(PS2-60) Within-person Change in Distress Tolerance and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Symptoms: A Daily Diary Study of High-neuroticism Adults

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a prevalent and disabling mental health condition characterized primarily by excessive and difficult-to-control worry. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) models typically involve helping patients to learn to tolerate images and activities related to their major sources of worry. Therefore, understanding the relationship between people’s willingness to confront uncomfortable experiences and their GAD symptoms can help to evaluate the theory underlying CBT for GAD. The present study concentrated on the within-person association between distress tolerance (DT)—willingness to engage with uncomfortable internal experiences—and GAD symptoms. Prior research has established a moderate, inverse correlation among individual differences in these constructs, but it remains unclear how they relate to one another dynamically on a within-person level. Understanding the within-person dynamics between DT and GAD symptoms over brief intervals is particularly important for clinical contexts. Undergraduate students high on trait neuroticism (N = 199; 58.8% women; 57.3% white) completed a baseline survey assessing dispositional DT and GAD symptoms. Then, participants completed daily surveys for two weeks assessing state-like DT and GAD symptoms. Data collection is complete and analyses will be preregistered; analysis is forthcoming and will be completed prior to ABCT 2024. Findings of this study have important implications for targeting DT in clinical practice and delivering DT-based interventions as a means of reducing GAD symptoms. Understanding how fluctuations in DT associate with symptoms of GAD will also add to the growing body of evidence implementing DT as a transdiagnostic within-subjects risk/protective factor for a variety of psychopathology dimensions.