Prediction of Changes in Negative Affect During the COVID-19 Pandemic by Experimental Fear Conditioning and Generalization Measures

Adverse experiences interact with individual vulnerability in the etiology of mental disorders, but due to the paucity of longitudinalstudies, their precise interplay remains unclear. Here, we investigated how individual differences in threat responsiveness modulated ad-justments in negative affect during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants (N= 441) underwent a fear conditioning and generalization experimentbetween 2013 and 2020 and were reassessed regarding anxiety and depression symptoms after the pandemic outbreak. Participants showedincreased levels of negative affect following pandemic onset, which were partly modulated by laboratory measures of threat responsiveness.Decreased differentiation of threat and safety signals in participants with higher prepandemic depression and anxiety scores in the laboratoryassessment were most predictive of increased symptom levels after the onset of the pandemic. However, effects were small and should bereplicated in independent samples to further characterize how individual differences in threat processing interact with adverse experiences inthe development of psychopathology.