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The ups and downs of cognitive bias: Dissociating the attentional characteristics of positive and negative affectivity

Despite considerable past interest in distinguishing the patterns of attentional bias that characterise vulnerability to anxiety and to depression, little research has yet sought to delineate the attentional correlates of two affective dimensions that differentially contribute to these alternative forms of emotional vulnerability—negative and positive affectivity. In the present study, we employ a novel variant of the attentional probe task to examine selective attentional engagement with, and disengagement from, negative words, in participants whose heightened emotional vulnerability reflects either elevated negative affectivity, or attenuated positive affectivity. Elevated negative affectivity was found to be associated with both increased attentional engagement with, and impaired attentional disengagement from, negative information, especially when this was anxiety relevant. In contrast, attenuated positive affectivity was associated with facilitated attentional disengagement from negative information, especially when this was depression relevant. We discuss how this new insight into the attentional characteristics of negative and positive affectivity may serve to illuminate the basis of previously observed discrepancies between the patterns of attentional selectivity observed in anxious and in depressed participants.