A psychological mechanism for the development of anxiety

Although numerous behavioral constructs have been proposed to account for anxiety disorders, how these disorders develop within an individual has been difficult to predict. In this perspective, I selectively review clinical and experimental evidence suggesting that avoidance (i.e., safety) behavior increases beliefs of threat or fear. The experimental evidence has been replicated numerous times, with different parameters, and shows that when human participants emit avoidance responses in the presence of a neutral stimulus, they later show heightened expectations of threat in the presence of the neutral stimulus. I interpret these findings as resulting from prediction errors as anticipated by the Rescorla-Wagner model, although other animal learning theories can also predict the phenomenon. I discuss some implications and offer a few novel predictions. The analysis presented here sheds light on a phenomenon of theoretical and clinical relevance which is accommodated by basic associative learning theory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).