The appraisal of threat and the process of selective attention in clinical and sub‐clinical anxiety states I: Theoretical issues

Abstract

AbstractThe present paper is the first of two which seek to integrate the concepts of anxiety and attention within a cognitive framework and assess the empirical evidence which bears on this relationship. The current discussion concentrates on theoretical issues. An initial section examines the concept of attention at what Marr (1982) called the computational level of analysis. This is followed by a discussion of anxiety as a paradigm case within cognitive‐appraisal models of emotion, particularly that of Oatley and Johnson‐Laird (1987). An integrated framework is then proposed, in which four types of bias in attentional processing associated with anxiety are posited. This is supplemented by a discussion of the concept of self‐focused attention.