Is Self-Criticism Uniquely Associated with Health Anxiety among Jewish and Arab Israeli Young Adults?

Self-criticism constitutes an important risk factor to psychopathology. However, it has never been investigated in the context of health anxiety. The authors examined the role of self-criticism in health anxiety in Arab and Israeli young adults, while controlling for known predictors of health anxiety -- anxiety sensitivity, depression, major and minor stressful events, and alexithymia -- and related outcomes (e.g., reassurance seeking, avoidance). Both main effects and stress-diathesis patterns involving self-criticism were hypothesized. Measures of the above variables were administered to 111 Arabs and 194 Jews (age range: 29-33) via the online Qualtrics system, and General Linear Modeling analyses were conducted to test our hypotheses. A main, but not stress-diathesis, effect of self-criticism on symptoms of health anxiety was found. The findings highlight the potential involvement of self-criticism in health anxiety, but caution against stress-diathesis explanations of this involvement.