Summary of Fear, Anxiety, and Stress

In this chapter, we explored the differences between fear, anxiety, and stress. Most researchers agree that fear is an emotion, although disagreements exist between whether fear is universal and adaptive or socially constructed. Anxiety is viewed as a longer-lasting fear response that results in more hyper-vigilance and may result from an evolutionary system that was biased toward false positives of fear. Stress is an unfolding process of emotions, such that our self-reported emotions and cognitive appraisals change as we experience the stressful event over time.