The effects of anxiety sensitivity and state anxiety on threat interpretation

Cognitive theories emphasize the role of maladaptive cognitive processes in the etiology and maintenance of panic attacks. Research has indicated that elevated anxiety sensitivity (AS) may constitute a cognitive risk factor for the development of panic reactions and panic disorder, but has not established whether this bias is related to state or trait anxiety. The current study addressed this issue by utilizing a primed lexical decision task to investigate threat interpretation among three groups: high AS, low AS, and low AS with elevated state anxiety. It was hypothesized that the high AS group would exhibit a bias towards threatening interpretations of somatic cues. State anxiety was expected to produce a familiarity effect, indicated by enhanced responding to threat cues with no interpretive bias. Contrary to what was expected, no group differences were found, and all three groups exhibited a preference for neutral interpretations of somatic cues. Implications were discussed.