L4: Anxiety, Social Anxiety Flashcards
What are the three interrelated anxiety systems?
Physical, cognitive and behavioural.
How does normal anxiety differ from abnormal anxiety?
The experience is the same. Abnormal anxiety differs in its intensity, frequency, or in the situations that elicit it.
List the three elements in the physical anxiety system.
- sympathetic nervous system initiates fight or flight response
- body mobilises resources to deal with threat
- symptoms: pounding heart, rapid breathing, trembling, sweating
LIst three elements of the cognitive anxiety system.
- perception of threat
- attention shift and hypervigilance
- difficulty concentrating on any other information
List two elements of the behavioural anxiety system.
- avoidance/escape
- aggression
What three types of situations are likely to elicit normal anxiety?
- realistic/objective threat to self. (can be threat of physical or social harm).
- biologically significant stimuli. E.g. snakes, spiders, anger, heights,
- novel stimuli
What two calculations is expectancy of harm a product of?
- perceived probability of aversive event
- perceived cost of aversive event
What three types of past learning can produce these negative expectancies?
- experience/learning. conditioning.
- observational learning
- instruction
What individual differences are there in anxiety?
- Trait anxiety differs across individuals -> tendency to perceive threat in ambiguous situations, and the extent to which anxiety response is activated.
- specific fears differ across individuals
In what two ways do abnormally anxious people overestimate the threat in a situation?
Overestimating the probability or cost of an outcome.
- Physical threats - objectively costly, but the probability is overestimated.
- Social threats - more like to actually occur, but the cost is overestimated.
What are anxiety disorders co-morbid with?
Each other, depression, substance abuse.
What are the two generalised biological vulnerabilities to anxiety disorders?
- neuroticism
- genetic loadings predisposing to anxiety specifically
What are the two generalised psychological vulnerabilities to anxiety disorder?
- high trait anxiety
- low perceived control
- both increase vulnerability to anxiety disorders and depression
What are the specific psychological vulnerabilities to anxiety, and how are these acquired?
- Focus of threat-related beliefs
- these acquired through direct experience, observation or instruction.
What 7 anxiety disorders are listed in the DSM-5?
- Separation Anxiety Disorder (child or adult)
- Selective Mutism
- Specific Phobia
- Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia)
- Panic Disorder
- Agoraphobia
- Generalised Anxiety Disorder
