There are times of the year or of life when it is inevitable to feel nervous, or overwhelmed by the workload or circumstances. For example, in the academic field, the end of the school year is typically one of the most stressful times of the year, when students’ performance is put to the test as well as their ability to manage anxiety during exams.
However, some people consider themselves anxious on an ongoing basis, regardless of the situation. These are people who in psychology we define as anxious or with high “trait anxiety”. In other words, anxiety is part of their way of being and facing life, since they worry excessively. How does this anxiety influence their academic or professional performance?
Attention and anxiety
We asked 106 people (without declared cognitive or emotional pathologies) to complete a test to assess their level of anxiety: this is quantified based on the degree of agreement they show with statements such as “I am haunted and bothered by unimportant thoughts”, “I see that difficulties are piling up and I cannot cope with them”, or “I feel fine”.
We then asked participants to self-assess their ability to pay attention, that is, to allocate and mobilize cognitive resources toward specific goals. Examples of statements that measure attentional control in a self-report are: “When I have to concentrate on solving a problem, I have difficulty focusing my attention,” “When I start a new task, I find it difficult to get involved in it,” or “I find it easy to switch between two different tasks.”
In addition to asking participants to self-assess, we objectively measured different components of attentional control. We asked them to perform computerized tasks that measure each participant’s performance, with variables such as response time or success rates. These tasks analyze components of attentional control such as updating content in working memory, inhibition or control of elements that interfere with the task, and attentional switching, which is the ability to voluntarily alternate our focus of attention.
Self-perception of attention in anxious people
The results revealed that high anxiety scores were associated with self-reports of poorer attention control skills. That is, people who rated themselves as more anxious reported, in turn, that they found it more difficult to manage their attentional resources.
Interestingly, when we measured performance objectively, trait anxiety was not associated with poorer outcomes on attention control tasks.
Anxiety and processing speed
However, high anxiety scores were directly related to slower processing speed, suggesting that anxiety as a stable trait seems to primarily affect how quickly our cognition works in general: we can focus our attention or concentrate, but our mental processing is slower.
The findings of this work contradict some previous research on the relationship between anxiety and cognitive processes.
Discrepancies between self-perception and objective performance measures
The results of the present study invite us to reexamine the influence of anxiety on cognitive processes, with both self-reported and objective performance-based assessments.
The discrepancy between self-perceptions of cognitive abilities and actual performance in people with anxiety further indicates that excessive worrying is also associated with a less objective way of evaluating our capabilities.
Cognitive resource consumption
High levels of anxiety (always a stable personality trait, not just due to circumstances) can lead to a greater consumption of cognitive resources, which slows down mental processes. This idea is consistent with models of processing efficiency, which propose that the tendency to experience negative moods and a low self-concept can affect processing speed and task accuracy, as they consume part of the limited resources of working memory.
In this sense, it is possible that anxious people consume a high number of cognitive resources by being worried or constantly ruminating about everyday life problems. Helping to manage our feelings of fear and anxiety in everyday life situations can improve not only our emotional life but can also lead to greater cognitive efficiency.
