The influence of certainty and probability on emotional and behavioral reactions within weather anxiety.

With the climate continually changing, the interaction between weather and mental health is expected to grow. Weather anxiety and its associated safety behaviors are common experiences that can reach distressing, debilitating, and clinically significant levels. Models of anxiety disorders suggest that cognitive and perceptual biases related to threat probability often contribute to and maintain anxiety, yet this has not been investigated within weather anxiety or its associated safety behaviors. The current study aimed to investigate the effects of severe weather probabilities across visual and written modalities on anxiety, worry, and safety behaviors in those with elevated weather anxiety and safety behavior use. Participants were shown three images and three texts that displayed lower, medium, and higher risk probabilities for severe weather and were asked to rate anxiety, worry, and safety behaviors in response to each level of probability. Results suggested that those with increased weather-related anxiety and safety behaviors displayed less flexibility in anxiety and expected safety behavior use across varying levels of threat probability, relative to those lower in anxiety and safety behavior use. These results support the application of cognitive biases as potential maintenance factors of weather anxiety, a condition that has a significant lack of investigation. Clinical implications and limitations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]