The Influence Of Trait Anxiety On Negative Event Counterfactual Thinking

Counterfactual thinking refers to the individuals' mental process of negating past events and conceiving another hypothetical alternative result.From the direction of production,counterfactual thinking can be divided into upword counterfactual thinking and downword counterfactual thinking.Upword counterfactual thinking means the alternative outcome is better than the real outcome.It can promote goal-directed behavior.While,downword counterfactual thinking is that the real results is better than the alternative.It has a function of self-comfort,which pleasure individuals body and mind.Previous researches have investigated the influencing factors of counterfactual thinking.Among these factors,the personality traits of the individual,such as self-esteem and big five personality have significantly affected on the production of counterfactual thinking.However,there are no studies about the effect of trait anxiety on the produce of counterfactual thinking in the existing personality-related studies.Therefore,the effect of trait anxiety on counterfactual thinking is demanded to be explored.In the present study,the questionnaire,self-report method,behavioral experiment and functional magnetic resonance imaging were applied to investigate the influence of trait anxiety on counterfactual thinking and its neural basis.The detailed process is as followsThe study one was aimed to preliminarily explore the relationship between trait anxiety and counterfactual thinking with the method of questionnaire,and found that trait anxiety was positive correlated with counterfactual thinking.In the second study,participants were required to recall negative memory and produce counterfactual thinking.The results indicated that trait anxiety was positive associated with the negative event counterfactual thinking.And the regression analysis found that the trait anxiety was a prediction variable of counterfactual thinking.The third study was to explore the different relationship across trait anxiety and upword counterfactual thinking and downword counterfactual thinking which were induced by real win-lose gambling scenarios of lucky turntable task;Finally,functional magnetic resonance imaging method was used to investigate the possible underlying substructure of the effect of trait anxiety on counterfactual thinking,and the result revealed that the functional connectivity between the lateral orbitofrontal lobe and insula played a totally mediatorial role in the effect of trait anxiety on upward counterfactual thinking.Through the above series of studies,we found that:(1)The different levels of trait anxiety lead to different intensity and quantity of counterfactual thinking in face of negative event outcomes;(2)Trait anxiety personality is one of the factors that affect counterfactual thinking;(3)Negative event counterfactual thinking can be predicted by individuals' trait anxiety level.(4)Trait anxiety has an impact on negative event counterfactual thinking by enhancing the activity and synergy of lateral orbitofrontal lobe and insula,thereby affecting the intensity of negative event counterfactual thinking.The present study not only enriches the research on the influence of personality factors on counterfactual thinking,but also provides theoretical basis for the application of counterfactual thinking in practice and the prevention and treatment of anxiety disorders in clinical practice.