P12: Prediction of Trait Anxiety Based on Emotional Schemas

Anxiety is a painful feeling that depends on a current traumatic situation or an expected threat that its origin is unknown. State anxiety is a transitory emotional state and trait anxiety refers to individual readiness for anxiety that is relatively stable. Besides, cognitive therapists believe that schemas are central for developing and maintaining the chronic forms of trauma, such as personality disorders, depression and anxiety. Emotional schemas are related to programs, concepts, and strategies that used to respond to emotions. The aim of this study was to predict trait anxiety on emotional schemas. The present study was correlation. Study population included all students at Shiraz University, 270 students (140 females and 130 males) participated in the study through the convenient sampling. They complicated revised scale of emotional schemas and spielberger trait anxiety scale (1983) respectively. For data analysis, descriptive statistics method and Stepwise multiple regression were used. Data analysis showed that emotional schemas of "understanding & control" and "rumination" significantly explained anxiety variance. In this regression model, the "understanding and control" scheme was entered into the equation as the strongest predictor of anxiety. We can conclude that emotional schemas have a high explanatory power in anxiety disorders. So individual understanding of emotions, feelings of mastery and control over them, as well as the amount of rumination in emotional and stressful events, is effective in creating and exacerbating anxiety.