THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STATE ANXIETY, SOCIAL ANXIETY AND COGNITIVE BIASES IN STUDENTS: A MEDIATION MODEL
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STATE ANXIETY, SOCIAL ANXIETY AND COGNITIVE BIASES IN STUDENTS: A MEDIATION MODEL

Summary/Abstract: State anxiety, as well as social anxiety, are portrayed as common phenomena experienced by students. However, the mechanisms which lead to their development are not yet fully known. Student mental health has become a global public health issue, thus understanding its potential underlying factors is particularly relevant. As anxiety is closely connected to the way students interpret information, cognitive biases are thought to play a key role in the development and maintenance of both state and social anxiety. Therefore, the first objective of this study was to examine the relationships between cognitive biases of interpretation, state anxiety, and social anxiety. The second objective was to test a mediation model, more specifically, to test whether the relationship between state anxiety and social anxiety can be explained by cognitive biases of interpretation. 127 students (M = 21.8, SD = 3.15, 84.3% women) enrolled at the University of Bucharest completed two online scales measuring state and social anxiety, over two months, between January and February 2021. Additionally, they completed the Scrambled Sentences Test, a computerized task that assesses cognitive biases of interpretation. Results indicated a positive association between all variables, more precisely, a significant positive correlation between social anxiety and cognitive biases of interpretation (r = .512, p < .001), social anxiety and state anxiety (r = .482, p < .001), and a significant positive correlation between cognitive biases of interpretation and state anxiety (r = .348, p < .001). The mediation analysis indicated that cognitive biases partly explain the relationship between state anxiety and social anxiety. These preliminary findings have significant theoretical and practical significance regarding the importance of student mental health.

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