TRAIT ANXIETY, ANXIOUS MOOD, AND THREAT DETECTION

Subjects were required to detect either an angry or a happy target fac e in a stimulus array of 12 photographs. It was found with neutral dis tracter faces that those high in trait anxiety detected angry faces fa ster than did low trait-anxious subjects, but the two groups did not d iffer in their speed of detection of happy targets. In addition, high trait-anxious subjects detected happy target faces slower than low tra it-anxious subjects when the distracter faces were angry. Comparable f indings were obtained whether or not there was anxious mood induction. It was concluded that high trait-anxious individuals have facilitated detection and processing of environmental threat relative to low trai t-anxious subjects, which enhance performance when the target is threa tening, but which impair performance when the distracters are threaten ing.