Why do people worry?

doi:10.1016/0191-8869(94)90048-5

Personality and Individual Differences

Volume 17, Issue 6, December 1994, Pages 791-802

https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(94)90048-5 Get rights and content

Abstract

Over the last few years there has been increased interest in worry. Most assessment up until now has been concerned with what people worry about and how much they worry rather than exploring reasons for worrying. Two questionnaires were developed to go beyond the content and intensity of worry. The first questionnaire, Why Worry?, contains 20 items and assesses reasons why people say they worry. Two types of reasons were found. First, subjects believe that worrying can prevent negative outcomes from happening, minimize the effects of negative events by decreasing guilt, avoiding disappointment, or provide distraction from thinking about things that are even worse. Second, people believe worrying has positive effects such as finding a better way of doing things, increasing control, and finding solutions. The second questionnaire, Intolerance of Uncertainty, consists of 27 items that assesses emotional, cognitive and behavioral reactions to ambiguous situations, implications of being uncertain, and attempts to control the future. The second study demonstrates the instruments' properties by distinguishing between levels of worry, by factor analysis describing the dimensions underlying the constructs, and by establishing appropriate relationships with measures of worry and emotional distress. The implications for current models of worry are discussed.

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The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated an uptick in poor mental health outcomes, including coronavirus-related anxiety and distress. Preliminary research has shown that intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and worry proneness, two transdiagnostic risk factors for anxiety and related disorders, are associated cross-sectionally with pandemic-related fear and distress. However, the extent to which IU and worry proneness prospectively predict coronavirus-related anxiety and distress is unclear. Whether IU and worry may also interact in prospectively predicting coronavirus-related anxiety and distress is also unknown. To address this knowledge gap, the present study examined IU and trait worry as prospective predictors of the level and trajectory of coronavirus anxiety and COVID stress syndrome over time, as well as the extent to which worry moderated the relation between IU and pandemic-related outcomes. Participants (n = 310) who completed self-report measures of IU and trait worry in 2016 were contacted following the onset of COVID-19 in 2020 and completed biweekly measures of coronavirus anxiety and COVID stress syndrome for 30 weeks. Multilevel models revealed that IU assessed in 2016 significantly predicted the severity of both coronavirus anxiety and COVID stress syndrome throughout the study period in 2020. Worry also moderated the link between IU and coronavirus anxiety, such that individuals with high levels of trait worry and high IU in 2016 experienced the most coronavirus anxiety in 2020. Results suggest that IU and worry functioned as independent and interactive vulnerability factors for subsequent adverse psychological reactions to COVID-19. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.
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Why do people worry?

Abstract

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Advances in Behavior Research and Therapy

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Personality and Individual Differences

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Personality and Individual Differences

Advances in Behaviour Research and Therapy

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Clinical Psychology Review

Personality and Individual Differences

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Personality and Individual Differences

Personality and Individual Differences

Personality and Individual Differences

Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders

Evolving concepts of test evaluation

Annual Review of Psychology

Intolerance of ambiguity and depression: A cognitive vulnerability factor linked to hopelessness

Social Cognition

The diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder: Development, current status, and future directions

An inventory for measuring clinical anxiety: Psychometric properties

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

Cognitive therapy of depression

Worry: Thought suppression of emotional processing

Etude psychométrique du questionnaire de dépression de Beck auprès d'un échantillon d'étudiants universitaires francophones

Revue canadienne des Sciences de comportement

Generalized Anxiety Disorder