Anxiety and Fear: Distinctions and Similarities
Open AccessIntroduction and Purpose: Despite theoretical and clinical distinctions between fear and anxiety, isolating fear from anxiety has long been a challenge in emotion research. The ability to isolate these separate emotions has important implications for emotion theory and for understanding the psychopathology of anxiety disorders. Two primary research questions were tested in two studies. First, are anxiety and fear distinct constructs? Second, following vignettes designed to target one of these emotions, can anxiety and fear be separated from one another? In order to answer these questions, a group of researchers created several fear and anxiety vignettes that were either adapted from Harmon-Jones and colleagues (2016) work or were based in the theoretical pathways to anxiety outlined in Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST). Study 1 Methods: Participants reviewed an anxiety or fear vignette before completing the Discrete Emotions Questionnaire (DEQ) and Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS). Participants then completed a sorting task, placing all eight study vignettes into either a fear or anxiety category. Study 1 Results: First, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) revealed strong fit for a two-factor structure (compared to one-factor) with fear and anxiety as distinct emotions. Second, paired sample t-tests yielded significantly higher anxiety scores than fear scores on the DEQ following anxiety vignettes. Third, all but one of the vignettes were correctly sorted over 80% of the time and the strongest performing vignettes were selected for Study 2. Study 2 Methods: Each participant read an anxiety and a fear vignette, (vignettes were counterbalanced), and completed the DEQ and PANAS after each vignette. Between vignettes, participants engaged in a backwards masking task (a brief meditation video). Study 2 Results: First, CFA analyses showed strong fit for a two-factor structure across two replications (two completions of the DEQ). Second, the results of within-subjects comparisons (only in Study 2) found that both fear and anxiety scores on the DEQ were higher following the fear vignette than following the anxiety vignette. RST subsystems corresponding to fear, the Fight-Flight-Freeze System, and anxiety, the Behavioral Inhibition System, uniquely and significantly predicted the corresponding emotion when controlling for the other subsystem. Discussion: Several findings supported the hypotheses — first, and most consistently, the CFAs across three replications supported the conception of fear and anxiety as discrete constructs. There was largely support for the isolation of fear and anxiety from one another, consistent with the remaining hypotheses. Across the majority of analyses and methods, the fear vignettes resulted in greater fear responses overall than the anxiety vignettes and the anxiety vignettes reflected greater anxiety than fear. The pattern of results was not entirely consistent with the hypotheses, as within-subjects comparisons found that anxiety responses were higher following the fear vignette than following anxiety vignettes in Study 2 and evidence for the fear vignettes isolating fear from anxiety were not as a strong as evidence for anxiety vignettes isolating anxiety from fear. These latter results warrant further investigation, whether through measurement tools that allow for measurement of an emotion response as it develops or through incorporation of dimensional measures reflecting a fear-anxiety continuum. Regardless, the present results support the conception of anxiety and fear as discrete, separate emotions.
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Talisman_gwu_0075A_15676.pdf | 2022-03-06 | Open Access |
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