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Abstract
While some studies find worry and GAD to be associated with low autonomic arousal (AA) symptoms, others find the contrary. Two theoretical models, the Cognitive Avoidance Model (Borkovec, Alcaine, & Behar, 2004) and the Contrast Avoidance Model (Newman & Llera, 2011), one or the other set of findings. Yet, neither theory can account for the full range of AA symptoms linked to worry and GAD. Vasey, Chriki, and Toh (2017) offered initial support for an integrative model in which effortful control (EC) acts as a moderator that may explain the heterogeneous nature of AA symptoms in worry and GAD. A second study (Toh & Vasey, 2017) provided further support for that model and provided preliminary evidence suggesting that the ability to constrain worry to a verbal mode of processing may be the mechanism by which EC impacts AA symptoms.
The current study sought to provide a further replication and extension for the basic interaction between GAD symptom severity and EC in predicting AA symptoms and percentage of verbal thoughts during worry. A further goal was to extend previous global self-report findings through use of a mentation sampling task to assess percentage of verbal worry, objective measures of AA (i.e., heart rate [HR]), and performance-based measures of EC. A sample of 198 individuals in the Psychology 1100 at The Ohio State University completed questionnaire as well as psychophysiological and behavioral measures. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted and interactions were probed using PROCESS, an SPSS tool (Hayes, 2012), while multilevel modeling was used to examine growth curves for AA, percentage of verbal thoughts, and HR during the worry task.
Results showed that the basic interaction between GAD symptom severity and self-reported EC was successfully replicated. However, performance-based EC measures produced mixed results. Further, as expected, the interactions between GAD symptom severity and self-reported and performance-based EC predicted percentage of verbal thoughts during worry. However, the results regarding objectively measured AA did not support the Cognitive Control Model. Implications and future directions are discussed.
