Threat-related attentional bias in anxious and nonanxious individuals: a meta-analytic study

Author: Bar-Haim, Yair; Lamy, Dominique; Pergamin, Lee; Bakermans-Kranenburg, Marian J.; van IJzendoorn, Marinus H.

Description: This meta-analysis of 172 studies (N = 2,263 anxious, N = 1,768 nonanxious) examined the boundary conditions of threat-related attentional biases in anxiety. Overall, the results show that the bias is reliably demonstrated with different experimental paradigms and under a variety of experimental conditions, but that it is only an effect size of d = 0.45. Although processes requiring conscious perception of threat contribute to the bias, a significant bias is also observed with stimuli outside awareness. The bias is of comparable magnitude across different types of anxious populations (individuals with different clinical disorders, high-anxious nonclinical individuals, anxious children and adults) and is not observed in nonanxious individuals. Empirical and clinical implications as well as future directions for research are discussed.

Subject headings: Anxiety; Attention; Blinking; Humans

Publication year: 2007

Journal or book title: Psychological Bulletin

Volume: 133

Issue: 1

Pages: 1-24

Find the full text: https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/dominiquelamy/files/2014/08/Bar-Haim_et_2007.pdf

Find more like this one (cited by): https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=18314075393972838063&as_sdt=1000005&sciodt=0,16&hl=en

Serial number: 4094

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