Anxiety

The scope of the book extends to the effects of anxiety on performance and to the phenomenon of worry, which is regarded as the cognitive component of anxiety. In both cases, a new theoretical framework is presented.
Theorists are increasingly arguing that it is fruitful to approach anxiety from the cognitive perspective, and the empirical evidence supports that contention. The cognitive perspective is also adopted for this book but the approach represents a development and extension of earlier studies. Another theme of this book is that it is of major importance to establish whether or not there is a cognitive vulnerability factor which is associated with at least some forms of clinical anxiety. It is argued, with supporting evidence, that there is a latent cognitive characterized factor for generalized anxiety disorder which manifests itself under stressful conditions. This vulnerability factor is characterized by hypervigilence, and is found predominantly in normals high up in the personality dimension of trait anzxiety.