Cognitive processes predict worry and anxiety under different stressful situations

Worry, a stream of negative thoughts about the future, is maintained by poor attentional control, and the tendency to attend to negative information (attention bias) and interpret ambiguity negatively (interpretation bias). Memories that integrate negative interpretations (interpretation-memory) may also contribute to worry, but this remains unexplored. We aimed to investigate how these cognitive processes are associated with worry and anxiety cross-sectionally (Phase 1), and then explore which cognitive processes from Phase 1 would predict worry and anxiety during times of high stress, namely prior to examinations (Phase 2), and after the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (Phase 3). Worry, anxiety, and cognitive processes were assessed in an undergraduate sample (N = 64). We found that whilst greater benign interpretation bias and benign interpretation-memory bias were associated with lower levels of concurrent worry and anxiety, only interpretation bias explained unique variance in worry and anxiety. No cognitive predictor significantly explained unique variance in prospective worry and anxiety prior to examinations. In relation to anxiety and worry during the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, both benign attention bias and benign interpretation-memory bias predicted decreased worry; only benign attention bias predicted decreased anxiety. Findings suggest that cognitive processes can predict changes in worry and anxiety during future stressful contexts. •The study explored cognitive predictors of worry and anxiety.•Memory of interpretations of ambiguity was assessed.•Offline interpretation bias was the key contributor to concurrent worry and anxiety.•Benign attention & interpretation-memory predicted less worry during COVID-19.•Benign attention bias predicted less anxiety during COVID-19.