The presence of a perseverative iterative style in poor vs. good sleepers

• Published in: Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry Vol. 41; no. 1; pp. 18 - 23
• Main Authors: Barclay, N.L., Gregory, A.M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.03.2010; Elsevier
• Subjects: Activity levels. Psychomotricity; Adult; Affectivity. Emotion; Aged; Analysis of Variance; Anxiety; Anxiety - epidemiology; Anxiety - psychology; Biological and medical sciences; Catastrophic reactions; Catastrophizing; Chi-Square Distribution; Cognitive; Cognitive styles; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Insomnia; Interviews as Topic; Male; Middle Aged; Personality Assessment; Personality. Affectivity; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reference Values; Self Concept; Severity of Illness Index; Sleep; Sleep problems; Sleep Wake Disorders - epidemiology; Sleep Wake Disorders - psychology; Statistics as Topic; Surveys and Questionnaires; Vigilance. Attention. Sleep; Worry; Young Adult; Cognitive; Anxiety; Sleep; Insomnia; Catastrophizing; Worry; Human; Affect affectivity; Nervous system diseases; Healthy subject; Sleep disorder; Cognition; Experimental study; Catastrophic thinking; Perseveration; Cognitive style; Neurological disorder
• ISSN: 0005-7916; 1873-7943; 1873-7943
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2009.08.003

Catastrophizing is present in worriers and poor sleepers. This study investigates whether poor sleepers possess a ‘perseverative iterative style’ which predisposes them to catastrophize any topic, regardless of content or affective valence, a style previously found to occur more commonly in worriers as compared to others. Poor (n=23) and good sleepers (n=37) were distinguished using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), from a sample of adults in the general population. Participants were required to catastrophize 2 topics: worries about sleep, and a current personal worry; and to iterate the positive aspects of a hypothetical topic. Poor sleepers catastrophized/iterated more steps to a greater extent than good sleepers to these three interviews, (F(1, 58)=7.35, p<.05). However, after controlling for anxiety and worry, this effect was reduced to non-significance for the ‘sleep’ and ‘worry’ topics, suggesting that anxiety may mediate some of the association between catastrophizing and sleep. However there was still a tendency for poor sleepers to iterate more steps to the ‘hypothetical’ topic, after controlling for anxiety and worry, which also suggests that poor sleepers possess a cognitive style which may predispose them to continue iterating consecutive steps to open-ended tasks regardless of anxiety and worry. Future research should examine whether the presence of this cognitive style is significant in leading to or maintaining insomnia.