The intolerance of uncertainty on state worry and state anxiety of college students with medium and low trait anxiety

Yingxue LI; Xiaolan FU

ABSTRACT

Objective:

To investigate the effect of intolerance of uncertainty (IU) on state worry, state anxiety, and galvanic skin response in college students with medium and low trait anxiety.

Methods:

The trait anxiety inventory (TAI) and the intolerance of uncertainty scale (IUS) were used to investigate 1 378 college students in Beijing. A total of 537 individuals with medium or low trait anxiety (TAI score ≤54) were selected, from which high IU individuals (IUS score ≤58) and low IU individuals (IUS score > 58) were selected and allocated to uncertain group ( n=28) and certain group ( n=28) according to gender, age, education level and IU score. The modified NPU paradigm task, the penn state worry questionnaire(PSWQ)and the brief state anxiety measurement(BSAM) were used to assess the subjects' worry and anxiety.The galvanic skin response of individuals completing the NPU paradigm task was recorded.SPSS 26.0 was used for a two factor analysis of variance (classification high IU, low IU; group uncertain group, certain group).

Results:

The results of the two factor analysis of variance showed that the interaction between individual state anxiety classification and group was not significant( F(1, 55)=0.05, P>0.05, η2=2.16). The main effect of classification was significant( F(1, 55)=24.17, P<0.05, η2=1143.01). The anxiety level of individuals with high IU was significantly lower than that of individuals with low IU( P<0.05). The group main effect was not significant( F(1, 55)=0.03, P>0.05, η2=1.45), and there was no significant difference between the uncertainty group and the certainty group in terms of worry( P>0.05). The interaction between individual state anxiety classification and group was significant ( F(1, 55)=4.38, P<0.05, η2=3.02). The simple analysis results showed that in the uncertain group, the state anxiety of individuals with high IU was significantly lower than that of individuals with low IU ( P<0.05). In the certain group, there was no significant difference in state anxiety between individuals with high and low IU ( P>0.05). The interaction between individual galvanic skin response classification and group was not significant ( F(1, 55)=0.03, P>0.05, η2=0.00). The classification main effect was not significant( F(1, 55)=0.07, P>0.05, η2=0.00), and there was no significant difference in skin electrical activity between individuals with high and low IU ( P>0.05). But the main effect of the group was significant( F(1, 55)=4.86, P<0.05, η2=0.03). The skin electrical activity of the uncertain group was higher than that of the certain group( P<0.05).

Conclusion:

In the college students with medium and low trait anxiety, IU is an effective predictor of individual state worry and state anxiety under uncertain conditions.