Elsevier

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

The looming maladaptive style predicts shared variance in feet disorder symptoms: farther support for a cognitive model of vulnerability to anxiety

Abstract

Looming vulnerability pertains to a distinct cognitive phenomenology characterized by mental representations of dynamically intensifying danger and rapidly rising risk as one projects the self into an predictable futurity [J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 79 (2000) 837]. While looming appraisals can be experienced equally state elicitation, some individuals are hypothesized to develop an enduring cognitive design of cross-situational looming appraisals, the looming maladaptive style (LMS), which functions as a cerebral vulnerability to feet. In the present study, we examined the extent to which the LMS predicts mutual variance in numerous anxiety disorder symptoms, independent of the potentially confounding furnishings of current depressive symptoms. Specifically, we hypothesized that decision-making for depressive symptoms, LMS would predict shared variance in a latent factor comprised of indicators of five feet disorder symptoms: obsessive–compulsive disorder, mail service-traumatic stress disorder, generalized feet disorder, social phobia, and specific phobic fears. Measures of these feet disorder symptoms, depressive symptoms, and looming vulnerability were administered to unselected college student population. Structural equations modeling analyses provided support for our hypothesis that LMS predicts shared variance in anxiety disorder symptoms and propose that this cognitive style may be an overarching dimension of vulnerability to anxiety.

Section snippets

The looming maladaptive style

Although looming appraisals of threat can exist experienced simply as a state elicitation, they can also develop into a more durable cognitive pattern. Riskind and colleagues (2000) proposed the looming maladaptive style (LMS) as a broad and pervasive cognitive pattern to cross-situationally assess threat as chop-chop rise in hazard, progressively worsening, or actively accelerating and speeding up. The LMS is conceptualized equally a schema-driven, evolutionarily based process of threat/impairment appraisal

Present written report

While previous studies accept provided mounting evidence for the construct validity of LMS, ane tenet of the looming vulnerability model has not yet been directly tested: That LMS represents an overarching cognitive vulnerability that is common to feet and anxiety disorder symptoms, simply not low. In the nowadays report the extent to which LMS predicted common variance in numerous anxiety disorder symptoms (e.g., obsessive–compulsive symptoms, post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms,

Participants and procedure

One hundred and twenty-three students (92 females and 31 males) at a various urban academy who ranged in age from 18 to 33 (M=19.lxxx, S.D.=2.68) participated in this report in exchange for course credit. The bulk of participants described themselves as Caucasian (62%), only a variety of other racial groups participated such that the sample provided an acceptable representation of the student population.

Participants were assembled in pocket-size groups of 10–12 persons and asked to complete a

Information analysis

Our hypotheses were tested using SEM (Hoyle & Smith, 1994), with the AMOS 4.01 program and the Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation process. Model fit was examined via several common indices: χii index, Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI; Bentler & Bonett, 1980), Comparative Fit Alphabetize (CFI; Bentler, 1990) and the Root Mean Foursquare Fault of Approximation (RMSEA; Steiger, 1980). Model comparison was conducted via the Chi-Square Departure Test (CSDT).

The model tested herein involves three latent variables:

Give-and-take

In the present study, our main purpose was to examine the supposition that the cognitive phenomenology of looming vulnerability underlies the mutual features of numerous anxiety disorder symptoms. Specifically, we hypothesized that the LMS would predict a latent factor comprised of indicators of five feet disorder symptoms: obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), mail-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), fear of negative evaluation (FNE), and specific phobic

Acknowledgements

The authors express gratitude to the bearding reviewers who provided extremely useful feedback on this manuscript.

References (62)

  • et al.

    Validity of the Social Avoidance and Distress and Fearfulness of Negative Evaluation Scales

    Behaviour Research and Therapy

    (1987)

  • E. Sanavio

    Obsessions and compulsions: the Padua Inventory

    Behaviour Enquiry and Therapy

    (1988)

  • J.H. Riskind et al.

    Using mental imagery with subclinical OCD to "freeze" contamination in its place: bear witness for looming vulnerability theory

    Behaviour Research and Therapy

    (1997)

  • J.H. Riskind et al.

    The looming of spiders: the fearful perceptual distortion of movement and menace

    Beliefs Research and Therapy

    (1995)

  • J.H. Riskind et al.

    Looming vulnerability to spreading contamination in subclinical OCD

    Behaviour Research and Therapy

    (1997)

  • T.P. Oei et al.

    The reliability, validity, and utility of the SAD and FNE scales for anxiety disorder patients

    Personality and Individual Differences

    (1991)

  • R.J. McNally et al.

    Anxiety sensitivity in agoraphobics

    Journal of Beliefs Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry

    (1987)

  • A. Mathews et al.

    Selective processing of threat cues in anxiety states

    Behaviour Research and Therapy

    (1985)

  • J.H. Geer

    The development of a scale to measure fright

    Behaviour Research and Therapy

    (1965)

  • A.T. Brook et al.

    Psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory: 25 years of evaluation

    Clinical Psychology Review

    (1988)

  • Alloy, L. B., Abramson, L. Y., Raniere, D., & Dyller, I. (1999). Research methods in developed psychopathology. In: P. C....
  • Alloy, Fifty. B., Kelly, Thou. A., Mineka, S., & Clements, C. One thousand. (1990). Comorbidity in anxiety and depressive disorders: a...
  • J.C. Anderson et al.

    Structural Equation Modeling in practice: a review and recommended 2-step approach

    Psychological Message

    (1988)

  • D.H. Barlow

    Unraveling the mysteries of anxiety and its disorders from the perspective of emotion theory

    American Psychologist

    (2000)

  • A.T. Beck

    Cognitive models of depression

    Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: An International Quarterly

    (1987)

  • Beck, A. T., & Emery, G. (1985). Anxiety disorders and phobias: a cerebral perspective. New York: Bones...
  • A.T. Beck et al.

    An inventory for measuring clinical feet: psychometric properties

    Periodical of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

    (1988)

  • Brook, A. T., Steer, R., & Brown, G. Thou. (1996). Manual for the Brook Depression Inventory-Two. San Antonio, TX:...
  • R. Beck et al.

    Cognitive content-specificity for feet and depression: a meta-analysis

    Cognitive Therapy and Research

    (2001)

  • P.K. Bentler

    Comparative gear up indexes in structural models

    Psychological Bulletin

    (1990)

  • P.G. Bentler et al.

    Significance tests and goodness-of-fit in the analysis of covariance structures

    Psychological Message

    (1980)

  • A.G. Billings et al.

    Social-environmental factors in unipolar depression: comparisons of depressed patients and nondepressed controls

    Journal of Abnormal Psychology

    (1983)

  • T.A. Brownish et al.

    Structural relationships amongst dimensions of the DSM-IV anxiety and mood disorders and dimensions of negative touch, positive affect, and autonomic arousal

    Periodical of Abnormal Psychology

    (1998)

  • Byrne, B. Thousand. (1989). A primer for LISREL. New York:...
  • D.M. Clark et al.

    Misinterpretations of body sensations in panic disorder

    Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

    (1997)

  • L.A. Clark et al.

    Tripartite model of anxiety and low: psychometric evidence and taxonomic implications

    Journal of Abnormal Psychology

    (1991)

  • B.J. Cox et al.

    A comparing of social phobia outcome measures in cognitive-behavioral group therapy

    Beliefs Modification

    (1998)

  • E.B. Foa et al.

    The Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory (PTCI): development and validation

    Psychological Assessment

    (1999)

  • J. Garber et al.

    What can specificity designs say near causality in psychopathology research?

    Psychological Bulletin

    (1991)

  • Heimburg, R. (in printing). Cognitive vulnerability to social phobia. In: Fifty. B. Alloy & J. H. Riskind (Eds.), Cognitive...
  • R.H. Hoyle et al.

    Formulating clinical inquiry hypotheses as structural equation models: a conceptual overview

    Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

    (1994)

  • Cited past (53)

    • A consideration of select pre-trauma factors as key vulnerabilities in PTSD

      2012, Clinical Psychology Review

      Looming cognitive style refers to the trend for individuals to pervasively predict threat in the environment combined with the sense that this threat is rapidly increasing (due east.g., Reardon & Williams, 2007). Ii studies bespeak that self-report of greater looming cognitive style is modestly associated with PTSD symptoms (Reardon & Williams, 2007; Williams, Shahar, Riskind, & Joiner, 2005). Research documenting information processing biases in PTSD also supports the looming cognitive way hypothesis.

    • Psychopathy and looming cognitive style: Moderation by attentional command

      2012, Personality and Individual Differences

      The predictive ability of LCS has been repeatedly demonstrated. It predicts the shared variance of diverse anxiety symptoms (Williams, Shahar, Riskind, & Joiner, 2005), anxiety but not depressive symptoms ameliorate than other cognitive predictors (Reardon & Williams, 2007), and curt-fourth dimension change (1 week) in anxiety symptoms, fifty-fifty afterwards decision-making for low and intolerance of doubtfulness (Riskind, Tzur, Williams, Mann, & Shahar, 2007). In addition to its high predictive ability for anxiety, in that location is a reason to expect a relation between psychopathy and LCS.

    View all citing manufactures on Scopus
    View full text