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Mental health and Wellbeing > Week 2 Lecture 2 - Anxiety nature, theory & processes > Flashcards

Week 2 Lecture 2 - Anxiety nature, theory & processes Flashcards

1
Q

What is anxiety?

A
  • a basic emotion
  • a personality dimension
  • a psychological disorder
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2
Q

As a basic emotion, what is anxiety?

A
  • normal response to danger or thought
  • has multiple subsystems: cognitive, behavioural, physiological
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3
Q

As a personality dimension, what is anxiety?

A
  • trait anxiety –> on which individuals vary on
  • neuroticism
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4
Q

As a psychological disorder, what is anxiety?

A

GAD, OCD, panic etc.

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5
Q

What is the nature of anxiety?

A
  • cognitive and physiological preparation for future threats
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6
Q

What is the content specificity hypothesis?

A
  • different emotions have different content of thought and coping behaviours
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7
Q

What are the 2 dimensions of state-anxiety?

A
  • cognitive (worry)
  • autonomic (emotional/ physiological)
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8
Q

What is worry?

A
  • chain of negative, repetitive thought
  • “what if” thoughts
  • future orientated
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9
Q

How is worry different to rumination?

A

ruminated is past orientated and consists of “why me” thoughts

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10
Q

Is the cognitive or emotional component of anxiety more disruptive?

A

Cognitive

Shown with experiment on test anxiety in which worry and overthinking hurt performance

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11
Q

In what ways can anxiety be a good thing?

A

e.g., in athletes –> used to enhance performance

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12
Q

How is anxiety a personality dimension?

A

people can be more prone to experiencing anxiety than others

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13
Q

What is trait anxiety?

A
  • being more prone to experiencing anxiety
  • “relatively stable individual difference in anxiety proneness”
  • positively associated with psychopathology
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14
Q

STAI-T shown to have 2 factors, what are they?

A
  • depression i.e., I feel like a failure
  • anxiety i.e., I feel nervous
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15
Q

What does trait anxiety positively correlate with?

A
  • selective attention to threat stimuli
  • increased with trait anxiety –> more attention to threat, negative thought content, worry more
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16
Q

What is the stronger prediction of attention: trait anxiety or state anxiety?

A

trait anxiety

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17
Q

What tasks is state anxiety more detrimental in?

A
  • short term memory tasks
  • dual tasks
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18
Q

The emotional Stroop Tasks was used to present spider phobic ppts with 3 word lists (emotional, neutral, spider related).

What was found?

A
  • Phobics just as fast as controls for emotional and neutral words
  • Phobics paid more attention to fear related words –> bias towards fear stimuli
19
Q

What tasks can be used to measure anxiety and attention bias?

A
  • Stroop task
  • Dot Probe task
  • Homophone Spelling
20
Q

What is the Dot Probe Task? What was one finding?

A
  • Word pairs (threat and non-threat), follow by a dot probe in the same position as one of them
  • Trait-anxious and anxious patient’s focus on threat word
21
Q

What is Homophone spelling test? What was one finding?

A
  • Listen to words with 2 alternative meanings
  • Trait-anxious write threatening word
22
Q

What are 3 explanations of attention bias for threatening stimuli in anxiety prone individuals?

A
  • Williams et al processing theory
  • Eysenck Hypervigilance theory
  • Wells & Matthews S-REF Theory
23
Q

What is Williams processing theory?

A
  • anxiety effecting automatic processing leading to bias
  • anxiety is viewed as a bottom up process
24
Q

What is Eysenck’s hypervigilance theory?

A
  • Trait anxious scan environment for threat excessively and lock onto it
  • Unclear if this theory is bottom up or top down
  • Unclear if anxiety in this model is automatic or strategic
25
What is Wells & Matthews S-REF Theory?
- anxiety associated with activation of Cognitive Attentional Syndrome (CAS) - CAS involves self-focus, worry, monitoring for threat and ironic coping responses (bias is a consequence of coping strategy) - bottom up and top down approach
26
How does S-REF try and explain how trait anxiety and emotion are linked?
- differences between disorders are less important than the similarities - metacognitive beliefs as a central factor in state/trait emotion and mechanism? - Metacognitive beliefs predicted proneness to both domains of trait anxiety - metacognitive beliefs may be an underlying mechanism of vulnerability attributed to trait-anxiety
27
When is anxiety a disorder?
- interferes with functioning - is prolonged/ excessive - impairs quality of life
28
In the DSM 5, what are the 3 chapters of anxiety disorders?
- anxiety disorders - OCD and related disorders - Trauma and stress related disorders
29
What are some examples of anxiety disorders?
- separation anxiety - social anxiety disorder - panic attack -GAD
30
What is a specific phobia?
- cluster around animals or objects
31
What is a panic attack?
- sudden increase in anxiety - symptoms: increased HR, sweating, dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath - immediate sense of catastrophe
32
What is GAD?
characterised by excessive worry
33
What are some examples of OCD and related disorders?
- OCD -BDD - substance induced OCD - Hoarding
34
What are some examples of trauma and stress disroders?
- reactive attachment disorder - PTSD - ASD - adjustment disorders
35
What is acute stress disorder?
- within 4 weeks of exposure to trauma - symptoms e.g., memory difficulties, increased arousal - normal response - decreases within 4 weeks - if difficulties persist then PTSD
36
What is PTSD?
- occurs after a trauma (experienced, witnessed) - multiple types DSM 5 criteria: - recurrent memories, flashbacks, marked physiological reactions - avoidance - alternation in cognition and mood associated with trauma
37
What is social anxiety disorder (SAD)?
- fear of performance or social situations in which a person in subject to scrutiny - exposure almost invariably causes anxiety - the situation is avoided or endured with intense distress - common symptoms: sweating, shaking, blushing, blank mind, fear of humiliation
38
What are 2 clinical models of SAD?
- Social skills deficit - cognitive behaviour model (Clark and Wells)
39
What is a social skills deficit?
- little support - patients lack social skills like conversation skills or assertiveness
40
What is the cognitive behaviour model (C&W)?
- draws on Beck's schema theory and cognitive model by Wells - Coping responses and cognitive processes not deficits are central to anxiety maintenance - model distinguishes between vulnerability factors and in situation factors - assumed the person with social anxiety has underlying beliefs about social world - this leads to negative thoughts in social situations - safety behaviours also important aspect
41
According to Clark and Wells Model, why doesn't social anxiety self correct?
- self-focused attention - processing of inner image - safety behaviours and avoidance - anticipatory processing - the post mortem
42
What are safety behaviours?
- behaviours to try and help stay in an anxiety - provoking situation - less likely to get positive feedback - individuals using safety behaviours can come across as withdrawn, cold, unfriendly - safety behaviours contaminate social situation and maintain cognitive and somatic situations
43
What is anticipatory processing?
- happens before entering feared situation - hours or days ahead - difficulty in having an experience that challenges negativity
44
What is post mortem?
- upon leaving a feared situation - ruminate and analyze their performance - reinforces negative inner image even if the interaction was positive - rumination biases cognition and maintains anxiety

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