ABSTRACT
Although terms such as fear, worry, and anxiety are often used interchangeably, a clear distinction among them can be seen in the empirical literature. At the most basic level, this distinction lies in the definitions and descriptions of these phenomena. For instance, fear has been described as a reaction to accurately perceived dangers that are associated with unpleasant feelings (Erol and Sahin, 1995; Marks, 1987a). More broadly, fear can be defined as a painful feeling of impending danger when confronted by life-threatening dangers. In contrast, worry has been characterized as anxiety-related thought processes (Borkovec et al., 1983). Worry is generally considered to be a cognitive component of anxiety, involving uncontrollable negative thoughts about future events. Thus, the primary difference between these two anxiety-related phenomena is that fear occurs in the presence of an actual threatening stimulus, whereas worry pertains to future-oriented thoughts about the threatening stimulus, but in the absence of that stimulus (Muris et al., 2000). Finally, anxiety has been conceptualized as a more global term that encompasses physiological tension and arousal, cognitions of threat, and behavioural avoidance (Hagopian and Ollendick, 1997). Clearly the anxiety response has adaptive value when an individual is actually confronted by dangerous stimuli. However, when this reaction occurs in response to an unreasonably perceived danger or with excessive intensity, thus causing impairment to the individual, an anxiety disorder is said to exist.
