Do Cognitive Biases to Negative Information Causally Contribute to Diminished Anxiety Dissipation?

The purpose of the research program was to determine whether variation in cognitive bias (attentional and interpretation) to negative information causally contributes to diminished Anxiety Dissipation. To accomplish these aims a series of experiments were carried out that commenced with an anxiety induction procedure, designed to increase state anxiety, followed by a CBM manipulation procedure and measurement of the rate of Anxiety Dissipation. No evidence was obtained in these experiments that attentional bias to negative information causally contributes to diminished Anxiety Dissipation. However, there was tentative support for variation in interpretation bias making a causal contribution to diminished Anxiety Dissipation.