Abstract

Excessive worry is the core symptom of generalized anxiety disorder and various anxiety- related psychopathologies. Many studies showed that anxious people were vulnerable to cognitive distortion, attentional bias, and poor probability judgment. Recently, Kwon, Yoo, & Jung(2001) reported that worriers had tendencies to make distorted appraisal in cognitive dimensions about threat(i.e., probability of threat, awfulness of threat, coping ability to threat, duty of threat control, effort to control threat, perceived controllability to threat, belief about utility of worrying). They also identified that worriers' catastrophic worrying was related to their distorted appraisals of threat and difficulties in making alternative explanations. This study assumed the reappraisal of threat as one important aspect of cognitive restructuring training and examined the effectiveness of the reappraisal of threat in decreasing worriers' state anxiety, severity of worrying, and cognitive bias related to real life worries. Results showed that worriers' state anxiety, severity of worrying, and cognitive bias are decreased by reappraising of threat valences and their own coping abilities, and by making alternative explanations which are emphasized neutral and positive aspects of threatening situations. Finally, theoretical and psychotherapeutic implications were discussed.