The Contribution of Negative Expectancies to Emotional Resilience

Anxiety reactivity, i.e., the degree to which state anxiety becomes elevated, has been used as a measure of emotional resilience in anticipation of potentially stressful events and has been found to correlate with elevations in event-related negative expectancy bias. The present study aimed to replicate this finding and investigate whether negative expectancy bias is also associated with low emotional resilience in the wake of the event, measured as anxiety perseveration, i.e., the degree to which state anxiety remains elevated after the event. A sample of undergraduate students was informed they would watch a film montage and presented with the choice to access negative or benign information relevant to the film montage. They were asked to rate their negative expectancy bias and state anxiety both before and after accessing this information, which permitted a measure of anxiety reactivity and negative expectancy bias elevation. Participants then watched the film montage and rated their experience and state anxiety again, which allowed for a measure of anxiety perseveration. The results revealed that negative expectancy bias predicted anxiety reactivity and predicted anxiety perseveration indirectly through its impact on the perceived negativity of the event. Although further investigation is required, these findings suggest interventions targeting negative expectancy bias may improve emotional resilience both in anticipation of and in the wake of stressful events.