The Cognitive Model of Anxiety 47
proportional to perceived estimate of danger. Thus the greater the appraised danger,
the more likely that increased autonomic arousal will be given a threatening interpreta-
tion. Highly anxious individuals often experience heightened physiological arousal as
an aversive state that confirms the initial appraisal of threat. Thus reduction of arousal
can be a prime motivation for anxious individuals. In this way a negative, threatening
interpretation of one’s increased physiological state can augment the already hyperva-
lent threat mode.
Defensive Inhibitory Responses
Activation of the primal threat mode will lead to very rapid, reflexive self- protective
responses involving escape, avoidance (fight or flight), freeze, faint, and the like. Beck et
al. (1985, 2005) noted that these responses tend to be relatively fixed, preprogrammed,
and automatic. They are “primal” in the sense of being more innate than the complex
acquired responses associated with more elaborative processes. In the anxiety disorders,
these very immediate defensive and inhibitory responses are evident as an almost instan-
taneous response to a threat appraisal. For example, individuals with long- standing
OCD often report that their performance of a compulsive ritual in response to an
anxiety- provoking obsession can be so automatic that they are hardly aware of what
they are doing until they are well into the ritual. Beck et al. (1985, 2005) also recognized
that the occurrence of these protective or defensive behaviors can also reinforce primal
mode activation. They noted that these behaviors often impair performance, thus elevat-
ing the threatening nature of the situation. Thus the socially anxious individual might
automatically look away when talking to another person, which makes it more difficult
to have an engaging conversation.
Cognitive Processing Errors
Threat mode activation is “primal” in the sense that it is a relatively automatic, nonvo-
litional, and reflexive system for dealing with basic issues of survival. Thus one of the
cognitive by- products of this type of activation is a narrowing of attention on to the
threatening aspects of a situation. Cognitive processing, then, becomes highly selec-
tive, involving the amplification of threat and the diminished processing of safety cues.
Certain cognitive errors are evident such as minimization (underestimates the positive
aspects of personal resources), selective abstraction (primary focus on weaknesses),
magnification (views flaws as a serious shortcoming), and catastrophizing (mistakes
or threat have disastrous consequences). In anxiety these cognitive errors are mani-
fested primarily as exaggerated estimates of the proximity, probability, and severity of
potential threat. Obviously with this type of cognitive processing dominant, the anxious
individual finds it extremely difficult to generate alternative, more constructive modes of
thinking about the situation.
Automatic Threat- Relevant Thoughts
Finally, activation of the primal threat mode will produce automatic thoughts and
images of threat and danger. These thoughts and images have an automatic quality to