Specificity Effects in the Modification of Interpretation Bias and Stress Reactivity

There are now a number of experimental studies showing that modification of interpretation biases can influence later emotional vulnerability. We present a series of three experiments in which the first two studies showed no such effects, apparently due to the content of training differing in certain critical respects from that of the intended target for modification: namely, coping with the experience of failure. When content of training and emotional stressor tasks were matched in Experiment Three the expected effects of bias modification on stress reactivity was evident. In other words, over the three experiments, negative emotional response due to failure in an apparently easy (but actually difficult) cognitive test was modified as expected only when training involved both content related to achievement threat and benign appraisals for failure. These results demonstrate the importance of matching the content of training to the intended target for change and have implications for transferring cognitive bias modification methods from the laboratory to clinical settings.