FEAR OF FEAR, TRAIT ANXIETY AND AEROBIC FITNESS IN RELATION TO STATE ANXIETY DURING ADRENALINE PROVOCATION

Psychological explanations of both spontaneous and experimentally indu ced panic anxiety stress the role of fear of fear, especially fear of bodily symptoms of arousal. Fear of fear is conceptually different fro m trait anxiety but may be associated with repeated experience of arou sal symptoms in fearful situations, while frequent physical exercise m ay lead to habituation to these symptoms. To test this hypothesis, 44 healthy male volunteers, classified as having high or low trait anxiet y and high or low aerobic fitness, underwent a single-dose adrenalin i nfusion (80 nanogram/kilogram bodyweight/minute). In both groups, duri ng the experiment a significant rise in state anxiety was found; compa red to the group with low trait anxiety, subjects with high trait anxi ety reported higher levels of state anxiety, which could be attributed to differences in aerobic fitness. In the high-anxious group, subject s showed a greater decrease in state anxiety during the recovery phase . State anxiety during adrenalin was strongly associated with fear of bodily symptoms only in the high-anxious group. Correlations between t rait anxiety and somatic anxiety were not significant; state anxiety s cores tended to correlate negatively with physical fitness. It is conc luded that these results lend support to a fear of fear-model of panic anxiety.