Anxiety-Related Coping Styles and Individual Differences in Primary Emotional Systems Against the Background of Affective Neuroscience Theory: a Study Using Samples from Germany and China

Abstract

Scientific literature suggests that Neuroticism is an important predictor in understanding individual differences in anxiety-related coping styles such as vigilance (positive association) and cognitive avoidance (negative association). Considering Pankseppian Affective Neuroscience (AN) theory could contribute to understand these relationships more in-depth, because the evolutionary old subcortical brain systems of FEAR, SADNESS, and ANGER might represent brain-anatomical bottom-up drivers of Neuroticism. N = 594 German participants (n = 170 males; mostly student background) and N = 332 Chinese participants (n = 72 males; mostly student background) completed the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) and the Mainz Coping Inventory (Angstbewältigungsinventar; ABI) to assess individual differences in primary emotional traits and anxiety-related coping styles, respectively. As hypothesized, associations between the three emotional systems and the two coping styles cognitive avoidance and vigilance were observed. There were some differences in correlations between the Chinese and German samples, mainly regarding associations between ANGER and cognitive avoidance. Moreover, linear regression analyses revealed FEAR as a main predictor of vigilance (positive) and cognitive avoidance (negative) in the German sample. In the Chinese sample, FEAR was the main predictor of cognitive avoidance (negative), only; for vigilance SADNESS (positive) was the main predictor. Theoretical assumptions behind primary emotional traits indicate that the brain systems underlying FEAR and SADNESS indeed influence anxiety-related coping styles in a bottom-up fashion.