Blunted perceived control effect on reward anticipation in trait anxiety

A lack of perceived control contributes to the development and maintenance of anxiety. Previous studies have shown the deficiency of perceived control in buffering negative emotions in anxiety. However, it remains unclear whether the control-related impairment in anxiety also manifests in positive scenarios.

We addressed this issue by recording event-related potentials from low (N = 33) and high (N = 33) trait-anxiety individuals as they performed a gambling task to earn monetary rewards under high and low perceived-control conditions.

Our results showed that anxiety was associated with a blunted neural effect of perceived control on reward anticipation as indexed by the cue-P3 and stimulus-preceding negativity. This diminished control effect was not affected by depressive symptoms and was not observed during reward consummatory phase as indexed by the reward positivity and feedback P3.

Our findings should be extended to include negative scenarios and other forms of perceived control.

Our findings elucidate that anxiety is associated with a deficiency in boosting reward anticipation through perceived control exercised by choice and thus extend the dysfunctional perceived control from the negative to the positive domain, highlighting its valence-independent nature in trait anxiety.