Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, Vol. 26, No. 3, September 2004 ( C  2004) Debiasing of Pessimistic Judgments Associated With Anxiety Bret G. Bentz, 1,4 Donald A. Williamson, 2 and Susan F. Franks 3 Accepted December 20, 2003 This study tested the Consider-An-Alternative debiasing procedure and its ability to reduce pessimistic judgmental predictions associated with anxiety. Study participants were randomly assigned to either a control group or a debiasing group and were asked to rate the likelihood of hypothetical events. Level of trait anxiety was assessed to assign participants to a “normal” and a highly anxious group. The results showed that the debiasing procedure was effective in the reduction of pessimistic judgmental predictions for participants with both high and “normal” levels of trait anxiety. Specifically, the generation of alternative positive information significantly reduced pessimistic predictions of future events. The results were discussed in terms of availability of information in memory and cognitive biases. KEY WORDS: judgmental bias; debiasing; anxiety; cognitive bias. Cognitive research pertaining to the development and maintenance of emotional disorders has historically focused on attentional and memory biases (Mineka & Sutton, 1992). A judgmental bias in the prediction of future negative events associated with anxiety (Bentz & Williamson, 1998; Bentz, Williamson, & Smith, 1999) and depression (Butler & Mathews, 1983; MacLeod & Byrne, 1996) has also been reported. These studies have found that the judgment of individuals with higher levels of anx- iety or depression is biased toward a pessimistic predic- tion of the likelihood of future negative events. This biased judgment of future events may be the result of the acces- sibility of similarly pessimistic information within mem- ory (Hirt & Markman, 1995; Mumma & Wilson, 1995; Vaughn & Weary, 2002). An availability heuristic explanation of a judgmental bias fits well with cognitive theories of emotional disor- ders. For example, Bower (1981), Lang (1985), and Foa and Jaycox (1999) have proposed theories which hypoth- esize that threat-related information may be encoded into 1 Department of Psychology and Philosophy, Texas Woman’s University, Denton, Texas. 2 Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 3 University of North Texas Health Sciences Center, Fort Worth, Texas. 4 To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department of Psy- chology and Philosophy, Texas Women’s University, P.O. Box 425470, Denton, Texas 76204-5470; e-mail: bbentz@twu.edu. organized systems that are easily accessed and serve to activate fear. The reduction of judgmental biases has been investi- gated in studies of risk perception, clinical judgment, and decision making. Debiasing strategies such as Consider- An-Alternative, Consider-The-Opposite, note taking, educational techniques, and exposure to life events have been studied. In general, the investigation of debiasing has supported the hypothesis that techniques that serve to activate alternative information within memory result in positive debiasing effects (Hirt & Markman, 1995; Lim & Benbasat, 1997; McKenna & Albery, 2001; Mumma & Wilson, 1995). Most studies of debiasing have focused on simple strategies, common judgmental errors, and optimistic biases in normal populations. Debiasing tech- niques have yet to be applied to a pessimistic judgmental bias associated with high levels of depression or anxiety. There is a small body of research investigating the cognitive changes that result from the treatment of emo- tional disorders (Mathews, Mogg, Kentish, & Eysenck, 1995; Mogg, Bradley, Millar, & White, 1995; Westling & Ost, 1995). These studies have shown a reduction in cognitive bias as a result of treatment. The specific com- ponent of the intervention procedures that resulted in the bias reduction has not been studied, however. The present investigation applied the Consider- An-Alternative debiasing strategy (Hirt & Markman, 1995) to the reduction of a pessimistic judgmental bias 173 0882-2689/04/0900-0173/0 C  2004 Plenum Publishing Corporation