Effects of Worry on Physiological and Subjective Reactivity to Emotional Stimuli in Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Nonanxious Control Participants

Abstract

The present study examined the effect of worry versus relaxation and neutral thought activity on both physiological and subjective responding to emotion-inducing stimuli. Thirty-eight participants with GAD and 35 nonanxious control participants were randomly assigned to engage in worry, relaxation, or neutral inductions prior to sequential exposure to each of four emotion-inducing film clips, presented in counter-balanced order. The clips were designed to elicit a range of both negative and positive emotions. Self reported negative and positive affect was assessed following each induction and exposure, and vagal activity was measured throughout. Results indicated that worry (vs. relaxation) led to reduced vagal tone for the GAD group, as well as higher negative affect levels for both groups. In both GAD analogues and control participants, worry also led to less physiological and subjective responding to the fearful film clip, and a reduction in negative affect in response to the sad clip. This suggests that worry may facilitate avoidance of processing negative emotions, but not positive emotions. Implications for the role of worry in emotion avoidance are discussed.

Keywords: emotion regulation, emotional avoidance, generalized anxiety disorder, GAD, contrast avoidance, physiological assessment, worry