Suppressing the white bears interacts with anxiety sensitivity in the prediction of mood and anxiety symptoms

Suppression is a commonly used strategy to manage unwanted thoughts by attempting to actively remove them from awareness. However, research has shown that this cognitive strategy often results in the paradoxical effect of increasing the frequency of unwanted thoughts. While the association between t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Personality and individual differences 2010-10, Vol.49 (5), p.408-413
Main Authors: Keough, Meghan E., Timpano, Kiara R., Riccardi, Christina J., Schmidt, Norman B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Anxiety
Anxiety disorders. Neuroses
Anxiety sensitivity
Biological and medical sciences
Cognitive strategies
Medical sciences
Moods
Obsessive compulsive
Obsessive-compulsive disorders
Panic
Panic disorder
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Sensitivity
Symptoms
Thought suppression
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Summary:Suppression is a commonly used strategy to manage unwanted thoughts by attempting to actively remove them from awareness. However, research has shown that this cognitive strategy often results in the paradoxical effect of increasing the frequency of unwanted thoughts. While the association between thought suppression and mood and anxiety symptoms has been repeatedly demonstrated, relations between this cognitive strategy and other anxiety risk factors such as anxiety sensitivity (AS) are unexplored. Using a nonclinical sample of young adults ( N = 414), the current investigation sought to more thoroughly investigate the association between AS and thought suppression as well as explore their synergistic effect on anxiety symptomatology. As hypothesized, thought suppression and AS were positively associated. Moreover, AS and thought suppression interacted to predict elevated levels of panic and obsessive compulsive symptomatology.
ISSN:0191-8869
1873-3549
DOI:10.1016/j.paid.2010.04.008