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Worry, Anhedonic Depression, and Emotional Styles

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Abstract

This study examined how elevated levels of worry and anhedonic depression are associated with affect intensity, attention to emotion, and clarity of emotion. University students (N = 923) completed the Affect Intensity Measure, the Trait Meta Mood Scale, the Penn State Worry Questionnaire and the anhedonic depression subscale from the Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire. Control individuals with worry and depression scores below the median (n = 158) were compared with three distress groups—elevated worry without elevated depression (n = 58), elevated depression without elevated worry (n = 35), and elevated levels of both worry and depression (n = 39). The control and distress groups each differed significantly from one another, and these differences could not be accounted for by gender or neuroticism. Controls resembled individuals described in past research as being cerebral, the depression-only group resembled individuals described as being cool, the worry-only group resembled individuals described as hot, and the dual-distress group resembled individuals described as overwhelmed.

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Notes

  1. Although not reported in this paper, a k-means cluster analysis using the standardized affect intensity, attention, and clarity scores in the present sample replicated the four group solution described by Gohm (2003) and Kerns and Berenbaum (2010).

  2. Demographic information (e.g., gender) was missing for 41 participants.

  3. Other researchers using the same selection criteria have also found that individuals with elevated levels of anhedonic depression but not elevated levels of worry are more likely to be male than female (Engels et al. 2010; Herrington et al. 2010).

  4. Individuals with scores at or below the 10th percentile were excluded so that: (a) the worry and anhedonic depression scores of individuals in the control group would not be lower than those of individuals in the depression and worry groups, respectively; and (b) we would not be comparing the distress groups with a control group that included individuals with unusually low levels of distress.

  5. Gender did not significantly moderate any of the results presented below.

  6. The results of analyses using cluster group membership instead of the mean affect intensity, attention, and clarity scores, which led to the same conclusions, are available upon request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 603 E. Daniel St, Champaign, IL, 61820, USA

    Howard Berenbaum, Keith Bredemeier, Renee J. Thompson & Matthew Tyler Boden

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  1. Howard Berenbaum
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  2. Keith Bredemeier
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  3. Renee J. Thompson
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  4. Matthew Tyler Boden
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Correspondence to Howard Berenbaum.

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Berenbaum, H., Bredemeier, K., Thompson, R.J. et al. Worry, Anhedonic Depression, and Emotional Styles. Cogn Ther Res 36, 72–80 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-010-9329-8

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