Emotion regulation deficits in generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and their co-occurrence

Preliminary evidence supports the role of emotion-related deficits in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), including heightened emotional intensity, poor understanding of emotion, negative cognitive reactivity to emotions, and maladaptive emotion management. However, questions remain concerning the specificity of these emotion-related deficits compared to highly comorbid conditions such as social anxiety disorder (SAD). In the current study, 113 undergraduate students were administered measures of GAD, SAD, and emotion-related factors in order to clarify relationships among these variables. In univariate analyses, presence of SAD did not significantly impact the association between GAD and the emotion-related measures. Further, a discriminant function analysis revealed that emotional intensity and impaired regulation strategies provided the greatest discrimination between groups and best predicted a diagnosis of GAD (regardless of SAD comorbidity). Although their discriminatory ability was weaker, poor emotional understanding best predicted a diagnosis of SAD (regardless of GAD comorbidity), and non-acceptance of emotions best predicted comorbid GAD and SAD.