THE CATASTROPHIZING WORRY PROCESS IN GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER: A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF AN ANALOG POPULATION

Abstract

Effects of structured worry interviews were examined among analog-GAD and nonanxious college students. Thirty-four analog-GAD and 29 nonanxious control participants generated sequences of possible catastrophic outcomes for each of six worry topics using the Catastrophizing Interview Technique (Vasey and Borkovec, 1992). Threat ratings for each topic were collected, and ratings of subjective distress, likelihood of the feared outcome, and perceived control over the feared outcome were obtained immediately following each interview. Results indicated that the analog-GAD group rated the worry topics of achievement, social relations, and economics as more threatening than their nonanxious counterparts. The analog-GAD group also generated more catastrophizing steps and reported higher levels of negative mood following the worry interviews. In addition, the eventual fear underlying each worry was determined by coding the content of the final outcome step from each interview. Results from the coded interview responses indicated that fears of negative emotion and of failure were the most frequently coded categories in each of the six topical domains for the analog-GAD group. Although there was no difference in the proportion of negative emotion codes between analog-GAD and nonanxious groups, the analog-GAD group did receive a greater proportion of failure codes than the nonanxious control group. Results largely replicated the findings of Vasey and Borkovec in an analog-GAD sample. In addition, results suggest that fear of negative emotion underlies worry in general, regardless of diagnostic status, while fears of failure or ineffectiveness are more specific to GAD.