Research into transdiagnostic processes underlying clinical disorders has indicated the importance of avoidance motivation and mixed approach-avoidance motivation, as well as negativity bias in the development and maintenance of depression and anxiety.
The primary aim of this project is to investigate the relationship between avoidance/mixed approach-avoidance motivation and negativity bias among individuals with and without symptoms of depression and anxiety. 408 participants collected via MTurk were assigned to one of three experimental conditions in which a) avoidance motivation activation b) mixed approach-avoidance motivation activation, or a control task was completed. Results indicate the trait avoidance motivation is associated with negativity bias in interpretation of ambiguous information.
This relationship is moderated by symptoms of depression, so that at high levels of depression, increases in trait avoidance have their largest effect, leading to more negativity bias in interpretation. Compared to the control condition which did not undergo motivation manipulation, assignment to the avoidance motivation condition did not have a main effect leading to higher levels of negativity bias. Assignment to the avoidance motivation condition did have an interaction effect with anxiety symptoms, so that when participants were assigned to the avoidance condition (compared to the control condition), higher levels of anxiety led to greater negativity bias. When mixed approach-avoidance motivation was activated, there were no significant main effects (compared to a control condition) on negativity bias, and this relationship was not significantly moderated by levels of depression or anxiety.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:columbia.edu/oai:academiccommons.columbia.edu:10.7916/w9m5-md64 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Rosenzweig, Cheskie |
| Source Sets | Columbia University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Theses |
Page generated in 0.2143 seconds