Julian Rios Brad Koch Ken SzyszkaEmpirical Articles
April, 17th 2015
When looking at all the articles, they all talk about anxiety and phobias. The first
empirical article is about psychological treatments for late-life anxiety. This project
identified evidence-based psychotherapy treatments for anxiety disorders in older adults.
This can help with anxiety in all people but mainly older adults. The second empirical
article is about fear and anxiety. In the study, Van Bockstaele et al., (2014) investigate to
what extent the causal claims is supported by sound empirical evidence. The third
empirical article is talking about the structure and properties of the injection phobia scaleanxiety. This article talks about both phobias and anxiety. The article talks about that the
IPS-Anx has excellent psychometric properties; making is suitable for use in
programmatic research on injection phobia (Olatunji et al., 2010). The last empirical
article is about the origins of certain phobias. The article talks about phobias being
extreme manifestations of fear. This fear is usually a fear of some type of action or a
place that a person had a dangerous experience with in the past.
In Article one, the summary is late-life anxiety has substantial negative
consequences, both personal and public effects. The aim of this article is to identify and
describe EBTs (evidence-based treatments) for late-life anxiety based on a
comprehensive review of the literature. A strong argument for the exploration and
implementation of EBTs is to promote choice in effective anxiety treatments for elderly
people with late life anxiety. Anxiety disorders and symptoms in older adults are
associated with a number of negative consequences and past events. Anxiety is also
linked with increased mortality and greater risk of coronary artery disease in males,
which can lead to heart attacks and strokes. Furthermore, patients with anxiety problems
often take medical services for granted. Because overwhelming evidence indicates that
Julian Rios Brad Koch Ken SzyszkaEmpirical Articles
April, 17th 2015
anxiety among older adults is a common and serious problem, which is why EBTs should
be standard clinical practice for this reason. With all of these components, more effective
work in this area is needed to increase prevention, detection, and treatment of late life
anxiety.
In Article two was titled A Review of Current Evidence for the Causal Impact of
Attentional Bias on Fear and Anxiety. ). Given the global nature of fear and anxiety
disorders, an understanding of the causes of fear and anxiety and the identification of
possible vulnerability factors for the development, maintenance, and setback of anxiety
disorders are overbearing. There are many cognitive theories of fear and anxiety. There
were The Schema-Based Theory of Beck and Clark (1977), The Information-Processing
Model of Williams et al.(1988, 1997), Eysenck’s (1992, 1997) Cognitive View on
Anxiety, The Integrative Model of Bar-Haim, Lamy, Pergamin, Bakermans-Kranenburg,
and van IJzendoorn (2007), The Cognitive-Motivational Analysis of Anxiety of Mogg
and Bradley (1998), and Hill’s (1965) Criteria of Causation. All of these theories identify
cognitive theories of fear and anxiety.
Article three was called Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties of the
Injection Phobia Scale–Anxiety. There was seven studies conducted on this topic. Each
theory had a different set of participants, measures, procedures, data analyses, overviews,
and results. With each discussion of each study, the psychologists came up with a
conclusion which ended his or her theory.
Article four focused on specific phobias, influential theories, and current
perspectives on these phobias. One of the main focuses are that fears are quick and
adaptive responses that allow your body to react to possible threats or dangerous
Julian Rios Brad Koch Ken SzyszkaEmpirical Articles
April, 17th 2015
situations. Less adaptive, phobias are extreme manifestations of fear to objects or
situations in the absence of a comparative danger. There were five perspectives that all tie
in on this focus including: The Classical, Vicarious, and Informative Pathways for Fear
Acquisition; The Preparedness Framework; The Non-associative Theory; The Fear
Module Theory; and Cognitive Models.
In conclusion, the articles were all about phobias and anxiety. The psychological
treatments for late-life anxiety was a project that was evidence-based for psychotherapy
treatments of anxiety disorders that older adult were more prone to. EBTs (evidencebased treatments) were a main topic in the first article. Anxiety was linked with high
mortality and a higher risk of heart disease. The second article, Van Bockstaele et al.
investigated how the casual claims of anxiety and phobias are supported by empirical
evidence. A understanding of how phobias and fears may be cognitive. In the third
article, the structure and properties of the of an injection phobia scale. It talks about an
IPS-Anx that has excellent psychometric properties; making is suitable for use in
programmatic research on injection phobia. Lastly, in the last empirical article, it talks
about how phobias are extreme manifestations of fear. Fear is an expression of how
people had a tragic or terrifying experience in the past.