Comparing Implicit and Explicit measures of worry as Predictors of Anxiety
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Comparing Implicit and Explicit Measures of Worry to Predict Anxiety
IRAS ID
176833
Contact name
Julie Dwyer
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
years, 8 months, days
Research summary
Worry is a normal everyday phenomenon that everybody does to a certain degree. For some people worry is problematic and it is a key-maintaining feature of anxiety and mood disorders. Certain forms of therapy target beliefs about worry to help reduce worrying. Other therapies suggest that worry is driven less by conscious beliefs and coping strategies and more by automatic processes of which we are unaware. Therefore, it will be worthwhile to explore relationships between worry, anxiety, conscious beliefs and implicit attitudes. This will provide a better understanding of how worry can cause or maintain anxiety disorders.
This study will compare the current explicit measures of worry such as questionnaires with an implicit measure of worry called the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP). The IRAP is a computer delivered assessment involving choosing words or sentences on a screen that match with each other.
Participants will complete a short interview, self-report questionnaires and the IRAP and the responses will be compared in terms of predicting of anxiety levels. It is important to note that the research is interested in the entire spectrum of worry; therefore participants will have varying degrees of worry.
REC name
West of Scotland REC 1
REC reference
15/WS/0060
Date of REC Opinion
13 Apr 2015
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion