Abstract
Anxiety shows differential reactions to stress across two distinct constructs: anxious apprehension and anxious arousal. Differences are related to bilateral resting state activity differences as measured by ECG and MRI studies, cognitive coping strategies measure via mismatch between anticipated and actual outcomes and across behavioral performance measures. Of note is the lack of extension of these terms to physiological domains other than measures of brain activity. It has been posited that the brain interacts in a top-down regulatory fashion with the autonomic nervous system to coordinate bodily reactions with environmental information to bring about changes in behavior. Given brain and behavioral differences found between anxious types, it is hypothesized that this will be reflected in differences across HRV and GSR, each of which acts as a measure of autonomic nervous system functionality. Participants were asked to self-report feelings of anxiety across measures of anxious apprehension and arousal. They were then exposed to self-regulatory demands through the Hamilton Letter Transformation Task. This involved the presentation of feedback to participants for each trial. A talk-aloud procedure was used to further connections between overt thought, the measures of interest, and task performance. It was found that there were significant mean differences consistent across constructs of GSR and HRV, namely by sex, work status, and both PSWQ and MASQ group assignment. Results were greatest for GSR indices. Significant interactions were specific to each physiological measure, namely between MASQ group assignment and work status for GSR indices and between MASQ group assignment and sex for HRV indices. Results showcase that there exists a relationship between anxious apprehension and arousal based on measures of the autonomic nervous system dependent on other independent variables for which they interact.
Advisor
Daniel Houlihan
Committee Member
Angelica Aguirre
Committee Member
Adam Houlihan
Date of Degree
2024
Language
english
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
Master of Arts (MA)
Program of Study
Clinical Psychology
Department
Psychology
College
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Recommended Citation
Gerber, Zachary. (2024).Physiological Indices of Anxiety and Self-Regulation Under Task Demands and Talk Aloud [Master’s thesis, Minnesota State University, Mankato]. Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato. https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/etds/1448/
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