Anxiety sensitivity and bodily kinematics

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is an individual difference factor reflecting the fear of anxiety-related sensations and is one of the best researched risk factors for psychopathology. Decades of research have focused on exploring the relations between AS and clinical symptoms and disorders, although most of the research has employed self-report or interview-based methodologies to index primary dependent measures. No past research has sought to characterize the explanatory relevance of AS from a body kinematics perspective. The present study explored AS in relation to body kinematics to AS-specific images using a dual-task attentional control paradigm (i.e., approach versus avoidance) that employs AS-specific stimuli and motion-tracking technology. Participants included 108 young adults (58.3% female, M age = 25.3) who took part in a ball catching game to index their measures of behavioral engagement with the AS-specific and neutral stimuli presented at either side of the game environment. After adjusting for age, gender, race, handedness, physical functioning, and negative affectivity, self-reported AS was significantly associated with biokinematically-driven behavioral engagement with the AS-specific stimuli. The present study provides novel empirical evidence that AS is related to anxiety-related bodily kinematics. Future work is needed to extend the current results to clinical samples.