Cognitive processes in anxiety

Clinical reports suggest that anxiety states are associated with cognitions concerning danger. Since judgements of the risk of an event are thought to be influenced by judgemental heuristics such as availability of cognitive representations of such events, it was hypothesised that anxious individuals should overestimate subjective personal risk. This was confirmed in a comparison with matched control subjects, although patients who were also depressed as well as anxious over-estimated risks to at least the same extent. Results were interpreted as supporting an interaction between anxiety and the availability of ‘danger schemata’.