Integration of positive and negative affectivity and cognitive content-specificity: Improved discrimination of anxious and depressive symptoms.

In a sample of 159 psychiatric outpatient adults, negative affectivity (NA) was significantly correlated with a broad range of anxiety and depressive symptoms and was not useful for the differentiation of anxiety from depression. Low positive affectivity (PA) was significantly related only to depressive symptoms. Whereas depressive cognitions demonstrated discriminant capability, anxiety cognitions (in isolation) demonstrated nonspecificity. A...