PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Background: Anxiety is a prevalent mental health condition characterized by worry, fear, and avoidance behavior. Comparisons of one’s own well-being to different aversive standards may contribute to the development and maintenance of anxiety symptoms. Objectives: Accordingly, we investigated whether aversive well-being comparisons predict anxiety symptoms. We included metacognitive beliefs about worrying and external control beliefs as additional predictors. Methods: In total, 922 participants completed measures of anxiety, metacognitions about the uncontrollability of worries, external control beliefs and the Comparison Standards Scale for Well-being (CSS-W) at two timepoints, with a three-month interval between them. The CSS-W assesses the frequency, perceived discrepancy, and affective impact of social, temporal, counterfactual, and criteria-based comparisons. Results: When autoregressive effects were controlled, aversive comparison frequency, comparison affective impact, and uncontrollability of worries at the first timepoint predicted subsequent anxiety symptoms. Furthermore, well-being comparison frequency and discrepancy at the second timepoint were predicted by baseline anxiety symptoms. Conclusions: Well-being comparisons emerged as robust predictor of anxiety symptoms beyond baseline anxiety and established risk factors. Anxiety symptoms contribute distinct variance to the comparison process, pointing to a vicious cycle of symptom escalation. These findings have significant implications for research investigating the intricate interplay between well-being comparisons and anxiety.