Cognitive errors in youth with anxiety disorders: The linkages between negative cognitive errors and anxious symptoms

This study examined the linkages between negative cognitive errors and anxi ety in a sample of children and adolescents referred for anxiety problems ( N = 251). The Children's Negative Cognitive Error Questionnaire was used to assess cognitive errors and several self-report measures of anxiety were u sed to examine the specific linkages between cognitive errors and different aspects of children's anxiety phenomenology. Results indicated that each o f the measures of anxiety (i.e., trait anxiety, manifest anxiety, and anxie ty sensitivity) were significantly related to each of the cognitive errors examined (i.e., catastrophizing, overgeneralization, personalizing, and sel ective abstraction), The cognitive errors of catastrophizing, overgeneraliz ation, and personalizing were still correlated with trait anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, and manifest anxiety while controlling for children's level of depression. In addition, the correlation between selective abstraction and anxiety sensitivity was still evident while controlling for children's lev el of depression. Stepwise regression analyses indicated that overgeneraliz ation was the strongest predictor of trait anxiety, catastrophizing and per sonalizing were the strongest predictors of anxiety sensitivity and manifes t anxiety, and overgeneralization and selective abstraction were the strong est predictors of depression. Results also indicated that age moderated the relation between some types of cognitive errors and anxiety. The results a re discussed with respect to the development of cognitive models of anxiety in youth, future research directions, and potential treatment implications .