Premium
Hypomania, anxiety and the emotional Stroop
Author(s) -
French Christopher C.,
Richards Anne,
Scholfield Emma J. C.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
british journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0144-6657
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1996.tb01217.x
Subject(s) - hypomania , psychology , stroop effect , anxiety , clinical psychology , personality , bipolar disorder , mood , mania , psychiatry , cognition , social psychology
Bentall & Thompson (1990) selected participants on the basis of high, medium and low scores on the Hypomanic Personality Scale. In an emotional Stroop test, the high hypomanic participants showed interference of colour naming for depression‐related but not euphoria‐related words. The current study tests the hypothesis that the effects found were mediated by anxiety, and not hypomania as claimed. Bentall & Thompson's study was repeated but measures of state and trait anxiety were also taken. When analysis was restricted to three subgroups selected in the same manner as in Bentall & Thompson's (1990) study, the findings were very similar to those found in that study and the hypomania‐related interference effects were found to occur even when anxiety levels were taken into account. Further analyses of data from the full sample of participants supported the idea that hypomanic personality might reflect a partially successful means of coping with depressive tendencies.