Examining content specificity of negative interpretation biases with the Body Sensations Interpretation Questionnaire (BSIQ)

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Abstract

Cognitive biases have been suggested to act as latent vulnerability factors for the onset and maintenance of affective and emotional disorders. Additionally, several global and specific personality constructs are known to influence the course of psychopathology (e.g., trait anxiety, optimism, anxiety sensitivity (AS), injury/illness sensitivity (IS), fear of negative evaluation (FNE)). The current study examined the specificity of the relation between these constructs and a negative interpretation bias. One hundred and fifty-four healthy participants completed the Body Sensations Interpretation Questionnaire (BSIQ) [Clark, D. A., Salkovskis, P. M., Breitholtz, E., Westling, B. E., Öst, L.-G., Koehler, K. A., et al. (1997). Misinterpretation of body sensations in panic disorder. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 65, 203–213], measuring negative interpretations on four domains. A confirmatory factor analysis offered support for four factors in the BSIQ. Multiple linear regression analyses demonstrated that optimism is predictive of less negative interpretations. AS, IS, and FNE are specifically predictive of negative interpretations on the panic, other bodily symptoms, and social situations subscale, respectively. In addition, specific pain-related constructs were found most predictive of the other bodily sensations subscale. It is concluded that individual variability in global and specific psychological constructs is associated with a content-specific negative interpretation bias.

Section snippets

Participants

A total of 154 participants (51 male, 103 female), with a mean age of 26.76 years (S.D. = 9.26; range: 18–50) was included in the study. Participants were recruited both inside and outside the local community of Maastricht University. Participants from within Maastricht University (N = 79; Mage = 24.03, S.D. = 6.73) registered by entering their name on enlistment folders that were spread throughout the university buildings. Furthermore, the experimenters personally approached persons outside the

Confirmatory factor analysis

Testing the four-factor model resulted in a significant Chi-square statistic (χ2(317, N = 154) = 647.18; p < .001). Although this value was significant, the other goodness-of-fit estimates were found sufficient to good, with an RMSEA = .08; NNFI = .94; CFI = .95, sRMR = .07 indicating reasonable fit of the data to the suggested model. The factor solution supports a four-factor solution in which each factor corresponds to a subscale of the BSIQ (Table 1). When we adapt the criterion that loadings above .40

Discussion

The current study examined how global personality traits, fundamental fears, and pain-specific constructs are related to the tendency to negatively interpret ambiguous information on four specific domains, i.e. panic-related sensations, other bodily symptoms, social events, and general events.

After introduction of the BSIQ by Clark et al. (1997) several authors have used its four subscales, although no studies pertaining the factor structure of the measure have been conducted to our knowledge.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Nicole van den Ham, Vera Matti, Claudia Bongers, and Kristie van Montfort for their help with the data collection. This research is supported by a grant from the Netherlands organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) with grant no. 015-001-050.

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