Can The Future-Oriented Nature of Worry be Experimentally Manipulated? The Effects of Personally Relevant Worry and Video-Related Imagery following Exposure to a Distressing Video

Abstract

In an attempted experimental manipulation of the future-oriented property of worry, a total of 174 college students were randomly assigned to one of five experimental conditions. After all participants viewed a distressing video, they were instructed to worry about a personally relevant topic while constraining their worry to outcomes that could occur within the next 15 minutes, within the next week, or within the next year, or they worried about a personally relevant topic without such a time constraint or engaged in imagery of the video. Predicted group differences in state anxiety reduction were not found, although this effect approached statistical significance (p =.07). Contrary to our prediction, the imagery group reported more subsequent video-related cognitive intrusions than the worry groups and no differences between the worry groups were found. Results suggest that worry about everyday concerns may effectively distract some individuals from previously experienced emotionally distressing material.