TY - JOUR
T1 - Association between interpretation flexibility and emotional health in an anxious sample: The challenge of measuring flexible adoption of multiple perspectives
AU - Ji, Julie L.
AU - Salemink, Elske
AU - Teachman, Bethany A.
PY - 2024/1/13
Y1 - 2024/1/13
N2 - Interpreting ambiguous situations in a rigidly negative manner contributes to emotional disorders. Although negative interpretation biases have been well studied in relation to anxiety and depression, the relationship between interpretation flexibility (vs. rigidity) and emotional health remains understudied. The present study is a secondary analysis to test the hypothesis that higher interpretation flexibility is associated with better emotional health, as indicated by lower anxiety and depression levels, and higher quality of life. Here, interpretation flexibility focuses specifically on the ability to recognize multiple possible interpretations within and across ambiguous situations. Using baseline data from N = 939 high trait-anxious community participants who enrolled in an online anxiety intervention, multiple ways of computing interpretation flexibility were applied to help the field learn how different operationalizations can lead to varied conclusions about the connection between interpretation flexibility and emotional health. Using two measures of interpretation style, four approaches (some pre-registered, some exploratory) to computing interpretation flexibility were tested using an internal replication analytic approach. Results varied across type of approach, but in general, contrary to hypotheses, results indicated that higher interpretation flexibility was either unrelated to, or associated with higher, anxiety, and depression, and lower quality of life.
AB - Interpreting ambiguous situations in a rigidly negative manner contributes to emotional disorders. Although negative interpretation biases have been well studied in relation to anxiety and depression, the relationship between interpretation flexibility (vs. rigidity) and emotional health remains understudied. The present study is a secondary analysis to test the hypothesis that higher interpretation flexibility is associated with better emotional health, as indicated by lower anxiety and depression levels, and higher quality of life. Here, interpretation flexibility focuses specifically on the ability to recognize multiple possible interpretations within and across ambiguous situations. Using baseline data from N = 939 high trait-anxious community participants who enrolled in an online anxiety intervention, multiple ways of computing interpretation flexibility were applied to help the field learn how different operationalizations can lead to varied conclusions about the connection between interpretation flexibility and emotional health. Using two measures of interpretation style, four approaches (some pre-registered, some exploratory) to computing interpretation flexibility were tested using an internal replication analytic approach. Results varied across type of approach, but in general, contrary to hypotheses, results indicated that higher interpretation flexibility was either unrelated to, or associated with higher, anxiety, and depression, and lower quality of life.
KW - Interpretation bias
KW - anxiety
KW - depression
KW - flexibility
KW - quality of life
UR - https://doi.org/10.1177/20438087241226642
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85190256038&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/context/psy-research/article/1740/viewcontent/ji_et_al_2024_association_between_interpretation_flexibility_and_emotional_health_in_an_anxious_sample_the_challenge_of.pdf
U2 - 10.1177/20438087241226642
DO - 10.1177/20438087241226642
M3 - Article
SN - 2043-8087
VL - 15
JO - Journal of Experimental Psychopathology
JF - Journal of Experimental Psychopathology
IS - 1
ER -