Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

submittedVersion

Publication Date

3-2020

Abstract

Given the dearth of research regarding the relations of trait fear and trait anxiety to cognitive control processes, we sought to investigate how trait fear and trait anxiety are uniquely related to inhibitory control, which is a crucial component of the regulatory processes that inhibit inappropriate responses that interfere with goal achievement. Given that inhibitory control tasks are often plagued by task-impurity issues, we employed a latent variable approach based on multiple measures of inhibitory control. We found that trait fear and trait anxiety are related but separable constructs that, when their shared variance was controlled for, predicted inhibitory control positively and negatively, respectively. Also, the unique negative relation between trait anxiety and inhibitory control was evident only for females. Our findings underscore distinct contributions of trait fear and trait anxiety to inhibitory control and the consideration of affective traits as multidimensional (e.g., valence and motivation) constructs to better understand the relation between negative affectivity and cognitive processes.

Keywords

Fear, Anxiety, Traits, Negative affectivity, Inhibitory control

Discipline

Personality and Social Contexts | Social Psychology

Research Areas

Psychology

Publication

Personality and Individual Differences

Volume

155

First Page

1

Last Page

7

ISSN

0191-8869

Identifier

10.1016/j.paid.2019.109718

Publisher

Elsevier: 24 months

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109718

Download

Share

COinS