Beneficial effect of trait worry on episodic retrieval: A link overshadowed by trait anxiety

Abstract

We investigated how individual differences in anxiety affect different forms of episodic retrieval. Specifically, we measured the level of trait anxiety and trait worry using well-known scales of these constructs and observed their impact on tasks requiring the recognition, cued recall or free recall of previously presented information. In a series of three experiments, using multiple linear regression analysis, we consistently found that trait anxiety and trait worry exert an opposite partial effect on free recall performance, a pattern referred to as suppression (e.g. McFatter, 1979, Tzelgov& Henik, 1991). Our results thus show that once the level of trait anxiety is controlled, higher levels of trait worry are associated with better performance in episodic memory tasks requiring effortful, strategic retrieval. We interpret our results using the cognitive avoidance theory of worry (Borkovec, Ray & Stober, 1998) and the attentional control theory of anxiety (Eysenck et al., 2007).