Neuroticism’s Newest Twist Shows What’s Behind Your Anxiety
A new view of neuroticism shows what really makes you anxious
Susan Krauss Whitbourne Ph.D.Posted Apr 17, 2018
The highly neurotic in your life, particularly if that includes you, can make mountains out of almost any molehills. Prone to worrying, assuming that the worst is just about to happen, people high in neuroticism are classically the ones who are highest in a number of maladaptive thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. The concept of neuroticism as a feature of personality can be traced back to Hippocrates, as due to possession of “melancholic” humor. Certainly, neuroticism is heavily featured in psychodynamic theories, including Karen Horney who wrote (in the 1930s) about “The Neurotic Personality of Our Time.” However, it wasn’t until the Five-Factor Model came along that neuroticism became understood as part of the larger constellation of personality’s basic dispositions. People high in neuroticism, in this view, were unduly likely to be anxious, depressed, self-conscious, vulnerable, poor at making decisions, and at times, downright hostile. As useful as the Five-Factor Model is in understanding the so-called “normal” (i.e. non-pathological) personality, it can only go so far in providing insight into the psychological makeup of people with diagnosable disorders.
Bearing in mind the importance of neuroticism as a concept, University at Buffalo’s Kristin Naragon-Gainey teamed up with University of Notre Dame’s David Watson (2018) to understand its role in what is known as the “internalizing” psychological disorders. These internalizing disorders include depression, generalized anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The reason they are called internalizing is that people with these disorders experience a set of negative emotions that result from the excessive focus of attention inward on their own negative emotions. When they’re angry, they don’t lash out at everyone and everything around them but instead, berate themselves for their failings. Unduly preoccupied with every inner negative thought, they allow themselves to ruminate to the point beyond which self-reflection is helpful.
Naragon-Gainey and Watson distinguish the personality trait of neuroticism from a clinical trait reflecting stable social-cognitive vulnerabilities that make people prone to the internalizing symptoms of anxiety and depression. People high in neuroticism may have a general tendency to worry, but this isn’t enough to predict whether they’ll develop an internalizing disorder. Instead, people with high levels of neuroticism may be prone to the more directly maladaptive ways of thinking about themselves and others when they feel they need to be perfect due to a fear of negative evaluation, develop a fear of feeling anxious (“anxiety sensitivity”) seek to distance themselves from negative emotions (“experiential avoidance”) and find it painful to have to tolerate uncertainty. Adding to their inner unhappiness, people high in these vulnerabilities tend to be overly rigid in their thoughts, failing to see that the world may not be quite as bleak as they perceive it to be.
Imagine that the person you feel is relatively neurotic is a chronic pessimist, is always on the watch for bad things to happen, can’t enjoy the good times, and is full of self-doubts. This set of traits may make life a bit less pleased with this person than it could otherwise be. Nevertheless, you still find that this person’s worries and sad moods aren’t disabling, and for the most part, your friend copes quite well with pressure and the occasional setback. Naragon-Gainey and Watson believe that neuroticism is certainly a part of the picture in the internalizing disorders, but that you need to drill down further into what are called neuroticism’s “facets” or components. Most relevant to the social-cognitive vulnerabilities that make people prone to internalizing disorders are the neuroticism facets of sadness, anger, anxiety, and mistrust. Again, high levels on these facets could put people at risk for developing a diagnosable disorder, but only when they are paired with those social-cognitive vulnerabilities that influence how people think about themselves, their emotions, and other people. To test this possibility, the Buffalo-Notre Dame researchers examined the relationships among neuroticism’s facets with three specific cognitive-vulnerabilities that they believed were most central to internalizing disorders.
The 296 participants in Naragon-Gainey and Watson’s study were all psychiatric outpatients ranging from 18 to 73 years of age (average age was 37), the majority of whom were in psychotherapy and/or receiving psychotropic medications. General anxiety disorder was the most prevalent diagnosis, followed by major depressive disorder, and social anxiety disorder with the remaining divided among panic disorder (with or without agoraphobia), PTSD and OCD.
Participants completed four measures of social-cognitive vulnerabilities that tapped into their tendencies toward perfectionism (catastrophic beliefs about mistakes and doubts about the ability to do things “right”), anxiety sensitivity (fear of being anxious), discomfort with uncertainty, and aversion to feeling emotionally distressed. Neuroticism’s facets were tested with scales measuring anxiety, sadness, angry hostility, mistrust, dependency, and vulnerability to stress. Each psychiatric diagnosis, in turn, was assessed with scales specifically testing each set of symptoms as well as diagnostic scales administered by interviewers.
The study’s purpose, to recap, was to determine whether neuroticism facet scores would be sufficient to predict the diagnostic testing results or whether the social-cognitive vulnerabilities added further to the equation. In fact, neuroticism facets alone were almost entirely sufficient to predict scores on all six of the diagnostic scales. The more neurotic the individual, the higher the chances that the individual would experience an internalizing disorder—for the most part. The one exception involves anxiety sensitivity, that feeling of being distressed at being distressed.
Let’s look more in-depth at what anxiety sensitivity measures. Perhaps you’ve felt that your nerves were getting the better of you such as, for example when you feel your palms getting sweaty or feeling that your heart is pounding. Not pleasant, to be sure, but hardly a sign of “going crazy.” Yet, people high in anxiety sensitivity draw just this conclusion. It’s not the physical sensation itself, then, but the belief that you are going to be uncontrollably anxious that is captured in the notion of anxiety sensitivity.
If think you’re high in anxiety sensitivity and also suspect that your neuroticism levels are on the high side too, here’s what these findings suggest. When you turn your attention inward on your sensations and feelings the next time you’re upset, anxious, or distressed, notice what you’re thinking too. According to the study’s authors, “neuroticism may be conceptualized as the typical level of negative emotions experienced by an individual… social-cognitive vulnerabilities describe … what one does with those unpleasant experiences” (p. 154). Rather than being scared by those feelings, accepting that they exist can paradoxically help you control them.
To sum up, it’s easier in many ways to change your reactions to your neurotically-driven negative experiences than to change your personality entirely. Learn to track your feelings and then cope with them. Fulfillment in life depends on experiencing a full range of emotions, but when those emotions cause you undue distress, knowing the role of anxiety sensitivity can help get those emotions under control.
A new view of neuroticism shows what really makes you anxious
Susan Krauss Whitbourne Ph.D.Posted Apr 17, 2018
The highly neurotic in your life, particularly if that includes you, can make mountains out of almost any molehills. Prone to worrying, assuming that the worst is just about to happen, people high in neuroticism are classically the ones who are highest in a number of maladaptive thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. The concept of neuroticism as a feature of personality can be traced back to Hippocrates, as due to possession of “melancholic” humor. Certainly, neuroticism is heavily featured in psychodynamic theories, including Karen Horney who wrote (in the 1930s) about “The Neurotic Personality of Our Time.” However, it wasn’t until the Five-Factor Model came along that neuroticism became understood as part of the larger constellation of personality’s basic dispositions. People high in neuroticism, in this view, were unduly likely to be anxious, depressed, self-conscious, vulnerable, poor at making decisions, and at times, downright hostile. As useful as the Five-Factor Model is in understanding the so-called “normal” (i.e. non-pathological) personality, it can only go so far in providing insight into the psychological makeup of people with diagnosable disorders.
Bearing in mind the importance of neuroticism as a concept, University at Buffalo’s Kristin Naragon-Gainey teamed up with University of Notre Dame’s David Watson (2018) to understand its role in what is known as the “internalizing” psychological disorders. These internalizing disorders include depression, generalized anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The reason they are called internalizing is that people with these disorders experience a set of negative emotions that result from the excessive focus of attention inward on their own negative emotions. When they’re angry, they don’t lash out at everyone and everything around them but instead, berate themselves for their failings. Unduly preoccupied with every inner negative thought, they allow themselves to ruminate to the point beyond which self-reflection is helpful.
Naragon-Gainey and Watson distinguish the personality trait of neuroticism from a clinical trait reflecting stable social-cognitive vulnerabilities that make people prone to the internalizing symptoms of anxiety and depression. People high in neuroticism may have a general tendency to worry, but this isn’t enough to predict whether they’ll develop an internalizing disorder. Instead, people with high levels of neuroticism may be prone to the more directly maladaptive ways of thinking about themselves and others when they feel they need to be perfect due to a fear of negative evaluation, develop a fear of feeling anxious (“anxiety sensitivity”) seek to distance themselves from negative emotions (“experiential avoidance”) and find it painful to have to tolerate uncertainty. Adding to their inner unhappiness, people high in these vulnerabilities tend to be overly rigid in their thoughts, failing to see that the world may not be quite as bleak as they perceive it to be.
Imagine that the person you feel is relatively neurotic is a chronic pessimist, is always on the watch for bad things to happen, can’t enjoy the good times, and is full of self-doubts. This set of traits may make life a bit less pleased with this person than it could otherwise be. Nevertheless, you still find that this person’s worries and sad moods aren’t disabling, and for the most part, your friend copes quite well with pressure and the occasional setback. Naragon-Gainey and Watson believe that neuroticism is certainly a part of the picture in the internalizing disorders, but that you need to drill down further into what are called neuroticism’s “facets” or components. Most relevant to the social-cognitive vulnerabilities that make people prone to internalizing disorders are the neuroticism facets of sadness, anger, anxiety, and mistrust. Again, high levels on these facets could put people at risk for developing a diagnosable disorder, but only when they are paired with those social-cognitive vulnerabilities that influence how people think about themselves, their emotions, and other people. To test this possibility, the Buffalo-Notre Dame researchers examined the relationships among neuroticism’s facets with three specific cognitive-vulnerabilities that they believed were most central to internalizing disorders.
The 296 participants in Naragon-Gainey and Watson’s study were all psychiatric outpatients ranging from 18 to 73 years of age (average age was 37), the majority of whom were in psychotherapy and/or receiving psychotropic medications. General anxiety disorder was the most prevalent diagnosis, followed by major depressive disorder, and social anxiety disorder with the remaining divided among panic disorder (with or without agoraphobia), PTSD and OCD.
Participants completed four measures of social-cognitive vulnerabilities that tapped into their tendencies toward perfectionism (catastrophic beliefs about mistakes and doubts about the ability to do things “right”), anxiety sensitivity (fear of being anxious), discomfort with uncertainty, and aversion to feeling emotionally distressed. Neuroticism’s facets were tested with scales measuring anxiety, sadness, angry hostility, mistrust, dependency, and vulnerability to stress. Each psychiatric diagnosis, in turn, was assessed with scales specifically testing each set of symptoms as well as diagnostic scales administered by interviewers.
The study’s purpose, to recap, was to determine whether neuroticism facet scores would be sufficient to predict the diagnostic testing results or whether the social-cognitive vulnerabilities added further to the equation. In fact, neuroticism facets alone were almost entirely sufficient to predict scores on all six of the diagnostic scales. The more neurotic the individual, the higher the chances that the individual would experience an internalizing disorder—for the most part. The one exception involves anxiety sensitivity, that feeling of being distressed at being distressed.
Let’s look more in-depth at what anxiety sensitivity measures. Perhaps you’ve felt that your nerves were getting the better of you such as, for example when you feel your palms getting sweaty or feeling that your heart is pounding. Not pleasant, to be sure, but hardly a sign of “going crazy.” Yet, people high in anxiety sensitivity draw just this conclusion. It’s not the physical sensation itself, then, but the belief that you are going to be uncontrollably anxious that is captured in the notion of anxiety sensitivity.
If think you’re high in anxiety sensitivity and also suspect that your neuroticism levels are on the high side too, here’s what these findings suggest. When you turn your attention inward on your sensations and feelings the next time you’re upset, anxious, or distressed, notice what you’re thinking too. According to the study’s authors, “neuroticism may be conceptualized as the typical level of negative emotions experienced by an individual… social-cognitive vulnerabilities describe … what one does with those unpleasant experiences” (p. 154). Rather than being scared by those feelings, accepting that they exist can paradoxically help you control them.
To sum up, it’s easier in many ways to change your reactions to your neurotically-driven negative experiences than to change your personality entirely. Learn to track your feelings and then cope with them. Fulfillment in life depends on experiencing a full range of emotions, but when those emotions cause you undue distress, knowing the role of anxiety sensitivity can help get those emotions under control.
Comments
Post a Comment