Background and objectives

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is an individual difference factor that reflects difficulty tolerating emotional distress in the context of uncertainty and is a robust transdiagnostic risk factor for emotional disorders. A limitation of prior research on IU is the heavy reliance on self-report measures to assess this construct. The aim of the present study was to examine the validity of a brief, computerized anagram task modified to assess IU (the PACT Anagram Task; PAT).

Methods

Participants were 221 unselected undergraduate students (71% female; M_age = 19; 89% Caucasian) who completed the PAT and a series of self-report measures of convergent, discriminant, and incremental validity, and measures of anxiety and depression symptoms online for course credit.

Results

Greater PAT-Distress was positively correlated measures of convergent validity and demonstrated incremental validity in relation to self-reported IU above and beyond attentional control. None of the PAT indicators were associated with compassion or empathic concern, evidencing discriminant validity. PAT-Distress and PAT-Answers were each associated with greater worry above and beyond self-reported IU.

Limitations

Study limitations include the cross-sectional design and lack of diversity in terms of sample demographics. Furthermore, we did not examine convergence between this task and other behavioral measures of IU.

Conclusion

Subjective distress following completion of the PAT may serve as one indicator of IU. Further research is needed in order to replicate these results and validate the use of the PAT in clinical samples.

中文翻译：

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不确定性不容忍度评估：修改字谜任务的验证

背景和目标

不确定性不耐受 (IU) 是一种个体差异因素，反映了在不确定性背景下难以忍受情绪困扰，并且是情绪障碍的强大跨诊断风险因素。先前对 IU 研究的局限性是严重依赖自我报告措施来评估这一结构。本研究的目的是检查经过修改以评估 IU 的简短计算机化字谜任务（PACT 字谜任务；PAT）的有效性。

方法

参与者是 221 名未选择的本科生（71% 女性；M_年龄 = 19；89% 白种人），他们完成了 PAT 和一系列收敛性、判别性和增量有效性的自我报告测量，以及在线焦虑和抑郁症状的测量课程学分。

结果

更大的 PAT-Distress 是收敛效度的正相关度量，并证明了与自我报告的 IU 相关的增量效度，超出了注意力控制。没有一个 PAT 指标与同情心或同理心相关，证明了区分效度。PAT-Distress 和 PAT-Answers 都与比自我报告的 IU 更大的担忧有关。

限制

研究的局限性包括横断面设计和样本人口统计数据缺乏多样性。此外，我们没有检查此任务与 IU 的其他行为测量之间的收敛性。

结论

完成 PAT 后的主观痛苦可以作为 IU 的一个指标。需要进一步研究以复制这些结果并验证 PAT 在临床样本中的使用。