{"doi":"10.1126/sciadv.add2976","title":"Individual differences in naturalistic learning link negative emotionality to the development of anxiety","abstract":"Organisms learn from prediction errors (PEs) to predict the future. Laboratory studies using small financial outcomes find that humans use PEs to update expectations and link individual differences in PE-based learning to internalizing disorders. Because of the low-stakes outcomes in most tasks, it is unclear whether PE learning emerges in naturalistic, high-stakes contexts and whether individual differences in PE learning predict psychopathology risk. Using experience sampling to assess 625 college students' expected exam grades, we found evidence of PE-based learning and a general tendency to discount negative PEs, an \"optimism bias.\" However, individuals with elevated negative emotionality, a personality trait linked to the development of anxiety disorders, displayed a global pessimism and learning differences that impeded accurate expectations and predicted future anxiety symptoms. A sensitivity to PEs combined with an aversion to negative PEs may result in a pessimistic and inaccurate model of the world, leading to anxiety.","journal":"Science Advances","year":2023,"id":336764,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":18,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9557,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1067691,"name":"Noah I. Kraus","orcid":"0000-0002-4927-5465","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1067692,"name":"Travis R. Reneau","orcid":"0000-0002-0211-2482","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1067693,"name":"Brittany A. Jaso","orcid":"0000-0002-3474-5639","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":329813,"name":"A. Ross Otto","orcid":"0000-0002-9997-1901","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":762011,"name":"Aaron S. Heller","orcid":"0000-0002-0680-3248","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":762009,"name":"William J. Villano","orcid":"0000-0002-2865-7165","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":118,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:10:21.947540Z","pmid":"36598977","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}