A memory bias for threat in high-trait anxiety

The suggestion that high-trait anxiety is associated with a memory bias for threatening information has so far received little empirical support. Two studies are reported which were designed to test this prediction and replicate findings recently reported by the current authors. In both studies subjects were required to encode and recall a list containing positive, threatening and non-threatening negative words. Analyses revealed that whereas the low-trait anxious subjects recalled equivalent numbers of threatening and non-threatening words, the high-trait anxious subjects recalled significantly more of the threatening words. Further analyses suggested that the tendency for anxious individuals to recall more threatening than non-threatening words was not simply due to more of these words being endorsed as self-descriptive by these subjects. Additionally, both high- and low-trait anxious subjects showed a strong memory bias for positive rather than negative words, a finding which is consistent with previous research. The theoretical and methodological implications of these findings are discussed.