The Effects of Ostracism and Performance Anxiety on Impulsivity

Anxiety disorders are a prevalent mental health issue that affects millions of Americans. Individuals who suffer from anxiety tend to be behaviorally withdrawn or inhibited. More specifically, previous research has shown an inverse relationship between symptoms of anxiety and impulsivity. However, this research is mixed, as it has been found that anxiety is present in impulse control disorders. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to further explore the relationship between anxiety and impulsivity. This was done by inducing anxiety in two different studies that both incorporated the context of social interactions, in order to see their effect on impulsive responding. The social contexts that were examined included the situation of being socially ostracized (social exclusion), and the other incorporated the act of giving a public speech (social performance). In the first experiment, ostracism was induced with the Cyberball task. Additionally, neural brain-wave activity was examined using electroencephalogram (EEG). The second experiment induced anxiety through the performance-task of giving a speech. Both experiments also collected measures of perceived emotional childhood invalidation to further examine the influence these interactions may have on impulsive responding and anxiety. Impulsivity was examined in both experiments with the flanker attention task as was viewed on a spectrum, with slower responding indicating inhibition and faster responding indicating impulsivity. Twenty-eight undergraduate students from the University of South Carolina Aiken participated in experiment one and thirty-three participants in experiment two. In experiment 1, it was found that ostracized individuals responded faster and less accurate on the incongruent trials of the flanker task, indicating an increase in impulsive behavior. Also, perceived childhood emotional invalidation was related to facets of trait impulsivity. No differences were found between groups for the EEG data. In experiment 2, participants did feel more anxious after INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL ANXIETY ON BEHAVIORAL INHIBITION 3 giving a speech, however there were no significant differences between accuracy and response time on the flanker task when compared to controls. Collectively, these findings suggest that social exclusion may have an impact on impulsivity and may reflect a person’s desire to reintegrate into their social group. On the other hand, it appears performance anxiety engages different processes that don’t result in increased impulsiveness, but rather controlled inhibition. Further investigation into the way our social environments play a role in the relationship between anxiety and impulsivity may be an important factor in the discrepancy in current literature regarding this relationship. Ultimately, further research on this relationship may lead to prevention or intervention aimed at decreasing maladaptive forms of impulsivity. INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL ANXIETY ON BEHAVIORAL INHIBITION 4 The Effects of Ostracism and Performance Anxiety on Impulsivity According to the National Institute of Mental Health (2015), anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States and affect over 40 million adults. Anxiety has traditionally been viewed as a complex emotional state based on a perceived fear of threat or danger. Alternatively, anxiety can be defined as a future-oriented cognitive and emotional stateor trait-characteristic involving several components. These include anxious apprehension, worry, emotional or behavioral conflicts, and altered approach or avoidance behaviors (Robinson, Vytal, Cornwell, & Grillon, 2013). Due to the complexity of anxiety, it is often difficult to distinguish from other emotional states. For example, both fear and worry are seen aspects of anxiety. Worry as a component of anxiety can be viewed as a cognitive process that prepares the individual to anticipate future danger (Beauchaine & Hinshaw, 2013). Similar to this is fear, which is part of the response system that prepares the individual to either freeze to avoid punishment or flee as part of the fight or flight response (Beauchaine & Hinshaw, 2013). Due to these features, it is often difficult to distinguish anxiety from fear because both signal danger or threat and are thought to provide an adaptive value for several species by triggering an appropriate response (Robinson et al., 2013). However, anxiety and fear can be distinguished by differences in their etiologies, response patterns, time courses, and intensities, which seem to justify a clear distinction between anxiety and fear (Steimer, 2002). Although both states alert the individual, they appear to prepare the body for different actions. Anxiety is a generalized response to an unknown threat or internal conflict, whereas fear is focused on an established external danger or threat (Steimer, 2002). Both provide an adaptive value by heightening preparation and improving survival odds if signs of imminent danger become present (Robinson et al., 2013). INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL ANXIETY ON BEHAVIORAL INHIBITION 5 Stress is also commonly linked with anxiety. Stress is thought to initiate both the peripheral nervous system via the sympathetic nervous system and the endocrine system via the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (Allen, Kennedy, Cryan, Dinan, & Clarke, 2014). Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) activation is a result of initial activity by the hypothalamus, where corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) is discharged in response to stress (Smith & Vale, 2006). Corticotropin-releasing hormone then acts on the pituitary gland, causing it to release adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH), which in turn causes the adrenal cortex to release cortisol (Smith & Vale, 2006). The ultimate goal of HPA axis activation is to increase levels of cortisol in the blood during times of stress. The main role of cortisol is to release glucose into the bloodstream to facilitate the "flight or fight" response (Smith & Vale, 2006). Cortisol also suppresses and regulates the immune system, digestive system, and reproductive system to prepare the body for its reaction (Smith & Vale, 2006). In individuals suffering from anxiety, this system does not properly send feedback to the brain and the HPA axis remains activated after the threat or danger has gone. This long-term activation becomes maladaptive and leads to increases in anxiety (Kudielka, Hellhammer, Krischbaum, Harmon-Jones, & Winkielman, 2004). Another large contributor to anxiety is emotion, specifically negative emotions. Emotions are not only drawn from unexpected encounters in threatening situations but can also be elicited based on conclusions drawn from interpretations of complex social interactions. For example, if an individual is teased by their peers and interprets the situation as hurtful, they will experience negative emotions such as sadness. However, if the same individual is teased by their peers and assumes it is in jest or part of their social banter, they may not experience the same negative emotions. The ability to recognize and label emotional experiences is associated with well-being INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL ANXIETY ON BEHAVIORAL INHIBITION 6 and adaptive functioning, as it provides the individual with information on the state of their relationships and helps guide decisions (Kashdan & Farmer, 2014). Eliciting emotions through social interpretations is viewed as top-down processing. Bottom-up processing starts with the individual details or components of something, and collectively these components build up to make the whole. In the context of human behavior and affective processing, this can include the elicitation of emotion by the presence of a stimulus that has physical properties that are inherently emotional (McRae et al., 2012). For example, fear and disgust might be elicited from the bottom-up when someone glances down to discover a bug in their food. Bottom-up emotion generation reliably elicits activity from the amygdala, a neural structure that is thought to be important for emotional learning and the processing of emotional information more generally (McRae et al., 2012). Top-down processing, on the other hand, uses conceptual knowledge, such as memories and linguistic representations, to elicit emotions (McRae, Misra, Prasad, Pereira, & Gross, 2012). Top-down emotion generation refers to the expression of emotion through appraisals of a particular situation (McRae et al., 2012). For example, fear might be elicited from the top-down when someone interprets an e-mail from their boss as threatening to their job security. Top-down emotion generation views emotion processing as a cognitive process. That is, differences in the emotional response are believed to be caused by differences in individuals’ goals or their appraisal bias (McRae et al., 2012). Based on this emotion generation, individuals will differ in their responses to the same situation due to their personal beliefs, history, or current circumstances. Like bottom-up processing, top-down emotion generation also elicits activity from the amygdala. Additionally, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dMPFC) is involved. This is INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL ANXIETY ON BEHAVIORAL INHIBITION 7 thought to represent the higher-level self-relevant appraisals of executive functioning (McRae et al., 2012). Both top-down and bottom-up processing play a role in the emotion generation of anxiety disorders. As previously mentioned, these processes can be exemplified within the context of social situations. For example, the bottom-up experience of being socially excluded, or ostracized, may lead to feelings of anxiety through top-down negative cognitive appraisals involving rejection. Likewise, other forms of social situations such as having to perform in front of others could also result in similar experiences of anxiety through similar negative appraisals, also involving the possible fear of r