Attentional processes, anxiety, and the regulation of cortisol reactivity

Abstract

Attentional processing biases have been demonstrated in trait anxious individuals. The current study evaluated the interaction of trait anxiety and attentional bias in the regulation of cortisol responses to threat cues. Undergraduates (N=63) completed a dot-probe task featuring social threat words. Trait anxiety was associated with avoidance of threat cues. Attentional avoidance predicted decreased cortisol responses at higher levels of trait anxiety, and elevated cortisol responses at lower levels of trait anxiety. The results suggest that attentional processes are involved in the regulation of physiological arousal for anxious individuals.

Keywords:

• Anxiety
• attentional bias
• cortisol
• dot-probe task

This research was supported by a grant from Arizona State University, Faculty Grant-in-Aid. We thank Alex J. Zautra and Stanley R. Parkinson for their assistance with both practical and theoretical aspects of this work. We also would like to acknowledge research assistants Heather Gunn, Jennifer Henderson, and Jessica Tartaro.