An Investigation of Factors Associated with Cognitive Avoidance in Worry

This study is an exploration of factors that may be contributing to cognitive avoidance, a proposed maintaining factor in worry and generalized anxiety disorder (Borkovec et al., in Heimberg et al. (Eds.), Generalized anxiety disorder: Advances in research and practice, 2004; Dugas et al., Behav Res Ther 36: 215–226, 1998). Two sets of worry-related processes, negative beliefs about worry and the fear of anxiety, were postulated to contribute to the use of cognitive avoidance strategies. Questionnaires were completed by 259 undergraduate students (67.1% female; mean age 23.33 years, SD = 5.27). All process measures, including cognitive avoidance, were correlated with generalized and catastrophic worry. Using hierarchical multiple regression analysis, both negative beliefs about worry and the fear of somatic symptoms of anxiety were found to predict cognitive avoidance. Implications for cognitive-behavioral models of generalized anxiety disorder are discussed.