74 COGNITIVE THEORY AND RESEARCH ON ANXIETY
2000). Exaggerated threat in anxiety must be understood in terms of this dynamic
danger content involving qualities such as the velocity (directional speed), accelerating
momentum (rate of increase), and direction (coming toward the person) of threat (Ris-
kind, 1997; Riskind & Williams, 1999, 2005, 2006). The looming vulnerability model,
then, maintains that anxiety occurs when threat is appraised as rapidly approaching
or developing such as an approaching snake, a deadline, an illness, or a social failure
(Riskind, 1997). It is considered a key feature of the danger schema activated in anxiety
and so is a specific construct that is applicable to all anxiety states from simple phobias
to more abstract phenomena like worry and GAD (Riskind & Williams, 1999).
Riskind and Williams (2006) review an emerging research literature that supports
the role of perceived intensifying danger and rapidly rising risk (i.e., looming) in pre-
dicting other features of anxious phenomenology. Experimental studies indicate that
moving fear stimuli (e.g., videotape of tarantulas) elicit more fear and threat- related
cognitions than stationary fear or neutral stimuli (Dorfan & Woody, 2006; Riskind,
Kelly, Harman, Moore, & Gaines, 1992) and phobic anxiety is associated with a greater
tendency to perceive a fear stimulus (e.g., spider) as changing or moving rapidly toward
one’s self (e.g., Riskind et al., 1992; Riskind, Moore, & Bowley, 1995; Riskind & Mad-
dux, 1993). In addition, the Looming Maladaptive Style Questionnaire (LMSQ), which
assesses a tendency to generate mental scenarios that involve movement toward some
dreaded outcome, is uniquely associated with several features of anxious phenomenol-
ogy (Riskind et al., 2000) and may be a latent common factor that underlies OCD,
PTSD, GAD, social phobia, and specific phobias (Williams, Shahar, Riskind, & Joiner,
2005). Overall these findings are consistent with the observation that anxious individu-
als misjudge the impending nature of threatening stimuli, leading them to the errone-
ous conclusion that danger is closer or more immediate than is actually true. Riskind’s
research indicates this heightened sensitivity to the kinetic qualities of danger is an
important aspect of biased threat appraisals in anxiety.
Cognitive Errors
Surprisingly little research has investigated the relevance of depressive cognitive errors
(e.g., dichotomous thinking, overgeneralization, selective abstraction) for anxiety. In a
study of thought content individuals with GAD generated more imperatives (“have to/
should”) and catastrophizing words than dysphoric and nonanxious students, and all
participants generated more cognitive errors during worry than during a neutral condi-
tion (Molina, Borkovec, Peasley, & Person, 1998). Despite a paucity of research, it is
likely that anxious individuals do exhibit many of the same cognitive errors found in
depression, especially when dealing with information relevant to their fear concerns.
However, research is needed to determine the role of inferential cognitive errors in the
anxiety disorders.
Summary
We began our review of Hypothesis 4 with three predictions concerning the role of
cognitive errors in fear activation. Unfortunately, only one of these predictions has been
tested empirically. The empirical evidence is consistent in showing that anxious indi-
viduals exaggerate the likelihood and probably the severity of negative situations related