Differential Effects of State and Trait Anxiety on Task Engagement

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 29, 2025, 3:00 – 5:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Ceyda Sayali¹, Emma Heling², Roshan Cools²; ¹Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, ²Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour

Cognitively demanding tasks are often perceived as costly due to the cognitive control resources they require, leading to effort avoidance, particularly in psychiatric populations with motivational impairments. Theories of cognitive effort evaluation offer conflicting predictions regarding the role of anxiety. Processing Efficiency Theory suggests that anxiety increases cognitive costs, promoting effort avoidance, whereas the Process Model of Cognitive Emotion Regulation posits that cognitively demanding tasks may serve as adaptive coping mechanisms, enhancing engagement. To reconcile these perspectives, we examined the interaction between state and trait anxiety in relation to cognitive effort evaluation and engagement. We hypothesized that state anxiety would enhance task engagement as task difficulty increased, but this effect would diminish in individuals with high trait anxiety. Experiment 1 assessed self-reported anxiety in an online sample, while Experiment 2 manipulated state anxiety through autobiographical recall. Both experiments employed flow induction and effort discounting paradigms. Results partially supported our hypothesis, revealing nuanced effects. Experiment 1 showed that participants with high trait anxiety and low state anxiety experienced enhanced flow as task difficulty increased. In contrast, Experiment 2 found that individuals with both low state and trait anxiety reported the highest flow. Separately, individuals with low state exhibited lower effort discounting scores, whereas those with low trait showed the opposite pattern. Across both experiments, flow and effort discounting were influenced by distinct factors. These findings suggest that state and trait anxiety interact with task difficulty in engagement, while trait anxiety undermines it, and flow and effort discounting are dissociable cognitive processes.

Topic Area: EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other