First published in 1991, this book consists of 13 articles that were originally published in the journal Anxiety Research. They address the topic of anxiety and self-focused attention from a variety of perspectives, representing recent advances in social, clinical and personality psychology at the time. As a whole, the book poses a stimulating theoretical challenge to traditional anxiety research, which had been dominated by psychometric issues, clinical case studies and stable personality constructs. The contributors share the view that anxiety is an emotional state of distress dependent upon specific antecedent cognitive processes such as self-awareness, perceived role discrepancy or unfavourable expectancies.