The development of anxiety: The role of control in the early environment.

1998/07/01 by Bruce F. Chorpita, David H. Barlow · 6 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development #Early Childhood Education and Development #Child Abuse and Trauma

paper · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.124.1.3

openalex publication_date 1998/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

Current developments in cognitive and emotion theory suggest that anxiety plays a rather central role in negative emotions. This article reviews findings in the area of anxiety and depression, helplessness, locus of control, explanatory style, animal learning, biology, parenting, attachment theory, and childhood stress and resilience to articulate a model of the environmental influences on the development of anxiety. Evidence from a variety of sources suggests that early experience with diminished control may foster a cognitive style characterized by an increased probability of interpreting or processing subsequent events as out of one's control, which may represent a psychological vulnerability for anxiety. Implications for research are discussed.

Citations

• Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL): Initial Reliability and Validity Data
• Learned helplessness: Theory and evidence.
• Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation.
• Disorders of Emotion
• Development of a new inventory for assessing memories of parental rearing behaviour
• Failure to escape traumatic shock.
• The structure of negative emotional states: Comparison of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) with the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories
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Cited by

• A modern learning theory perspective on the etiology of panic disorder.
• The Origins of Neuroticism
• Parental incarceration, attachment and child psychopathology
• Understanding comorbidity among internalizing problems: Integrating latent structural models of psychopathology and risk mechanisms
• Internalizing problems of childhood and adolescence: Prospects, pitfalls, and progress inunderstanding the development of anxiety and depression
• David H. Barlow [wikipedia]