TY - JOUR
T1 - The relation between anxious personality traits and fear generalization in healthy subjects
T2 - A systematic review and meta-analysis
AU - Sep, Milou S.C.
AU - Steenmeijer, Anna
AU - Kennis, Mitzy
N1 - Funding Information: This research was supported by the Dutch Ministry of Defence . Milou Sep is supported by a personal grant, which is part of Graduate Program project #022.003.003 from The Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research. The sponsors had no involvement in the presented research. Publisher Copyright: © 2019 The Authors
PY - 2019/12
Y1 - 2019/12
N2 - Background: Anxious personality characteristics form a risk factor for anxiety disorders. A proposed mechanistic pathway is that anxious personality could lead to greater vulnerability by increasing fear generalization. Here, we investigate if there is evidence for this relationship before the onset of pathological anxiety, with a meta-analysis in healthy subjects. Methods: Our search (anxious personality & fear generalization) was performed in PubMed, PsychInfo, and Embase and via snowballing. Results: In total, 4892 studies were screened and 19 studies (1348 participants) were included in the current review (meta-analysis: 18 studies, 1310 participants). The meta-analysis showed a significant, small, positive relationship between anxious personality and fear generalization (r =.19, 95%CI [.126,.260], p <.001). No moderators of the relationship were identified. Conclusions: The identified robust relation suggests that people who score high on anxious personality have a somewhat stronger tendency to generalize fear to safe or novel situations. This might explain their vulnerability to anxiety disorders mechanistically, yet future (prospective) studies are warranted to confirm the hypothesized directionality of this effect.
AB - Background: Anxious personality characteristics form a risk factor for anxiety disorders. A proposed mechanistic pathway is that anxious personality could lead to greater vulnerability by increasing fear generalization. Here, we investigate if there is evidence for this relationship before the onset of pathological anxiety, with a meta-analysis in healthy subjects. Methods: Our search (anxious personality & fear generalization) was performed in PubMed, PsychInfo, and Embase and via snowballing. Results: In total, 4892 studies were screened and 19 studies (1348 participants) were included in the current review (meta-analysis: 18 studies, 1310 participants). The meta-analysis showed a significant, small, positive relationship between anxious personality and fear generalization (r =.19, 95%CI [.126,.260], p <.001). No moderators of the relationship were identified. Conclusions: The identified robust relation suggests that people who score high on anxious personality have a somewhat stronger tendency to generalize fear to safe or novel situations. This might explain their vulnerability to anxiety disorders mechanistically, yet future (prospective) studies are warranted to confirm the hypothesized directionality of this effect.
KW - Anxiety disorders
KW - Fear conditioning
KW - Fear generalization
KW - Meta-analysis
KW - Personality
KW - Trait anxiety
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85072617549&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.09.029
DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.09.029
M3 - Review article
C2 - 31557547
SN - 0149-7634
VL - 107
SP - 320
EP - 328
JO - Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
JF - Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
ER -