Selective attention and anxiety: A perspective on developmental issues andthe causal status

A plethora of studies on selective information processing in anxiety have b een carried out over the past two decades. One of the most robust findings is that anxiety is associated with selective attention (SA) for threatening information. The rationale of research into SA is that it is assumed to pl ay a vital role in the maintenance, and even in the etiology of anxiety dis orders. It is the aim of this paper to explicate on the validity of this as sumption. There is ample evidence that anxiety enhances SA. Although there is a lack of studies on the effect of SA on anxiety, there is now some evid ence that SA increases the level of anxiety. This leads us to conclude that SA is not a by-product of anxiety only. Hence, the suggestion that SA play s a role in the maintenance of anxiety disorders seems to be justified. Stu dies on SA in children suggest that if SA plays any role at all in the deve lopment of anxiety disorders, it is not the SA in itself that is a vulnerab ility factor, but the continuation of this SA. Individuals who develop an a nxiety disorder could have difficulty learning to inhibit this SA. Consider ing the finding that SA increases the level of anxiety, the authors suggest that anxiety in childhood causes failure to inhibit SA, which in turn enha nces the vulnerability to anxiety disorder in adulthood.