10 years of published research
on mood-as-input and
perseverative worrying:
Implications for GAD
Graham Davey
University of Sussex
Negative mood is known to increase perseveration at a
worry bout (e.g. Johnston & Davey, 1997; Buhr & Dugas,
2009) – but what is the mechanism through which
negative mood has this effect?
The Catastrophizing Interview
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I’m worried about not being able to move
That I would be attacked in some way
That I would not be able to fight back
That I would not be able to control what other people did to me
That I would feel inadequate
That other people would begin to think I was inadequate
I would not be respected
That I would not have any influence over others
That other people would not listen to me
That it would cause a loss of self-esteem
This would have a negative effect on my relationships
That I would lose friends
That I would be alone
That I would have no-one to talk to
I would not be able to share any thoughts/problems with others
That I would not get advice from others
That none of my problems would be adequately sorted out
That they would remain and get worse
That eventually I would not be able to cope with them
My problems would have more control over me
That they would prevent me from doing other things
That I would be unable to meet new people and make friends
That I would be lonely
Johnston & Davey (1997)
9
8
Mean catastrophising steps
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Positive
Neutral
Mood induction condition
Negative
Testing Mood Congruency
Effects
• Mood-Congruent Recall
• Negative Mood & Semantic Priming
• Mood-as-Input Hypothesis
Startup & Davey (2001)
Mood-as-Input Hypothesis
• Martin & Davies (1998)
• Stop Rules
• The Role of Mood as Information
What are stop rules?
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•
•
•
Relate to Task Motivation
Performance Focused OR Task Focused
‘Enough’ OR ‘Enjoy’
‘As Many as Can’ (AMA) OR ‘Feel Like Continuing’ (FL)
What do we know about stop
rules?
• Often not easily verbalizable
• Can often be derived from dispositional characteristics or
meta-beliefs about emotional control strategies
• Stop rule type is linked to mood
• Stop rules interact with mood to determine perseveration at a
task (the ‘Mood-as-Input Hypothesis’, Davey, 2006, Startup &
Davey, 2001).
What is the Role of Mood?
• Concurrent mood becomes a source of information about
achieving task goals
• Mood valency will interact with stop rule to determine task
perseveration
• Psychopathology-relevant tasks are frequently conducted
under conditions of ‘as many as can’ stop rules and negative
mood
Predictions from Mood-asInput Hypothesis
• Pathological worriers will experience negative mood while
worrying
• Pathological worriers will deploy ‘as many as can’ stop rules
for worrying
• Manipulating stop rules for worrying will affect worry
perseveration
• Manipulating mood valency without changing stop rules will
also affect worry perseveration
Manipulating Stop Rules
Startup & Davey (2001)
Implications
• Worriers do not have a perseverative iterative style that is
independent of the stop rules they deploy (Kendall & Ingram,
1987; Davey & Levy, 1998)
• The nature of the ‘stop rules’ deployed have a causal influence
on worry perseveration
‘Responsibility’ and stop rules
• Worriers possess elevated levels of ‘inflated responsibility’ for
outcomes (Papageorgiou & Wells, 2001)
• Naturally occurring and experimentally manipulated
responsibility should affect perseveration
Startup & Davey (2003)
Worry Stop Rule Checklist
AMA – ‘Enough’
FL – ‘Enjoy’
• I must find a solution to
this problem, so keep
thinking about it.
• I must try and think
about the worst possible
outcome, just in case it
happens
• I must think everything
through properly
• What’s done is done, so
what’s the point in
worrying?
• I don’t have time to think
about this now
• Stop worrying, things
always work out for the
best.
Davey, Startup, MacDonald,
Jenkins & Patterson (2005)
What ends a worry bout?
• Mood-as-Input Hypothesis predicts that worry will stop:
• If mood becomes more positive
• If stop rules change from ‘as many as can’ to ‘feel like continuing’
What ends a worry bout?
- Mood changes during worrying
14
12
10
8
6
Low Worrier
4
High Worrier
2
0
-2
-4
AMA
FL
No Stop Rule
Changes in Stop Rule Endorsement
Davey, Eldridge, Drost & MacDonald
(2007)
140
120
100
80
Prior to Task
60
End of Task
40
20
0
AMA
FL
Empirical Facts
• Mood interacts with stop rules to generate worry
perseveration
• Manipulating worry stop rules affects worry perseveration –
even in high worriers
• Worriers do not have a perseverative iterative style that is
independent of the stop rules they deploy
• Characteristics of worriers (e.g. responsibility) interact with
concurrent negative mood to generate worry perseveration
• PSWQ scores are correlated with measures of the deployment
of ‘as many as can’ worry stop rules
• The end of worry bouts is associated with changes in stop rule
deployment rather than changes in mood valency
Challenges
• Conducting mood-as-input studies on clinical populations with
a diagnosis of GAD
• Testing the ecological validity of the catastrophizing interview
procedure
• Integrating mood-as-input findings with existing theories and
models of GAD
• Exploring the role of mood-as-input processes in the
development of pathological worrying and GAD