Studies have demonstrated that activating self-evaluative knowledge structures, or self-beliefs, can induce negative affective syndromes such as anxiety and dysphoria. These findings hold the potential for a new generation of cognitive theory in anxiety integrating the role of anxiogenic self-beliefs in vulnerability to generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).
The aim of the proposal is to determine how anxiogenic self- beliefs, as self-evaluative knowledge structures, underlie the tendency for individuals vulnerable to generalized anxiety to experience neutral situations as threatening or dangerous. The importance of a cognitive/motivational approach to generalized anxiety is addressed by examining 2 related issues: (a) characteristics of generalized anxiety disorder suggesting the operation of self-evaluative cognition, and (b) evidence for the association of motivationally significant self-knowledge with anxiety. A model of anxiogenic self- beliefs is presented based on self-discrepancy theory. The model's central proposition is that the self-belief knowledge structures associated with vulnerability to GAD are multifaceted, involving representations of semantic knowledge, mood, arousal, and behavior. The structures are hypothesized to reside in memory, to operate automatically and implicitly, and to serve as templates for interpreting life events.A program of research to investigate anxiogenic self-beliefs is presented. The research consists of three study designs, each of which will be conducted in both analog and clinically-diagnosed samples. For each design, the clinical investigation will replicate and initial analog study using GAD subjects and 2 comparison groups (depressed and nonpsychiatric controls). The studies will address the critical issues raised by the proposal: (1) Do the self-belief patterns of anxious subjects manifest the features that the model postulates? (2) Can anxiogenic self-beliefs be activated automatically, i.e., without the intention or awareness of the subject? (3) Are anxiogenic self-beliefs also activated by nonverbal (visceral and visual) cues? The studies to be conducted will facilitate the emergence of a new, integrative generation of cognitive theory in anxiety and related psychiatric disorders.
| Strauman, T J; Lemieux, A M; Coe, C L (1993) Self-discrepancy and natural killer cell activity: immunological consequences of negative self-evaluation. J Pers Soc Psychol 64:1042-52 |
