Trait anxiety is different and defined as: “Proneness to experience anxiety. People with high trait anxiety tend to view the world as more dangerous or threatening than those with low trait anxiety and to respond with state anxiety to situations that would not elicit this response in people with low trait anxiety.”
People with high trait anxiety tend to perceive things as threatening where others might not. They may frequently express anxiety about situations that do not provoke anxiety in others. Theories about personality and the role that anxiety plays in it vary among different schools of thought.
Threat of physical danger – when driving or flying, those with trait anxiety may worry about getting hurt or injured. They may also experience intense fears of illness. Threat of social evaluation – people with trait anxiety can feel anxious about being criticised or judged in social situations.
State anxiety reflects the psychological and physiological transient reactions directly related to adverse situations in a specific moment. In contrast, the term trait anxiety refers to a trait of personality, describing individual differences related to a tendency to present state anxiety.
Trait anxiety is a construct reflected in most models of personality and refers to a relatively stable disposition within the individual to judge a wide range of environmental events as potentially threatening.
Tools for Managing Trait Anxiety
Using techniques suggested for situational anxiety, such as the relaxation response, can offer some relief. In addition, trait anxiety can be managed through positive imagery and guided meditation.
Trait anxiety refers to the stable tendency to attend to, experience, and report negative emotions such as fears, worries, and anxiety across many situations. This is part of the personality dimension of neuroticism versus emotional stability.
Research has indicated that individuals with high emotional reactivity (high neuroticism) and introverted tendencies (low extroversion) are more likely to experience anxiety than other personality types [101].
There's clear research showing that anxiety is influenced by genetics. In fact, experts noticed a family connection for anxiety even before they understood how DNA or genes worked. If you have a close relative with anxiety, your chance of developing it's about 2 to 6 times higher than if you don't.
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Those who score high on trait anxiety are behaviorally inhibited, wary in novel situations, and tend toward precaution over risk-taking (Corr and McNaughton, 2012). Like trait impulsivity, trait anxiety is highly heritable (e.g., Franić et al., 2010).
Results showed that high trait anxious individuals experience more state cognitive and state somatic anxiety and less state self- confidence than low trait anxious athletes. Additionally, high school athletes experienced more somatic state anxiety than did college athletes.
individuals with high levels of trait anxiety would be more susceptible to stress, responding to several situations as if they were dangerous or threatening, showing state anxiety reactions more frequently and with greater intensity than those with low trait anxiety.
For trait anxiety, a cross-sectional study found that STAI-trait anxiety followed a cubic shape over age, such that it increased with age among younger adults and peaked in middle-adulthood, followed by a decline into the 70s, and rose again in older ages (Teachman et al., 2006).
An anxiety disorder is a type of mental health condition. If you have an anxiety disorder, you may respond to certain things and situations with fear and dread. You may also experience physical signs of anxiety, such as a pounding heart and sweating.
Trait anxiety is when worry and fear permeate your experiences on a regular basis—not just in response to a stressful situation. Trait anxiety isn't the same as having an anxiety disorder but is related. You can learn stress-management strategies whether you have an anxiety disorder, or you were born nervous.
Neuroticism is the factor that determines one's level of emotional stability and one's emotional reactions to stimuli. Those who score high on Neuroticism are not strangers to anxiety, anger, or depression, and are likely to experience several of these emotions regularly.
Neuroticism is a risk factor for “internalizing” mental disorders such as phobia, depression, panic disorder, and other anxiety disorders (traditionally called neuroses). On the opposite end of the spectrum, individuals who score low in neuroticism are more emotionally stable and less reactive to stress.
We all have things, places or people we don't like, or which make us anxious. But if these things cause so much anxiety that you struggle to maintain relationships in your life, you may get a diagnosis of avoidant personality disorder (sometimes also called anxious personality disorder).
Those with trait anxiety often feel milder anxiety than those with generalised anxiety disorder. In addition, their anxiety can ebb and flow, and although they may feel more anxious than other people, their anxiety may not be diagnosable. However, this isn't to say that all those with trait anxiety do not have GAD.
Although trait anxiety refers to the stable tendency to attend to and experience fear, worry, and anxiety across many situations, there is increasing evidence that this personality trait may not be specific to anxiety-related disorders.
Inherited or not, anxiety is easily treatable. Your brain is highly adaptable, and even if it is predisposed to have a hormone imbalance or high brain activity in areas that cause worry, it is entirely possible to change the way your brain works and reduce those symptoms of anxiety.
The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) is a psychological inventory consisting of 40 self-report items on a 4-point Likert scale. The STAI measures two types of anxiety – state anxiety and trait anxiety. Higher scores are positively correlated with higher levels of anxiety.
State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI)
Examples of what the STAI measures include feelings of apprehension, tension, nervousness, and worry. Norms from the original version (STAI-X) include a small sample of elderly persons aged 50–69 years.