Macaiber's Theory Of Anxiousness

The personality trait anxiousness seems to have a genetic component. Individuals with that have different biological and behavioral variations of the serotonin-transporter-linked-promotor region (5HTTLPR) genotypes indicate that it’s the cause of differential biological stress reactivity. Different people becoming anxious and reacting to stress differently because of a genotype shows that there’s a strong nature component. “Susceptibility to stress may have biological roots, especially in the serotonergic system” (Petersen). Serotonin is a neurotransmitter in the brain that helps regulate a person’s happiness and their overall mood, so it would make sense that this neurotransmitter can have an effect on anxiety. The biological perspective says …show more content…
Because anxiousness has dispositional genetic links, it’s possible to reduce it, but not get rid of it completely. Macaiber talks about an experiment conducted to see if anxiousness could be reduced, and the results he came up with claimed “the emotional impact of unpleasant stimuli on electrophysiological activity could be reduced, especially in high trait-anxious individuals by… ‘Attentional deployment’, which consisted of diverting attention away from emotional stimuli… and ‘implicit reappraisal strategy’ that promoted a cognitive re-evaluation of stimuli” (Macaiber). So when a trait-anxious person sees an unpleasant stimulus that makes them anxious, diverting their attention from the stimulus can reduce the anxiousness, but also re-evaluating the context of the stimuli. If a trait-anxious person sees an amusement park sign and it gives them anxiety because they don’t like roller coasters, they can either look away from the sign or try to change the way they think about the sign. So rather than thinking about roller coasters when they see the sign, they can think about going with their friends and riding bumper cars or another ride that doesn’t make them anxious. This can be difficult, however, because of the way human brains work. The brain likes to be in homeostasis, its own equilibrium, and if a trait-anxious person’s brain is used to it being anxious all the time it might take a while for the brain to adapt to a different way of thinking. When people get stressed, the adrenal glands release a hormone called cortisol. Too much cortisol can have severe effects on the body, a weakened immune system, interfere with learning and memory, effect blood pressure and cholesterol, the list goes on and on. This means that trait-anxious people are likelier to have these effects because they get stressed out so easily. Another way to reduce stress and anxiety is to work