Mood regulation expectancies, anxiety sensitivity, and emotional distress

Mood regulation expectancy is a behavior-outcome response expectancy; anxiety sensitivity can be conceptualized as a stimulus-outcome response expectancy. Current expectancy models of emotion and distress focus on stimulus-outcome expectancies, potentially neglecting behavior-outcome expectancies. In a sample of 502 college students, measures of each expectancy were independently related to distress, measured by the Beck Depression Inventory and Trait Anxiety Inventory: Those with weak beliefs about their ability to regulate negative moods and strong beliefs that the experience of anxiety causes further negative consequences reported the highest levels of distress. Implications for integrating behavior-outcome and stimulus-outcome response expectancies in models of emotion are discussed.