06.03.2018 Views

The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

8. Anxiety <strong>Tells</strong><br />

People become anxious when they feel threatened. This is<br />

a normal, self-protective response to a perceived danger,<br />

and it <strong>of</strong>ten precedes actions that are designed to deal<br />

with the threat. How anxious someone feels is likely to<br />

depend on their personality and how threatened and helpless<br />

they feel. Most people only feel threatened and<br />

anxious occasionally. Some people, however, don't<br />

appear to experience any anxiety at all, while at the<br />

opposite extreme there are people who seem to be in a<br />

permanent state <strong>of</strong> nerves.<br />

Psychologists distinguish between two types <strong>of</strong> anxiety<br />

- 'trait anxiety' and 'state anxiety'. As the term implies,<br />

trait anxiety refers to anxiety that is a trait, in other words,<br />

part <strong>of</strong> someone's personality. A person with trait anxiety<br />

tends to feel anxious, regardless <strong>of</strong> the situation. State<br />

anxiety, on the other hand, is a response to a particular<br />

situation. This is the natural way to respond - to feel<br />

anxious when circumstances are threatening, and to feel<br />

relaxed when the situation isn't threatening. Of course the<br />

whole notion <strong>of</strong> threat is highly subjective - people who<br />

219

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!