Unscrambling the Dynamics of Danger: Scientific Foundations and Evidence for the Looming Vulnerability Model and Looming Cognitive Style in Anxiety

Abstract

Abstract Background A revised looming vulnerability model is described that updates the original conceptual model and synthesizes new findings and evidence. The revised model extends the notion of dynamic threat by describing the role of cognitive-perceptual distortions. Moreover, it suggests that dynamic threat perceptions, particularly that threats are approaching, serve as warning signals that lower the threshold for appraising threat, influencing negative emotional responses (primarily but not only anxiety and fear), cognitive-affective processing, behavior, and maladaptive coping. Individual differences in “looming cognitive style” can lead to transdiagnostic vulnerability to anxiety (and less so, to depression), maladaptive defensive reactions, cognitive-affective (experiential) avoidance, and stress generation. Methods This article reviews the conceptualization proposed by the revised looming vulnerability model, and comprehensively reviews its scientific foundation, and current supporting evidence that has accrued for the model across diverse research domains. Results The revised conceptualization of the looming vulnerability model is amply supported by the accumulated research, which highlights the importance of dynamic stimuli for attention, memory, emotional, and neurological response. Likewise, the looming cognitive style is supported by a substantial number of studies, linking it to cognitive vulnerability to anxiety, biased threat processing, maladaptive coping and cognitive-affective avoidance, and developmental antecedents. Conclusions The review of evidence supports the revised looming vulnerability model's tenets about the importance of dynamic stimulusi features, which previous models have neglected, and of the looming cognitive style, which is proposed as a distinct cognitive vulnerability Clinical implications and future research directions are discussed.