Seeing through the eyes of anxious individuals: An investigation of anxiety-related interpretations of emotional expressions

Abstract

The interpretation of emotional states is necessary for successful social communication. Often individuals interpret emotional expressions intuitively and without full cognitive awareness. The aim of the present study was to test whether anxiety would influence affect interpretation in the manner suggested by interpretation bias—the tendency to interpret ambiguous cues in a threatening way. Interpretation of social cues was assessed with the similarity rating task (simtask) in two studies (n₁ = 116, n₂ = 76). The similarity ratings were analysed with a multidimensional scaling (MDS) approach, and the effects of anxiety on the interpretation of emotional expressions were analysed with multilevel modelling. The results of both studies showed evidence for an anxiety-related interpretation bias. High-anxious individuals tended to interpret milder threats as more negative than low-anxious individuals did. The consequences for anxiety research are discussed.

Keywords:

• Anxiety
• Interpretation bias
• Information processing
• Emotional expressions
• Similarity rating task
• Multidimensional scaling

Funding for this research was provided by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Grants [MI747/4-1].

Funding for this research was provided by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Grants [MI747/4-1].

Notes

¹ According to De Houwer (2009), there is no clear definition of what implicit means. He recommended that features be specified when one needs to make reference to these processes. For instance: An IAT effect can be called an implicit measure in the sense that the size and direction of the IAT effect is difficult to control, but not in the sense that participants are typically unaware of the fact that the IAT effect measures the target attitude (De Houwer, 2009, p. 6). Our usage of the term implicit refers mainly to the empirical level and therefore to the indirect character of the measurement. Nevertheless, on the construct level, our primary aim was to assess the implicit component of interpretation bias. We did not directly ask participants to interpret emotional expressions so they did not have the goal of processing affective information. Their answers should therefore be less affected by strategic control. However, we could not completely exclude the possibility that participants explicitly interpreted emotional expressions, but this is a problem of indirect measures in general.