2018/02/13 by Alexandre Heeren, Emily E. Bernstein, Richard J. McNally · 1 citation
Psychology · Neuroscience · #Mental Health Research Topics #Functional Brain Connectivity Studies #Personality Disorders and Psychopathology
paper · doi:10.1080/10615806.2018.1439263
openalex publication_date 2018/02/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: For decades, the dominant paradigm in trait anxiety research has regarded the construct as signifying the underlying cause of the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that supposedly reflect its presence. Recently, a network theory of personality has appeared. According to this perspective, trait anxiety is a formative construct emerging from interactions among its constitutive features (e.g., thought, feelings, behaviors); it is not a latent cause of these features. DESIGN: In this study, we characterized trait anxiety as a network system of interacting elements. METHODS: To do so, we estimated a graphical gaussian model via the computation of a regularized partial correlation network in an unselected sample (N = 611). We also implemented modularity-based community detection analysis to test whether the features of trait anxiety cohere as a single network system. RESULTS: We find that trait anxiety can indeed be conceptualized as a single, coherent network system of interacting elements. CONCLUSIONS: This radically new approach to visualizing trait anxiety may offer an especially informative view of the interplay between its constitutive features. As prior research has implicated trait anxiety as a risk factor for the development of anxiety-related psychopathology, our findings also set the scene for novel research directions.