Psychological Disorders 557Researchers have found that women have almost twice
the risk of developing PTSD as do men and that the likelihood
increases if the traumatic experience took place before the woman
was 15 years old (Breslau et al., 1997, 1999). However, female and
male veterans tend to have similar symptoms of PTSD, at least for
military-related stressors (King et al., 2013). Children may also suf-
fer different effects from stress than do adults. Severe PTSD has
been linked to a decrease in the size of the hippocampus in chil-
dren with the disorder (Carrion et al., 2007). The hippocampus is
important in the formation of new long-term declarative memories
( to Learning Objectives 2.11, 6.5, 6.12), and this may have
a detrimental effect on learning and the effectiveness of treatments
for these children. Changes in the connections between different
brain areas, especially those involved in regulating fear, also likely
impair possible recovery efforts (Keding & Herringa, 2015).
Some life experiences lend themselves to people experienc-
ing traumatic events. For example, the rate of PTSD (self-reported)
among combat-exposed military personnel has tripled since 2001
(Smith et al., 2008). One study of older veterans over a 7-year period
(Yaffe et al., 2010) found that those with PTSD were also more likely
to develop dementia (10.6 percent risk) when compared to those
without PTSD (only 6.6 percent risk). Increased levels of stress can
make things worse. The risk of developing dementia appears to be
more than 75 percent higher for veterans that were prisoners of war (POWs) than veter-
ans that were not (Meziab et al., 2014).
Last, individuals with ASD and PTSD likely perceive the world around them
differently. A study of assault and motor vehicle accident survivors treated in a South
London, UK, emergency room suggested individuals with ASD or PTSD were more
likely to identify trauma-related pictures than neutral pictures, as compared to trauma
survivors not diagnosed with ASD or PTSD. Furthermore, such preferential process-
ing of trauma-related information may be more strongly primed in individuals with
PTSD (Kleim et al., 2012) and is supported by fMRI studies demonstrating heightened
brain processing in areas associated with associative learning and priming in individ-
uals with PTSD (Sartory et al., 2013). to Learning Objective 6.5.
Causes of Anxiety, Trauma, and Stress Disorders
14.6 Identify potential causes of anxiety, trauma, and stress disorders.
Different perspectives on how personality develops offer different explanations for these
disorders. For example, the psychodynamic model sees anxiety as a kind of danger sig-
nal that repressed urges or conflicts are threatening to surface (Freud, 1977). A phobia is
seen as a kind of displacement, in which the phobic object is actually only a symbol of
whatever the person has buried deep in his or her unconscious mind—the true source of
the fear. A fear of knives might mean a fear of one’s own aggressive tendencies, or a fear
of heights may hide a suicidal desire to jump.
BEHAVIORAL AND COGNITIVE FACTORS Behaviorists believe that anxious behavioral
reactions are learned. They see phobias, for example, as nothing more than classi-
cally conditioned fear responses, as was the case with “Little Albert” (Rachman, 1990;
Wa t s o n & R a y n e r, 1 9 2 0 ). to Learning Objective 5.3. Cognitive psychologists
see anxiety disorders as the result of illogical, irrational thought processes. One way
in which people with anxiety disorders show irrational thinking (Beck, 1976, 1984) is
through magnification, or the tendency to “make mountains out of molehills” by inter-
preting situations as being far more harmful, dangerous, or embarrassing than they
Anxiety disorders affect children as well as adults.magnification
the tendency to interpret situations
as far more dangerous, harmful, or
important than they actually are.