Avoidance and psychopathology: A study through an experimental task and its relation with self-report measures

Abstract

When studying avoidance in psychopathology, three dimensions stand out: cognitive, behavioral and experiential. However, research has been conducted primarily using self-report measures. In this study, an avoidance task was designed that consisted of presenting visual stimuli from the IAPS (International Affective Picture System. Lang, Bradley and Cuthbert, 2005), and studying relationships with the following measures: CBAS, AAQ-II, MAAS, BAI y BDI-II. The study was conducted with a clinical sample of patients with anxiety disorders, depressive disorders and borderline personality disorder (N = 100), and a general population sample (N = 100).  The results revealed significantly higher avoidance levels in the clinical sample than in the control group when performing the task. In both groups, a correlation was found between avoidance and the symptomatology of anxiety and depression. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed and recommendations for future investigation are given.