A persistent excessive or irrational fear of a particular object or situation

By Catherine A. Sanderson, Amherst College

The two most common types of psychological disorders, both of which involve extreme emotions are anxiety disorders. They involve extreme worry and fear; and mood disorders, which involve extreme sadness. But, why do we get anxiety in the first place?

What Is an Anxiety Disorder?

The broad term, “anxiety disorders”, refers to a set of psychological disorders that involve distressing, persistent anxiety that doesn’t go away. It can even get worse over time.

Anxiety disorders can take a number of different forms, which vary in terms of the specific focus and root cause of the anxiety. People with generalized anxiety disorder have unfocused, out-of-control, negative feelings.

They are constantly tense and jittery, worry excessively about anything and everything, and experience symptoms of physiological arousal (racing heart, clammy hands, nervous stomach, sleeplessness). The anxiety is “free-flowing”, meaning that they can’t identify the source of their anxiety.

Types of Anxiety Disorders

A type of anxiety disorder, panic disorder, involves intense and free-flowing anxiety. But in this case, the anxiety isn’t constant, but rather is characterized by panic attacks that often seem to strike out of the blue, with no clear cause. Because these attacks have no obvious trigger, people with panic disorders often become preoccupied with a fear of having another panic attack.

The most common type of anxiety disorder is a specific phobia, an irrational fear that disrupts behavior and focuses anxiety on some specific object, activity, or situation. An estimated 10% of adults in the United States have some type of phobia.

Biological Theory around Causes of Anxiety Disorders

What causes anxiety disorders? There are three leading theories. And, as is the case with most psychological disorders, it’s likely that all three sets of factors play a role.

According to the biological perspective, anxiety disorders serve to protect people from harm and therefore are evolutionarily adaptive. Although the symptoms of these disorders can be debilitating, they probably on some level protect people from potential threats.

The most common phobias are in fact focused on objects that could be threatening, such as dogs, spiders, snakes, and heights. Very few people develop a phobia of flowers or frogs or butterflies.

This article comes directly from content in the video series Introduction to Psychology. Watch it now, on Wondrium.

Cognitive Theory

According to the cognitive or learning perspective, anxiety disorders are basically learned responses, based on either direct or indirect experiences in the world. Many people who develop a dog phobia do so after having a negative experience with a dog, such as being bitten by a dog during childhood. This one bad experience with one dog then leads to feeling intense fear whenever they see any dog and sometimes even generalize to other animals, such as cats or rabbits.

People then avoid or escape from, things that trigger their anxiety, so they don’t have an opportunity to learn new associations, like most dogs are friendly and don’t bite.

Phobias can also develop without direct experience, through observations. Many children develop phobias by watching how their parents react to particular situations. Seeing an adult experience intense fear about something—flying, water, going to the dentist—can lead a child to develop the same fear, even if they themselves have never had a bad experience with flying.

Sociocultural Theory

The third explanation for anxiety disorders is that they are created, or at least influenced, by sociocultural factors. For example, some psychologists believe the dramatic rise in anxiety disorders seen in the United States is the result of increased social media use.

Now, it’s certainly hard to determine whether social media use causes anxiety, or whether people who are anxious choose to spend more time on social media. But longitudinal research shows that teenagers who spend more time on digital screens—including television, phones, and computers—later show more severe symptoms of anxiety.

What’s so harmful about social media? It creates many opportunities for self-comparison, which in turn can lead people to feel their own lives aren’t measuring up. And that feeling, not surprisingly, can cause anxiety.

Trigger Warnings

The challenge—how do you help someone overcome a phobia when that phobia leads them to avoid precisely the situations that would help them develop new, more positive associations—helps to explain a 2019 study basically showing that so-called trigger warnings don’t work.

Some colleges have required professors to alert students before covering any material that might be anxiety-provoking, such as material on sexual assault. These policies are based on the assumption that providing such a warning would give students a chance to avoid it or at least psychologically prepare themselves before being blindsided by potentially traumatizing material.

But the 2019 study found that providing these warnings before showing students disturbing materials was only “trivially helpful” for reducing their levels of distress. The researchers also note that encouraging people to avoid potentially distressing material can actually maintain anxiety disorders because the person then never gets an opportunity to unlearn their negative associations with a particular object or situation.

Common Questions about Causes of Anxiety Disorders

Q: What are anxiety disorders?

The broad term ‘anxiety disorders’ refers to a set of psychological disorders that involve distressing, persistent anxiety that doesn’t go away. Anxiety disorders can take a number of different forms, which vary in terms of the specific focus and root cause of the anxiety. People with generalized anxiety disorder have unfocused, out-of-control, negative feelings.

Q: What is the biological theory pertaining to the reasons behind anxiety disorders?

According to the biological perspective, anxiety disorders serve to protect people from harm and therefore are evolutionarily adaptive. Although the symptoms of these disorders can be debilitating, they probably on some level protect people from potential threats.

Q: What are the sociocultural reasons behind anxiety disorders?

The socio-cultural explanation for anxiety disorders is that they are created, or at least influenced, by sociocultural factors. For example, some psychologists believe the dramatic rise in anxiety disorders seen in the United States is the result of increased social media use.

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