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University of Groningen Belief Biased Reasoning in Anxiety Disorders University of Groningen Belief biased reasoning in anxiety disorders Vroling, Maartje Sophie IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite from it. Please check the document version below. Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Publication date: 2011 Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Vroling, M. S. (2011). Belief biased reasoning in anxiety disorders. s.n. Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum. Download date: 23-09-2021 Chapter 2 Threat-confirming belief bias and symptoms of anxiety disorders M. S. Vroling & P. J. de Jong Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry 41, 110-116 19 Chapter 2 Abstract This study tested the hypothesis that a generally enhanced threat-confirming reasoning style would set people at risk for the development of anxiety disorders. Therefore, a non-clinical student sample (N = 146) was presented with a series of linear syllogisms referring to threatening and safety themes and with the anxiety subscale of the SCL-90 and trait anxiety in order to correlate reasoning with anxiety. Half of the syllogisms’ conclusions were in line and half were in conflict with generally believable threat and safety related convictions (e.g., potassium cyanide is more toxic than Tylenol; The Netherlands are safer than Afghanistan). For each type of syllogism, half was logically valid and half invalid. Overall, participants showed a clear interference of believability on logical reasoning, which is known as the belief bias effect. Furthermore, in line with the idea that people are generally characterised by a better safe than sorry strategy, the pattern indicated that the participants took more time to solve invalid threat related syllogisms as well as valid safety related syllogisms. This threat-confirming belief bias was however not especially pronounced in participants reporting relatively intense anxiety symptoms. Thus, the present findings do not lend support to the idea that a generally enhanced threat- confirming belief bias is a diathesis for the development of anxious psychopathology. 20 Threat-confirming belief bias and symptoms of anxiety disorders Introduction Dysfunctional beliefs are assumed to play an important role in the acquisition and persistence of anxiety disorders (e.g., Beck, 1976; McNally, 2001). A striking feature of these dysfunctional beliefs is that they are both stable and irrational (i.e. that they are unhealthy and mostly even untrue). Why do patients hold on to unhealthy beliefs that are not in accordance with the empirical world? Recently it has been proposed that individual differences in common deductive reasoning patterns may be involved in the development and/or persistence of irrational fears (e.g., Smeets & de Jong, 2002, September). Modifying (irrational) beliefs in the face of disconfirming evidence requires that people deduce the logical implications of the evidence for the validity of their beliefs. It is well documented that, in general, people have a tendency to endorse conclusions that are in line with their prior beliefs as valid and those that are in conflict with their view as invalid (“belief bias”; e.g., Evans, Newstead, & Byrne, 1993). The stronger this tendency, the more people will be liable to not correcting their prior beliefs. In other words, a strong “belief bias” may act in a way to immunize against refutation of once acquired (e.g., anxiogenic) beliefs. To the extent that anxiogenic convictions are critically involved in anxiety disorders, individuals with an enhanced belief bias would be at risk for developing such disorder. The interference of believability with logical reasoning (i.e. belief bias) is commonly measured using a syllogistic reasoning task (e.g., Evans, Newstead et al., 1993), in which participants are instructed to judge as quickly as possible the logical validity of syllogisms consisting of two statements (the premises) and a conclusion. Logical validity refers to the necessity of a conclusion, assuming that the premises are true. If it is true that ‘A is faster than B’ and that ‘B is faster than C’, it follows that ‘A must be faster than C’. Logical validity would be violated when one concludes that ‘C is faster than A’ based on the given premises. When judging the validity, participants are instructed to ignore the believability of the conclusions. Believability refers to the meaning of the syllogism’s conclusion. Thus, participants have to judge whether a syllogism is logically valid, while ignoring its meaning. An example of a generally believable conclusion would be: ‘A tree is larger than a plant’, whereas ‘a plant is larger than a tree’ represents an example of a generally unbelievable conclusion. A valid yet unbelievable syllogism would be as follows: Premise 1 A plant is larger than a bush Premise 2 A bush is larger than a tree Conclusion A plant is larger than a tree 21 Chapter 2 People are typically faster in reaching a decision about the validity of a syllogism when there is a match than when there is a mismatch between the validity and believability of the conclusion. This is known as the belief bias effect (cf. e.g., Evans, Newstead et al., 1993). The syllogistic reasoning task measures how people evaluate the validity of prior beliefs in light of (new and possibly disconfirming) information. The belief is represented in the conclusion of the syllogisms, and the data/information on which the reasoning takes place are represented in the premises. The beliefs for which belief bias has been found generally concern beliefs that are in accordance with the empirical world or with prejudice (e.g., elephants are larger than mice, de Jong, Weertman, Horselenberg, & van den Hout [1997]; some Muslims are terrorists, Blanchette, Richards, Melnyk, & Lavda, [2007]), whereas beliefs of anxiety disorder patients concern untrue beliefs. This could well be an indication that patients suffering from anxiety disorder indeed have more difficulty separating logical truth from believable truth. In line with the hypothesis that a generally enhanced belief bias is a diathesis for the development of irrational fears, there is tentative evidence that spider phobic individuals show a stronger belief bias regarding universal convictions (e.g., elephants are larger than mice) than non-phobic controls (de Jong, Weertman et al., 1997). Yet, a subsequent study in a non-clinical sample failed to find a correlation between the strength of belief bias regarding universal convictions and symptoms of anxiety and depression (Smeets & de Jong, 2005). It should be noted that this study focused on universal beliefs regarding emotionally neutral themes. Conceptually similar work on other cognitive biases (such as attentional bias) has shown that the mood (or valence) of the materials that are used can be an important moderator. For instance, the relationship between attentional bias and psychopathology is particularly evident in negatively valenced materials (e.g., MacLeod & Hagan, 1992; van den Hout, Tenney, Huygens, & Merckelbach, 1995). In a similar vein, it might well be that enhanced belief bias regarding emotionally relevant rather than neutral themes might be especially relevant for the development of psychopathological symptoms. Therefore, in the present study we added syllogisms concerning emotionally valenced materials. More specifically, given the overly threatening content of the convictions of anxiety patients, this study focused on syllogisms regarding generally threatening themes and tested the relationship between the strength of a generally enhanced belief bias regarding threatening themes and symptoms of anxiety disorders in a non-clinical sample. If indeed generally enhanced belief bias regarding threatening themes sets people at risk for developing anxiety disorders, the relationship between belief bias and anxiety symptoms should also be evident in the preclinical range. 22 Threat-confirming belief bias and symptoms of anxiety disorders Method Participants Participants (N = 146, 48 male and 98 female) were undergraduate students of various faculties (e.g., psychology, n = 84, medicine, n = 17, pedagogy, n = 10). The mean age was 20.7 years (SD = 2.89). The participating psychology students received course credits, the other students received a small financial reward. Materials and apparatus Belief bias task Belief bias was measured using a computerized syllogistic reasoning task. Participants were asked to judge as quickly as possible the logical validity of syllogisms. The presented syllogisms varied in logical validity and in believability of the conclusions. A belief bias effect is found when participants find it relatively easy to judge valid-believable and invalid-unbelievable syllogisms (i.e., when there is a match between validity and believability) and relatively difficult
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