68 COGNITIVE THEORY AND RESEARCH ON ANXIETY
condition. Based on a color perception task, Mogg et al. (1992, Experiment 3) found
that low state anxiety individuals attended more often to manic than to neutral words.
However, in most studies the nonanxious group shows little differential result across
stimuli, suggesting an evenhanded attention to threat and nonthreat cues. Although the
key research is missing, Figure 3.3 illustrates a possible interaction between attentional
processing of threat and safety in high and low anxiety, and how these combined effects
might contribute to safety- seeking behavior in highly anxious individuals.
Threat Avoidance: An Empirical Perspective
As previously mentioned, there is emerging evidence that specific fears may be charac-
terized by an initial vigilance for threat (at brief exposures), followed by an attentional
avoidance of threat at longer intervals, whereas high trait anxiety simply shows the
initial orientation toward threat (Amir, Foa, & Coles, 1998a; Mogg, Bradley, et al.,
2004; Vassilopoulos, 2005). However, others have reported a vigilance- avoidance pat-
tern of attentional bias for high trait anxiety (Rohner, 2002) and increased distraction
for threat (Fox, 1994; Rinck et al., 2003). Thus questions remain about the relation
between an initial orientation to threat and subsequent disengagement followed by sus-
tained attention away from threatening cues. It is evident that threat hypervigilance can
be countered through treatment interventions, by intentional suppression efforts, or by
creating a state of low anxiety (Mogg & Bradley, 2004). However, it is unknown how
this disengagement from threat might influence the processing of safety cues.
Summary
Empirical support for Hypothesis 2 is meager at this time because of the dearth of
relevant studies. There is some preliminary evidence that highly anxious individuals
may have diminished processing of nonthreat or safety information but this processing
bias may be evident only at the strategic and not at the automatic processing level. The
relationship between reduced safety cue processing and the occurrence of safety- seeking
behavior has not been investigated and little is known about safety signal processing in
low anxiety. Finally, mixed findings have been reported in studies on threat disengage-
ment or avoidance, and there has been no research on its relation to safety cue process-
ing.
Clinician Guideline 3.2
Diminished safety signal processing suggests that deliberate attentional training for safety
cues may be a useful component of anxiety treatment.Hypothesis 3. Exaggerated Threat Appraisals
Anxiety is characterized by an automatic evaluative process that exaggerates the threatening
valence of relevant stimuli in comparison to the actual threat valence of the stimuli.
Nonanxious individuals will automatically evaluate relevant stimuli in a less threatening
manner that approximates the actual threat level of the situation.