Cognitive Bias to Internal Sources of Information in Anxiety

Discrepancies between (a) self‐reported psychosomatic symptoms and (b) actual fitness under non‐stress (Study 1), as a function of trait anxiety, were examined, as well as discrepancies between (a) self‐reported cognitive and somatic state anxiety and (b) objective measures of behavioural reactivity, physiological arousal, and performance under social‐evaluative stress (Study 2). Results indicated that persons high in trait anxiety exaggerated distress in both conditions: They showed disproportionately greater self‐reported concerns than actual problems. In contrast, those low in anxiety minimized distress (lower self‐reported than actual problems). These discrepancy phenomena are explained in terms of biases in the processing of internal sources of information.