, however this conclusion is not corroborated by other findings of CBM-I effects on video fragments and imagery tasks (Hertel et al., 2003; Mackintosh et al., 2006; Murphy et al., 2007; Wilson et al., 2006).”
BackgroundResultInfluentialBeard, C., Rifkin, L. S., & Björgvinsson, Þ. (2016) · Journal of Affective Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.jad.2016.09.021 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Neurocognition in PTSD: Treatment Insights and Implications
Jak, A. J., Crocker, L. D., Aupperle, R. L., Clausen, A. N., & Bomyea, J. A. (2016) · Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · doi:10.1007/7854_2016_62 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
The Plasticity of Adolescent Cognitions: Data from a Novel Cognitive Bias Modification Training Task
Lau, J. Y. F., Molyneaux, E., Telman, M. D., & Belli, S. R. (2011) · Child Psychiatry and Human Development · doi:10.1007/s10578-011-0244-3 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
“This is not particularly surprising taken in context of adult data: although instances of training effects on mood change have been found [56, 57], others have reported no effects on mood [14, 16, 58, 59] or mixed results [17, 21, 60].”
ResultDavey, G. C. L., & Meeten, F. (2016) · Biological Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.04.003 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Looming Maladaptive Style as a Moderator of Risk Factors for Anxiety
Adler, A., & Strunk, D. R. (2009) · Cognitive Therapy and Research · doi:10.1007/s10608-008-9221-y · Cited by 36 · see citing works
“Evidence for a causal relationship has also been shown with experimental manipulations of information processing biases leading to change in anxiety (Wilson et al. 2006).”
BackgroundThe Sex Differences in Regulating Unpleasant Emotion by Expressive Suppression: Extraversion Matters
Cai, A., Lou, Y., Long, Q., & Yuan, J.-J. (2016) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01011 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
- Authors
- Wilson, E. J., MacLeod, C., Mathews, A., & Rutherford, E. M.
- Affiliations
- The University of Western Australia (AU)
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (GB)
- ORCID
- MacLeod, Colin
- Venue
- Journal of Abnormal Psychology
- Published
- 2006-02
- Volume
- 115
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 103-111
- ISSN
- 0021-843X (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1846
- OpenAlex
- W2043978415
- Cited by
- 262
- References
- 29
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 21 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 22 · 2013: 20 · 2012: 24
- FWCI
- 20.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Abnormal Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UWA Profiles and Research Repository (UWA) (submittedVersion)
- UEA Digital Repository (University of East Anglia) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychological Treatments and Assessments
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- interpretation bias, threat interpretation, ambiguous stimuli, emotional reactivity, stress response, anxiety vulnerability, causal manipulation
- MeSH terms
- Anxiety Disorders, Cognition, Data Interpretation, Statistical, Humans, Teaching, Observer Variation, Bias
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