Examining When Imaginative Involvement Relates to Worry and Generalized Anxiety: Moderating Effect of Negative Affect

Despite theoretical connections between imagery and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), particularly worry, research, to date, has not supported a bivariate association between imaginative involvement and GAD/worry. This study extended existing research focused on a bivariate association by examining the moderating effect of negative affect and positive affect. This study includes a sample of U.S.-residing adults (N = 250) and a replication sample of college students (N = 484). Participants completed self-report measures, with different measures of imaginative involvement and symptom severity used across the two samples. In both samples, the association between imaginative involvement and symptom severity depended on negative affect. The magnitude of the interactive effect was small (f 2 = .05 and .02) and consistent with the magnitude of effect sizes for interactive effects typically seen in questionnaire-based studies. Regions of significance testing indicated an association between imaginative involvement and symptom severity was present only starting around and above the average negative affect score. Results across samples offered mixed support for positive affect as a moderator. Study results and future directions are discussed in terms of the potential cognitive avoidance functions of worry in response to imaginative involvement within GAD.