Author: Amir, N.; McNally, R.J.; Riemann, B.C.; Burns, J.; Lorenz, M.; Mullen, J.T.
Description: Anxious individuals are slower at color-naming threat-related than nonthreat-related words in the emotional Stroop task. Recently, Mathews and Sebastian (1993, Cognition and Emotion, 7, 527-530) reported that this Stroop interference effect disappears when snake-fearful students are exposed to a snake while performing the color-naming task. In the present experiment, we had patients with social phobia and normal control subjects perform an emotional Stroop task under either low anxiety (i.e. upon entering the laboratory) or high anxiety (i.e. before giving a speech). Results indicated that Stroop interference for socially threatening words in the phobic group was suppressed under high anxiety. These findings may indicate that increased effort enables the subjects to suppress the interference produced in the Stroop task.
Subject Headings: Adult; Anxiety/diagnosis/psychology; Arousal; Attention; Color Perception; Defense Mechanisms; Discrimination Learning; Emotions; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Phobic Disorders/diagnosis/psychology; Reaction Time; Reading; Semantics; Students/psychology
Keywords: Suppression of the emotional Stroop effect by increased anxiety in patients with social phobia
Publication year: 1996
Journal or book title: Behaviour Research and Therapy
Volume: 34
Issue: 11-12
Pages: 945-948
Find the full text :Â https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000579679600054X
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Type: Journal Article
Serial number: 2820