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Date of Graduation

5-2026

Description

Anxiety and depression are among the most prevalent and debilitating mental health conditions worldwide. Research suggests that both anxiety and depression are related to deficits in the ability to focus and shift attention, known as attentional control. These effects are present in data using behavioral measures of attentional control (e.g., accuracy in resequencing alphanumeric strings) and self-report measures, though more strongly in the latter. However, studies have found little if any correlation between behavioral and self-report measures of attentional control. One possibility is that anxiety and depression are associated not only with deficits in attentional control, but also more strongly with negatively biased self-perceptions of one’s attentional control. The mismatch between self-report and behavioral measures of attentional control may be taken as a proxy for how negatively biased an individual perceives their attentional control abilities. To test the hypothesis that anxiety and depression are associated with inaccurate perceptions about attentional control abilities, I examined whether anxiety and depression were uniquely associated with the difference between self-reported attentional control and behavioral attentional control abilities (i.e., z-score of self-report minus z-score of abilities). Participants (N=121) were recruited from a psychology department research pool and were asked to complete self-report measures of anxiety, depression, and perceived attentional control, as well as a behavioral measure of attentional control. These variables were measured respectively by the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 scale (GAD-7), Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), Attentional Control Scale (ACS), and a Letter-Number Sequencing (LNS) test. In the LNS test, participants were required to repeat a series of verbally presented numbers and letters after rearranging them with numbers listed first in numerical order, followed by the letters in alphabetical order. Self-report attentional control was correlated with anxiety, r = -.21, p = .02, and depression, r = -.33, p < .001, but attentional control ability was not correlated with either anxiety, r = .04, p = .70, or depression, r = .02, p = .82. Multiple regression revealed a significant association, F(3,118) = 3.58, R2 = .29, p =.02, between negatively-biased perceptions of attentional control and depression, β = -.27, p = .02, but not anxiety, β = -.07, p = .51. There was no interaction between anxiety and depression in predicting negatively-biased perceptions of attentional control, β = .12, p = .20. The findings support a unique association between depression and negatively-biased self-perceptions about one’s ability to control attention. Anxiety was not related with biased self-perceptions after accounting for the role of depression. Evidence of anxiety and depression relating to attentional control ability deficits was not present. These findings underscore the importance of measuring abilities and perceived abilities and suggest that perhaps the latter have a more important role in anxiety and depression.

Publication Date

2026

Document Type

Book

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Psychology

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Psychological Science

Advisor/Mentor

Judah, Matt

Disciplines

Psychology

Keywords

Social Science

Attentional Control, Anxiety, and Depression

Included in

Psychology Commons

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