Modern Social Science Research

Moderate anxiety has positive significance for human adaptation to the environment, while excessive anxiety exerts negative effects on both physical and mental health. Attentional bias toward threat-related information is a primary factor in the occurrence and maintenance of anxiety. This paper elaborates on the characteristics of attentional bias and attentional control in anxious individuals. Highly anxious individuals tend to allocate more attentional resources preferentially to negative stimuli rather than neutral or positive stimuli. The attentional control system of anxious individuals exhibits poorer balance, making them more susceptible to interference from task-irrelevant information. Based on these findings, the paper proposes some suggestive considerations for future research.

Anxiety; Attentional bias; Attentional control