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Anxiety: Proximate Processes and Ultimate Functions
Author(s) -
Maner Jon K.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
social and personality psychology compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.699
H-Index - 53
ISSN - 1751-9004
DOI - 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2009.00211.x
Subject(s) - psychology , anxiety , set (abstract data type) , cognition , harm , proximate and ultimate causation , face (sociological concept) , cognitive psychology , social psychology , developmental psychology , epistemology , computer science , psychiatry , social science , philosophy , sociology , programming language
Anxiety is a universal feature of human existence. Anxiety is associated with a range of cognitive processes such as attention to threat, appraisals of uncertainty and lack of control, pessimistic judgments, and risk‐avoidant decision making. The current paper presents a framework for understanding these processes as a set of domain‐specific mechanisms designed to face specific challenges encountered by humans throughout evolutionary history (e.g., avoiding forms of physical harm and contagious disease, maintaining social acceptance and close romantic relationships, and navigating status hierarchies). Anxiety involves a functionally organized constellation of adaptive processes designed to help people face recurrent psychological, social, and physical threats. The integration of psychological and evolutionary perspectives provides a basis for understanding anxiety’s proximate processes, as well as its underlying adaptive functions.