From Higher-Order to Underlying Constructs: Examining the Relationships Between Affect and Fundamental Fears

Targeting constructs that contribute to positive and negative affect may lead to clinically significant reductions in symptoms
of principal and co-occurring psychopathology. Anxiety sensitivity, the fear of negative evaluation, and illness/injury sensitivity
have been described as three fundamental fears that underlie anxiety-related disorders. Despite the contemporary relevance
of the fundamental fears, positive affect, and negative affect as treatment targets, research into how these constructs relate
to each other remains scant. Community participants (n = 287) completed measures of affect and the fundamental fears. Canonical correlations, regression analyses, and moderator
analyses revealed strong associations between negative affect and each of anxiety sensitivity, the fear of negative evaluation,
and illness/injury sensitivity and a weaker but significant inverse relationship with positive affect. The fundamental fears
shared a substantive amount of variance (42 %) with positive and negative affect, and this overlap may warrant attention from
researchers and clinicians focusing on specific or transdiagnostic features of anxiety.