Worry and the prediction of future threatening events : Association with gender and trait anxiety

Abstract

Worry and generalized anxiety have been conceptualized as being determined by beliefs that in the future, threatening events are likely to occur. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that gender differences in anxiety might be associated with this type of cognitive bias. Gender, trait anxiety, and personal control over event outcomes were treated as predictor variables for ratings of the predicted probability of threatening events. Subjects were presented a variety of ambiguous situations differing in level of personal control of outcomes and were asked to predict the probability of specific negative event outcomes for each of these situations. The results supported the hypothesis that a lower level of personal control was associated with higher probability ratings of future adverse events regardless of gender or level of trait anxiety. An interaction of level of anxiety and gender upon probability ratings was also found. Highly anxious female participants were found to respond with the highest probability ratings of threatening events. The findings were discussed in terms of their implications for cognitive theories of anxiety and the etiology and maintenance of anxiety in the different genders.