Stress, Anxiety, and Cognitive Buffering

Abstract

Cognitive theories of psychopathology and therapy maintain that attitudes and beliefs mediate one's affective responses to life events. Anxiety and depression are thus consequences, not of an individual's circumstances, but of the distorted, irrational perspective from which these are viewed. Similarly, although less often considered, adaptive cognitions should serve as buffers against stressful life events. This proposition has received little attention, and the single study that attempted to address it directly failed to do so. The present investigation sought to reassess the buffering hypothesis. Ninety-seven subjects were evaluated as to (1) the levels of stress they had experienced in the recent past; (2) their current feelings of anxiety and depression; and (3) the extent to which they endorsed illogical, unrealistic attitudes. Dysfunctional attitudes demonstrated strong direct relations with psychological distress. Two of the several indices of life stress, total and negative scores on the Life Experiences Survey, also correlated with distress. There was no significant interaction between the attitude and stress measures. Cognitions, at least on the functional-dysfunctional dimension, did not moderate the impact of life events. Rather, both attitudes and life stresses were strong independent variables that, in additive fashion, provided considerable power for predicting distress.

Index Terms:

• anxiety
• buffering
• cognition
• depression
• life events