Submission Type
Poster
Abstract
Trait anxiety is an individual’s tendency to appraise situations as threatening, avoid anxiety-provoking situations, and demonstrate high baseline physiological arousal (Elwood et al., 2012). Attention bias (AB) is a characteristic seen in individuals with anxiety, in which they attend to threatening or negative stimuli more frequently than neutral stimuli, but no studies have examined this relationship in a real-world social setting (Bar-Haim et al., 2007). Here, we test the hypothesis that more anxious individuals have an attention bias during a real-world social interaction. Trait anxiety is tested at the beginning using an STAI-T questionnaire, with higher scores indicating higher levels of anxiety. The present study adapted methods from Kirchbaum et al. (1993) Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) model and assessed participant attentiveness to positive and negative stimuli in a stressful situation. The TSST consists of participants completing a brief speaking task in front of a panel of two confederates. For this study, participants wore Pupil Neon mobile eye tracking glasses that monitored visual fixations throughout the experiment. A pretest activity was conducted to introduce participants to the two confederates. To test our hypothesis, data from STAI-T will be correlated with pre-test fixations between the two confederates, one of which presents as attentive and affirmative (positive) and, the other as disengaged (negative).
Recommended Citation
Flanagan, Molly; Faery, Kaelin; Ludlam, AJ; and Belosky, Hannah, "106 - Trait Anxiety Relationship to Attention Bias During Social Interaction" (2025). GREAT Day Posters. 31.
https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/great-day-symposium/great-day-2025/posters-2025/31
106 - Trait Anxiety Relationship to Attention Bias During Social Interaction
Trait anxiety is an individual’s tendency to appraise situations as threatening, avoid anxiety-provoking situations, and demonstrate high baseline physiological arousal (Elwood et al., 2012). Attention bias (AB) is a characteristic seen in individuals with anxiety, in which they attend to threatening or negative stimuli more frequently than neutral stimuli, but no studies have examined this relationship in a real-world social setting (Bar-Haim et al., 2007). Here, we test the hypothesis that more anxious individuals have an attention bias during a real-world social interaction. Trait anxiety is tested at the beginning using an STAI-T questionnaire, with higher scores indicating higher levels of anxiety. The present study adapted methods from Kirchbaum et al. (1993) Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) model and assessed participant attentiveness to positive and negative stimuli in a stressful situation. The TSST consists of participants completing a brief speaking task in front of a panel of two confederates. For this study, participants wore Pupil Neon mobile eye tracking glasses that monitored visual fixations throughout the experiment. A pretest activity was conducted to introduce participants to the two confederates. To test our hypothesis, data from STAI-T will be correlated with pre-test fixations between the two confederates, one of which presents as attentive and affirmative (positive) and, the other as disengaged (negative).
Comments
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