The Contributions of Attentional Bias and Expectancy Bias to Fluctuations in State Anxiety

Individuals differ in the degree to which they experience elevations in state anxiety in response to anticipated potentially stressful events, which may be explained by variance in the way information relevant to those stressors is processed. The present study aimed to test the validity of the hypothesis that the attentional processing of negative event-related information will be positively associated with changes in event-related negative expectancy bias, which in turn will be positively associated with elevations in state anxiety.

Using a variant of the dual probe task, participants were asked to report their state anxiety and negative expectancy bias at multiple points and were presented with information relevant to a specific anticipated potentially stressful event from which a measure of attentional bias was obtained.

The results indicated a case of complete mediation, whereby changes in event-related negative expectancy bias fully mediated the relationship between attentional bias to negative event-related information and elevations in state anxiety.

This finding adds to our understanding of how the biased processing of information can explain fluctuations in state anxiety and invites research into alternative presentations of biased information processing.