Individuals with high anxiety levels from clinical and non-clinical populations tend to exhibit an attentional bias where they selectively allocate more attention to threat stimuli than neutral stimuli, in comparison to individuals with lower anxiety levels. However, longitudinal studies investigating the relations between attentional bias to threat and symptoms of anxiety, depression, and social anxiety––some of the most common mental disorders––are scarce.
Using a concurrent and longitudinal design, we investigated the relations between attentional bias to threat and symptoms of anxiety, depression, and social anxiety; concurrently in adulthood (the 30s) as well as longitudinally between young adulthood (the 20s) and adulthood (the 30s). We also investigated whether attentional bias to threat in the 30s moderated and/or mediated the relation between symptoms of psychopathology in the 20s and the same symptoms in the 30s.
We found significant concurrent correlations between attentional bias to threat and
greater symptoms of anxiety, depression, and social anxiety in the 30s. We also found positive longitudinal correlations between attentional bias to threat in the 30s and symptoms of anxiety (approached significance) and depression (significant) in the 20s. Thus, greater symptoms of internalizing-related psychopathology were associated with greater attentional bias to threat.
Attentional bias to threat did not mediate the relation between early psychopathology and later psychopathology, but it did moderate the relation between anxiety in the 20s and social anxiety nearly a decade later. In individuals with greater attentional bias to threat, early anxiety was significantly associated with and predicted greater future social anxiety, but this was not the case for individuals with lower attentional bias to threat. Hence, attentional bias to threat may have a critical role in internalizing-related psychopathology, and interventions targeting it may have preventative and therapeutic potential for mitigating the likelihood of the development and/or persistence of internalizing-related psychopathology. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / People with higher anxiety levels pay more attention to threatening information than neutral information, compared to people with lower anxiety levels. Relatively few studies have investigated the long-term relation between attentional bias to threat and symptoms of mental disorder. Our study investigated the concurrent and longitudinal relations between attentional bias to threat and symptoms of anxiety, depression, and social anxiety.
We found that anxiety, depression, and social anxiety in the 30s were concurrently related to greater attentional bias to threat. Additionally, anxiety and depression in the 20s were longitudinally related to greater attentional bias to threat 10 years later. Moreover, people with high anxiety and high attentional bias to threat were more likely to experience social anxiety in the future than people with high anxiety but low attentional bias to threat. Therefore, attentional bias to threat might have a critical role in the development and/or persistence of some mental disorders.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/28900 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Jamalifar, Reihaneh (Rei) |
| Contributors | Schmidt, Louis, Milliken, Bruce, Psychology |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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