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Ruminations on Worry: Issues Related to the Study of an Elusive Construct

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2014

Maryanne Davis  and
Iain Montgomery
Maryanne Davis
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
Iain Montgomery*
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
*
Department of Psychology, University of Tasmania, PO Box 252-30, Hobart TAS 7001, Australia
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Extract

This review outlines the main theoretical and methodological issues relating to worry. The relationship of worry to anxiety and problem solving is discussed. Three models of worry are described: attention bias (Mathews, 1990), fear avoidance (Borkovec, Shadick, & Hopkins, 1991), and Tallis and Eysenck's (1994) stage model. Worry's proposed role in inhibiting emotional processing is discussed, and unresolved methodological and theoretical issues are considered. It is concluded that worry is elusive and difficult to study but greater understanding of worry is necessary.

Type
Research Article
Information
Behaviour Change , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 1997 , pp. 193 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1997

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