Synonyms
Definition
Anxiety disorders are a class of mental health conditions that include persistent and excessive feelings of anxiety or fear as a core feature (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013). Anxiety is typically associated with feelings of unease, restlessness, or concern about a future threat (APA 2013). Fear is typically associated with a state of arousal in response to an immediate threat, either real or perceived (APA 2013).
Introduction
Anxiety is typically associated with unease, restlessness, or concern about the possibility of a future threat (APA 2013). In some instances the threat may be vague, unknown, or unidentifiable (Ranchman 2009). Fear is a response to an immediate object or situation that is threatening, or that an individual perceives to be threatening (APA 2013). Although the two are connected, fear is roused in response to an imminent threat and wanes once the threat is removed, whereas anxiety...
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Anxiety disorders. In Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington: American Psychiatric Publishing.
Bateson, M., Brilot, B., & Nettle, D. (2011). Anxiety: An evolutionary approach. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 56, 707–715.
Blanchard, D. C., Griebel, G., Probbe, R., & Blanchard, R. J. (2011). Risk assessment as an evolved threat detection and analysis process. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 35, 991–998. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.10.016.
Boyer, P., & Bergstrom, B. (2011). Threat-detection in child development: An evolutionary perspective. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 35, 1034–1041. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.08.010.
Bracha, S. (2004). Freeze, flight, fight, fright, faint: Adaptationist perspectives on the acute stress response spectrum. CNS Spectrums, 9, 679–685.
Burman, O. H. P., Parker, R. M. A., Paul, E. S., & Mendl, M. T. (2009). Anxiety-induced cognitive bias in non-human animals. Physiology & Behavior, 98, 345–350. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2009.06.012.
Cannon, W. B. (1929). Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear and rage: An account of recent researches into the function of emotional excitement. New York: D. Appleton and Company.
Eilam, D., Izhar, R., & Mort, J. (2011). Threat detection: Behavioral practices in animals and humans. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 35, 999–1006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.08.002.
Eysenck, M. W., Mogg, K., May, J., Richards, A., & Mathews, A. (1991). Bias in interpretation of ambiguous sentences related to threat in anxiety. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100, 144–150. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.100.2.144.
Green, D. M., & Swets, J. A. (1966). Signal detection theory and psycho-physics. New York: Wiley.
Hinds, A. L., Woody, E. Z., Drandic, A., Schmidt, L. A., Van Ameringen, M., Coroneos, M., & Szechtman, H. (2010). The psychology of potential threat: Properties of the security motivation systems. Biological Psychology, 85, 331–337. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2010.08.003.
Kessler, R. C., Chiu, W. T., Demler, O., & Walters, E. E. (2005). Prevalence, severity, and comorbidity of 12-month DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62, 617–627. https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.62.6.617.
Lee, W. E., Wadsworth, M. E. J., & Hotopf, M. (2006). The protective role of trait anxiety: A longitudinal study. Psychological Medicine, 36, 345–351. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291705006847.
Marks, I. M. (1987). Fears, Phobias, and Rituals. New York: Oxford University Press.
Marks, I. M., & Nesse, R. M. (1994). Fear and fitness: An evolutionary analysis of anxiety disorders. Ethology and Sociobiology, 15, 247–261. https://doi.org/10.1016/0162-3095(94)90002-7.
Mykletun, A., Bjerkeset, O., Øverland, S., Prince, M., Dewey, M., & Stewart, R. (2009). Levels of anxiety and depression as predictors of mortality: The HUNT study. British Journal of Psychiatry, 195, 118–125. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.108.054866.
Neeleman, J., Wessely, S., & Wadsworth, M. (1998). Predictors of suicide, accidental death, and premature natural death in a general-population birth cohort. Lancet, 351, 93–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(97)06364-2.
Nesse, R. M. (1990). Evolutionary explanations of emotions. Human Nature, 1, 261–289. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02733986
Nesse, R. M. (1999). Proximate and evolutionary studies of anxiety. Neuroscience and Biobehavioural Reviews, 23, 895–903. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0149-7634(99)00023-8.
Nesse, R. M. (2001). The smoke detector principle: Natural selection and the regulation of defensive responses. Annals New York Academy of Sciences, 935, 75–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2004.08.002.
Nesse, R. M., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2009). Evolution, emotions, and emotional disorders. American Psychologist, 64, 129–139. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013503.
Neuberg, S. L., Kenrick, D. T., & Schaller, M. (2011). Human threat management systems: Selfprotection and disease avoidance. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 35, 1042–1051. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.08.011.
Öhman, A. (2008). Fear and anxiety: Overlaps and dissociations. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones, & L. F. Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotion (pp. 709–729). New York: Guilford Press.
Ranchman, S. J. (2009). Psychological treatment of anxiety: The evolution of behavior therapy and cognitive behavior therapy. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 5, 97–119. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.032408.153635.
Richards, A., French, C. C., Calder, A. J., Webb, B., Fox, R., & Young, A. W. (2002). Anxiety-related bias in the classification of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions. Emotion, 2, 273–287. https://doi.org/10.1037//1528-3542.2.3.273.
Shah, A. A., & Han, J. Y. (2015). Anxiety. Continuum, 21, 772–782. https://doi.org/10.1212/01.CON.0000466665.12779.dc.
Spielberger, C. D. (1966). Theory and research on anxiety. In C. D. Spielberger (Ed.), Anxiety and behavior (pp. 3–20). New York: Academic.
Szechtman, H. & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-compulsive disorder as a disorder of security motivation. Psychological Review, 111, 111–127. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.111.111
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. Z. (2006). Obsessive-compulsive disorder as a disturbance of security motivation: Constraints on comorbidity. Neurotoxicity, 10, 103–112. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03033239.
Trower, P., & Gilbert, P. (1989). New theoretical conceptions of social anxiety and social phobia. Clinical Psychology Review, 9, 19–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/0272-7358(89)90044-5.
Woody, E. Z., & Szechtman, H. (2011). Adaptation to potential threat: The evolution, neurobiology, and psychopathology of the security motivation system. Neuroscience and Bioehavioral Reviews, 35, 1019–1033. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.08.003.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Petterson, L.J. (2018). Anxiety Disorders. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_692-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_692-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences