116 COGNITIVE THEORY AND RESEARCH ON ANXIETY
Hypothesis 12: Enduring Threat- Related Beliefs
Individuals vulnerable to anxiety can be distinguished from nonvulnerable persons by
preexisting maladaptive schemas (i.e., beliefs) about particular threats or dangers and
associated personal vulnerability that remain inactive until triggered by relevant life
experiences or stressors.
The cognitive model of anxiety (see Chapter 2) considers automatic activation of
the primal threat mode a central process in the experience of anxiety. Threat mode
activation sets in motion the symptoms that constitute a state of anxiety. Moreover, the
dysfunctional beliefs or schemas that comprise the primal threat model are personal
and quite idiosyncratic to each individual. They are primarily learned through various
positive or negative experiences of threat or danger that occurred to self or significant
others. As such they are enduring representations of threat, which in the anxiety dis-
orders are often excessive, biased and maladaptive. These dysfunctional threat- related
schemas will result in exaggerated appraisals of the probability and severity of threat,
underestimate personal coping ability, and minimize the presence of safety (Beck et al.,
1985, 2005).
In the cognitive model threat- relevant schemas constitute the core cognitive vulner-
ability for anxiety. The threat schemas of the anxiously vulnerable person are not only
qualitatively different from those of the nonvulnerable person in terms of containing
misinformation and bias about particular threats, but they are also “prepotent” in that
a broader range of less intense stimuli will activate the schemas. For example, most
people feel some anxiety before giving a public address that reflects activation of beliefs
such “It is important that I do a good job” and “I expect the audience will be recep-
tive.” However, the person vulnerable to social anxiety might feel intense anxiety when
asked a question in a work- related meeting because of activation of schemas like “I can’t
speak-up, people will notice that my voice is trembly,” “They’ll think there is something
wrong with me,” “They’ll assume I must have an anxiety problem—a mental illness.”
In comparison to the nonvulnerable person, the individual with social anxiety has more
extreme, exaggerated schemas that lead to an exaggerated appraisal of the danger. Also
notice that a much less threatening situation triggers the threat schemas of the socially
anxious person. In this way the schematic representations of threat in the vulnerable
person are prepotent or hypervalent, leading to more frequent and intense activation.
Unlike the nonvulnerable person, activation of certain threat schemas in the vulnerable
person will tend to capture much of the information- processing resources so that the
more constructive schemas become relatively inaccessible to the person.
Empirical Evidence
Is there any evidence that threat- relevant beliefs or schemas constitute an enduring cog-
nitive predisposition for clinical anxiety states? We have already reviewed a consid-
erable amount of empirical evidence that is consistent with a schema-based cognitive
vulnerability to anxiety. In the previous chapter numerous studies by MacLeod, Mogg,
Bradley, Mathews, and others found that nonclinical individuals with high trait anxiety
had an attentional processing bias for threat, especially under conditions of stress (see
reviews by Mathews & MacLeod, 1994, 2002, 2005; Mogg & Bradley, 1998). The con-