Anxiety

People who feel anxious about certain types of thinking, such as creativity, math, or spatial reasoning, tend to be less interested in pursuing careers or activities that they believe involve that specific type of thinking, according to new research published...

A new study investigating origins of coulrophobia (or fear of clowns) found that uncertainty of harmful intent, media influences, and unpredictability of behavior play are key drivers of this fear. Various features of clowns’ appearance also produce a negative experience...

People with a more anxious disposition tend to be more willing to engage in actions intended to mitigate the impacts of climate change, according to new research published in Personality and Individual Differences. The new findings shed light on the...

Three experiments on university students and young people showed that having one's camera turned on during online classes increased social appearance anxiety and decreased learning. Participants who had a chance to view themselves on screen reported even higher social appearance...

A new experimental study found that heightened anxiety makes people more prone to believe in various claims they are exposed to and to share them on social media. This was especially true for Republicans and did not depend on the...

Individuals who seek information on social media more frequently tend to have lower knowledge about anxiety and exhibit an indiscriminate use of coping strategies, according to new research published in Psychology of Popular Media.

A large-scale study in the Netherlands found that older adults with poorer cognitive functioning tend to display symptoms of anxiety and anxiety-related disorders. The association was stronger for relatively younger study participants and those with type 2 diabetes. The study...

In seeking to understand the consequences of distorted thinking on social anxiety symptoms, researchers have found that those who experience positive interpretation biases experience improvement in their social anxiety symptoms after a 4-week period. This research offers insights into the...

A study of adults seeking treatment for anxiety and related disorders in Canada found that individuals who reported using cannabis more frequently had poorer outcomes of cognitive-behavior therapy compared persons who used cannabis less often or not at all. In...

People with and without anxiety disorders learn to fear a threat equally quickly, according to new research However, people with anxiety disorders tend to have a harder time learning to stop being afraid (when the threat is gone) compared to...

A team of researchers has developed and tested a new scale to measure sexual anxiety sensitivity — a fear of physiological arousal sensations during sex. The scale predicted sexual well-being across multiple indicators, over and above an existing scale that...

Researchers recently found that musicians who are less anxious tend to experience more states of flow while playing music and those who experienced more flow scored higher on emotional intelligence. Their study has been published in PLOS One.

An experimental study in China used electroencephalographic imaging and brain activity patterns (known as event-related potentials) to compare the memory processes related to certain words in high- and low-anxiety students. Results indicated that social anxiety modulates the effect of recognition...

A 7-year study of twins found that behavioral inhibition in childhood is associated with social anxiety in adolescence. Behavioral inhibition was primarily assessed through shyness. Parental stress and a number of other factors were found to influence the strength of...