Attentional biases in older adults with generalized anxiety disorder
Entity
UAM. Departamento de Psicología Biológica y de la SaludPublisher
ElsevierDate
2020-02-28Citation
10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102207
Journal of Anxiety Disorders 71 (2020): 102207
ISSN
0887-6185DOI
10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102207Funded by
This work was supported by the National Plan for Scientific Research, Development, and Technological Innovation 2008-2011 [PSI2008-02338/PSIC], the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science [AP2005-0377] and MINECO (Spain) Excellence Network PROMOSAM: Research on Processes, Mechanisms, and Psychological Treatment for the Promotion of Mental Health [PSI2014-56303-REDT]. The funding agencies played no role in the study (design, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data), or in the writing of the report or decision to submit the article for publicationProject
Gobierno de España. PSI2008-02338; Gobierno de España. PSI2014-56303; Gobierno de España. AP2005-0377Editor's Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102207Subjects
generalized anxiety disorder; attentional bias; older adults; dot-probe; aging; positivity effect; PsicologíaRights
Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reservedEsta obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 4.0 Internacional.
Abstract
Cognitive theories of anxiety propose that selective attention to negative information plays a central role in the
development and maintenance of anxiety. The presence of such attentional bias has been confirmed in younger
adults. Nevertheless, there are few studies that have explored anxiety-linked attentional bias in older adults, and
the available results are inconclusive. Conversely, the socioemotional selectivity theory posits that there are agerelated changes in emotional information processing and, consistent with this account, it has been found that
older adults preferentially pay more attention to positive stimuli compared with younger adults (“positivity
effect”). The present study aimed to explore attentional bias towards negative and positive information in a
sample of older adults with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) compared with a control group. The results
showed that older adults with GAD displayed an attentional preference for negative information and attentional
avoidance for positive information, whereas healthy older adults showed the reverse pattern of attentional
deployment. These results suggest that selective attention toward negative information and selective avoidance
of positive information may be a relevant factor in clinically anxious older adults
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Google Scholar:Cabrera Lafuente, Isabel
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Brugos, David
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Montorio Cerrato, Ignacio María
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