10 years of published research on mood-as-input and perseverative worrying: Implications for GAD Graham Davey University of Sussex

Negative mood is known to increase perseveration at a worry bout (e.g. Johnston & Davey, 1997; Buhr & Dugas, 2009) – but what is the mechanism through which negative mood has this effect?

The Catastrophizing Interview 1.I ’ m worried about not being able to move 2.That I would be attacked in some way 3.That I would not be able to fight back 4.That I would not be able to control what other people did to me 5.That I would feel inadequate 6.That other people would begin to think I was inadequate 7.I would not be respected 8.That I would not have any influence over others 9.That other people would not listen to me 10.That it would cause a loss of self-esteem 11.This would have a negative effect on my relationships 12.That I would lose friends 13.That I would be alone 14.That I would have no-one to talk to 15.I would not be able to share any thoughts/problems with others 16.That I would not get advice from others 17.That none of my problems would be adequately sorted out 18.That they would remain and get worse 19.That eventually I would not be able to cope with them 20.My problems would have more control over me 21.That they would prevent me from doing other things 22.That I would be unable to meet new people and make friends 23.That I would be lonely

Johnston & Davey (1997)

Testing Mood Congruency Effects Mood-Congruent Recall Negative Mood & Semantic Priming Mood-as-Input Hypothesis

Startup & Davey (2001)

Mood-as-Input Hypothesis Martin & Davies (1998) Stop Rules The Role of Mood as Information

What are stop rules? Relate to Task Motivation Performance Focused OR Task Focused ‘Enough’ OR ‘Enjoy’ ‘As Many as Can’ (AMA) OR ‘Feel Like Continuing’ (FL)

What do we know about stop rules? Often not easily verbalizable Can often be derived from dispositional characteristics or meta-beliefs about emotional control strategies Stop rule type is linked to mood Stop rules interact with mood to determine perseveration at a task (the ‘Mood-as-Input Hypothesis’, Davey, 2006, Startup & Davey, 2001).

What is the Role of Mood? Concurrent mood becomes a source of information about achieving task goals Mood valency will interact with stop rule to determine task perseveration Psychopathology-relevant tasks are frequently conducted under conditions of ‘as many as can’ stop rules and negative mood

Predictions from Mood-as- Input Hypothesis Pathological worriers will experience negative mood while worrying Pathological worriers will deploy ‘as many as can’ stop rules for worrying Manipulating stop rules for worrying will affect worry perseveration Manipulating mood valency without changing stop rules will also affect worry perseveration

Manipulating Stop Rules Startup & Davey (2001)

Implications Worriers do not have a perseverative iterative style that is independent of the stop rules they deploy (Kendall & Ingram, 1987; Davey & Levy, 1998) The nature of the ‘stop rules’ deployed have a causal influence on worry perseveration

‘Responsibility’ and stop rules Worriers possess elevated levels of ‘inflated responsibility’ for outcomes (Papageorgiou & Wells, 2001) Naturally occurring and experimentally manipulated responsibility should affect perseveration

Startup & Davey (2003)

Worry Stop Rule Checklist AMA – ‘Enough’ I must find a solution to this problem, so keep thinking about it. I must try and think about the worst possible outcome, just in case it happens I must think everything through properly FL – ‘Enjoy’ What’s done is done, so what’s the point in worrying? I don’t have time to think about this now Stop worrying, things always work out for the best.

Davey, Startup, MacDonald, Jenkins & Patterson (2005)

What ends a worry bout? Mood-as-Input Hypothesis predicts that worry will stop: If mood becomes more positive If stop rules change from ‘as many as can’ to ‘feel like continuing’

What ends a worry bout? - Mood changes during worrying

Changes in Stop Rule Endorsement Davey, Eldridge, Drost & MacDonald (2007)

Empirical Facts Mood interacts with stop rules to generate worry perseveration Manipulating worry stop rules affects worry perseveration – even in high worriers Worriers do not have a perseverative iterative style that is independent of the stop rules they deploy Characteristics of worriers (e.g. responsibility) interact with concurrent negative mood to generate worry perseveration PSWQ scores are correlated with measures of the deployment of ‘as many as can’ worry stop rules The end of worry bouts is associated with changes in stop rule deployment rather than changes in mood valency

Challenges Conducting mood-as-input studies on clinical populations with a diagnosis of GAD Testing the ecological validity of the catastrophizing interview procedure Integrating mood-as-input findings with existing theories and models of GAD Exploring the role of mood-as-input processes in the development of pathological worrying and GAD