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.
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Cognitive models of anxiety and anxiety disorders posit that how people interpret and understand threat information plays a critical role in the development and maintenance of anxiety (Beck et al., 1985; Clark & Beck, 2010; Riskind & Alloy, 2006). These models are predicated on the notion that anxiety stems from threat overestimation and that inaccurate or distorted threat appraisals are a central etiological mechanism in anxiety disorders.
This article is dedicated to the looming vulnerability model (Riskind et al., 2000), which highlights an evolutionary-based parameter associated with the perception of threats as rapidly intensifying, growing, and approaching. The model states that rapid recognition of dynamic threat cues and looming dangers is important for successful adaptation in the evolutionary context (Neuhoff, 2001; Schiff, 1965; Schiff et al., 1962)—for they provide early warning signals that help the individual to avoid being caught off-guard. However, extreme or persistent perceptions of looming threats can cause anxiety, cognitive vulnerability, and depression (Riskind et al., 2000).
The looming vulnerability model requires an updated literature review and some updating of its formulation due to the growing body of evidence. The article provides an overview of the looming vulnerability model, its scientific foundations, and recent findings on its hypothesized cognitive vulnerability, looming cognitive style, before discussing its clinical implications. The article concludes by discussing the limitations of empirical evidence and suggesting new directions.
Overview of the Looming Vulnerability Model
Drawing from the works of evolutionary psychologists (see Cosmides & Tooby, 1994), the looming vulnerability model (Riskind, 1997; Riskind & Rector, 2018; Riskind & Williams, 2006) contends that cognitive models of anxiety must make “evolutionary sense” about the problems that the threat appraisal process was meant to solve (see Cosmides & Tooby, 1994). As regards this, our ancestors evolved in a world with dynamic roaming packs of wolves, prides of lions, other dangerous humans, rolling boulders, rising floods, fires, and spreading epidemics. As a result, any human forebear who could not tell the difference between a looming threat stimulus such as a lion or bear and a static or receding one would not have long survived.
The looming vulnerability model posits that a unified understanding exists that treats various scenarios—such as a moving spider, an approaching deadline, or an escalating risk of romantic rejection—in a similar manner. It also posits that our reactions to these situations align with the primal responses of animals facing potential threats. Essentially, it delves into the common threads that tie together both our perception of danger, and that of other vertebrate and even invertebrate animals, regardless of context or specifics.
The model starts with the fact that threat stimuli can be identified on a continuum, either static or stationary at one end or dynamic and in motion at the other. Dynamic (versus static or receding) danger stimuli, especially those approaching the self, are more likely to capture attention, powerfully increase the appraisal of threat, induce anxiety and other negative emotional responses, and be less likely to become habituated. Thus, the perception of a threat as rapidly approaching and intensifying and increasing in its potential consequences is a crucial factor that influences individuals’ judgements of its dangerousness and determining its psychological and behavioral impact. The revised formulation more clearly spells out how this impact can include experiential and cognitive avoidance and risk averse behavior.
The revised looming vulnerability model suggests that a threat stimulus, such as a bear or spider or a deadline or social rejection, can be perceived as looming by intensifying, growing, and approaching through its perceived increasing proximity, via its movement through time, space, likelihood, and intensity, or other often-correlated threat values. It is convenient to conceptualize these as sharing the common property of creating a sense of the threat’s increasing psychological proximity and intensity. That is, the perception of looming threat is subjective and psychological (vs. purely reality based).
Next, the revised model also extends the notion of dynamic threat by describing the role of cognitive-perceptual distortions. It clarifies that the threat is not just increasing in proximity in terms of space, time, and probability, but can involve cognitive and perceptual distortions. The threat may be perceived as worsening and growing physically larger (as objects do when they are approaching), as rapidly becoming likelier and more costly, as rapidly moving closer physically and in time, as well as closer in actual proximity. Many of the distortions in perception, known as “estimation biases” in the literature (Givon-Benjio & Okon-Singer, 2020), are referred to as “looming vulnerability distortions” in the model and are discussed later (Riskind & Calvete, 2023). Moreover, these cognitive and perceptual distortions can involve multiple aspects of the threat simultaneously.
The dynamic aspects of threats (how they change and escalate), are considered crucial in determining anxiety as fixed or static threat values do not convey the same quality of information about the movement, trajectory, and urgency of the threat. From an evolutionary vantagepoint, the observer must determine whether a threat requires immediate attention and reaction, or whether it can be dealt with later or ignored entirely, allowing them to pursue other goals.
A further theoretical clarification of the updated model is that the threshold for appraising rapidly approaching objects as threatening is lower than for static or receding objects, potentially making even neutral or positive stimuli more likely to be perceived as threats. This, indeed, may help explain why many aspects of the threat seem psychologically to be getting simultaneously worse. Additionally, earlier formulations of the looming vulnerability model did not adequately articulate the hypotheses that the perception of approaching threats can induce negative emotions more generally, albeit especially anxiety and fear, or identify the range of maladaptive behaviors that such perceptions can cause.
As diagrammed in Fig. 1, the updated model suggests that the perception of threats as looming or approaching (vs. static or receding) can lead to a series of subsequent psychological effects. These include that (1) the stimuli are more easily detected and prioritized in attentional capture, and more salient, (2), amplify the appraisal of threat (3) induce more anxiety and negative emotional reactions, particularly fear, and (4) evoke maladaptive emotion regulation and behavior. Cognitive and experiential avoidance, maladaptive coping, affect regulation, mental paralysis, and potentially increased risk aversion are common manifestations of the person’s defensive responses.
Fig. 1
Overview of looming vulnerability model
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Ultimately, as also shown by Fig. 1, a critical aspect of the looming vulnerability model is its focus on recognizing the significance of a “looming cognitive style” as a transdiagnostic “looming cognitive vulnerability” to anxiety. The looming cognitive style leads individuals to perceive (or simulate and interpret) threats as rapidly growing and approaching and increasing in magnitude (or "looming"), even when they aren’t. The looming cognitive style, characterized by greater vulnerability to anxiety, a lowered perception of control, increased urgency, and cognitive biases, is believed to be more closely linked to anxiety than depression, and is influenced by developmental antecedents.
The Looming Cognitive Style and Mental Simulation
In employing the concept of mental simulation. the looming vulnerability model draws on various psychological researchers who have argued that people prepare to deal with future negative events by using this process as well as techniques like mental time travel, and episodic foresight (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997; Hudson et al., 2011; Seligman et al., 2013; Tulving, 2005; Tversky & Kahneman, 1973). Tversky and Kahneman (1973) proposed dynamic mental simulation as a method individuals use for predicting risk under uncertainty. Research shows that people rate hypothetical occurrences as higher in likelihood if they can easily imagine them happening. Aspinwall and Taylor (1997) expanded on this, emphasizing the role of mental simulations in proactive coping. They argue that mental simulations provide individuals with “windows into possible futures” to imagine and manipulate initial conditions to play out various scenarios and how they might affect outcomes (Taylor et al., 1998). As Taylor and colleagues have proposed, if individuals solely used a static representation of an emerging threat, instead of a dynamic mental simulation, they would not have a sufficient basis for proactive coping (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997; Taylor et al., 1998).
Looming Cognitive Style, Disorder-Specificity, and Conceptual Relationship to Anxiety
Considered within this context, the looming vulnerability model suggests that cognitive vulnerability to anxiety is created by the looming cognitive style, which leads individuals to generate and perceive simulations of threats as rapid escalating in risk and urgency (Riskind & Williams, 2006). Thus, the looming cognitive style represents a persisting maladaptive variant of proactive coping.
Disorder-Specificity In proposing that the looming cognitive style has more disorder-specificity to anxiety, the looming vulnerability model addresses a primary conundrum confronted by cognitive formulations: They cannot adequately explain the differences between anxiety and depression if they both have the exact same cognitive content. But research has indicated that factors such as anxiety-related automatic thoughts, negative expectations, and worry (see metanalysis by Beck & Perkins, 2001; Beck et al, 2006; Butler & Matthews, 1983; MacLeod & Byrne, 1996; Miranda et al., 2008; Roepke & Seligman, 2015, as well as anxiety sensitivity and intolerance of uncertainty (Lilienfeld & Penna, 2001; Naragon-Gainey, 2010; Reardon & Williams, 2007; Schmidt et al., 2006) are also linked to depression. The looming cognitive style holds that anxiety is tied to the simulation (and anticipation) of dynamic approaching threats, whereas depression is related to the need to accept fixed and unchangeable past loss.
Conceptual Relationship to Anxiety Symptoms and Cognitive Fear Structure It’s critical to differentiate the looming cognitive style from anxiety itself. The looming cognitive style is a distinct construct, not synonymous with common anxiety symptoms like physical tension, rapid heartbeat, or lightheadedness. Moreover, it underscores the role of dynamic parameters—like the rapidity of threat-escalation—in the “disorder-specific” cognitive content of anxiety, which other cognitive models do not do. Furthermore, the looming cognitive style is a persistent antecedent pattern of personality that influences the person’s risk of future anxiety independently of initial anxiety (Riskind et al., 2021).
Relation to Other Current Concepts and Models of Anxiety The looming vulnerability model and other cognitive models (e.g., Carr, 1974; Clark & Beck, 2010; Foa & Kozak, 1986; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997) alike assume that anxiety is a response to appraisals of probability of occurrence of outcomes and their cost. However, the looming cognitive style goes beyond the simple notion that anxiety stems from probability/cost expectations--for it emphasizes the dynamic nature of these expectations. Cognitive-behavioral models often overlook the dynamic aspects of negative outcomes, such as the movement trajectories of their probabilities--whether they are increasing or decreasing over time and space. Unlike other cognitive vulnerability factors like intolerance of uncertainty, anxiety sensitivity, or dysfunctional attitudes, which assess relatively static beliefs, looming cognitive style specifically targets individuals' perceptions of rapidly escalating threat and urgency. In a similar way, cognitive models would argue that expectancies about likelihood and cost are the core of cognitive fear structure. The looming vulnerability model, in contrast, views the looming cognitive style as a dynamic part of cognitive fear structure that influences anxiety and phobic fear symptoms.
Newman and Llera’s (2011) “emotional-contrast-avoidance model” represents an exception to this general characterization of cognitive models. While it is concerned with dynamic features, its central focus remains on individuals’ use of worry to defend against emotion shifts within Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). The model states that if a person with GAD has already experienced a negative (vs. neutral or positive) emotional state owing to worry, their subsequent encounters with negative emotions would be less intense. The looming vulnerability model emphasizes the dynamic aspects of threat in anxiety disorders in a more general manner as a transdiagnostic feature of threat perception and appraisal in anxiety and its subtypes.
Scientific and Conceptual Foundations of the Looming Vulnerability Model
This section reviews a significant corpus of research, frequently disregarded by other cognitive models, that offers compelling scientific support for various aspects of the looming vulnerability model depicted in Fig. 1. Many of these studies serve as experimental tests of the looming vulnerability model's hypotheses, suggesting that dynamic approaching stimuli are more highly prioritized in processing and emotionally powerful. These studies demonstrate that, beyond their static stimulus properties, the dynamic stimulus properties play a crucial role.
Through a series of studies on attentional capture, Franconceri and Simons (2003) provided empirical support for a “behavioral urgency” hypothesis, which aligns with the hypothesis of the looming vulnerability model. The hypothesis suggests that looming stimuli capture attention by signaling a threat, such as a predator, requiring immediate action to prevent injury or harm. Receding or static stimuli do not evoke the same sense of urgency. Their studies, and a large number of studies that followed (e.g., Franconceri & Simons, 2003; Judd et al., 2004; Kahan et al., 2011; Lin et al., 2009; Skarratt et al., 2009) have repeatedly demonstrated that looming stimuli capture attention more effectively than receding or dynamic stimuli, which in turn capture attention better than static stimuli (also, Carretié, et al., 2009). One interesting study on binocular rivalry found that looming (expanding) images dominated receding images when both were presented simultaneously to each eye (Parker & Alais, 2007). Research shows that receding or “near miss” stimuli capture attention better than static ones but less than looming ones (Lin et al., 2009). Responses to looming stimuli are automatic, unconscious processes that occur without an individual's full awareness or intentions. (Kahan et al., 2011; von Mühlenen & Llera, 2007).
Research indicates that looming objects are perceived as more meaningful and prioritized and deeply processed, likely due to their adaptive relevance for survival (Nairne et al., 2007;Zhao et al., 2018). Nairne et al. tested whether memory systems evolved to aid in remembering fitness-related, survival-related information. Results showed that common nouns rated for survival relevance were remembered better than those rated for pleasantness (see also, Weinstein et al., 2008). Dynamic looming stimuli may be more deeply processed due to their activation of self-referent processing, as the Self operates as a superordinate schema (Rogers et al., 1977; Symons & Johnson, 1997). Relevant in this context, Pilz et al. (2011) found that looming stimuli are especially memorable, as people tend to recall avatars in motion approaching them more than those that are stationary or receding away.
Studies consistently indicate that video clips featuring dynamic scenes or moving faces are more memorable than motionless images (Lander et al., 1999); Weyers et al., 2006), especially when they have angry or threatening expressions (Ceccarini & Caudek, 2013). Consistent with the tenets of the looming vulnerability model, the patterns of change in dynamic stimuli appear to convey additional distinct information to observers, beyond their static properties, as evidenced by their greater memorability (Lander et al., 1999). Lander et al. (1999) showed that dynamic faces were more memorable than multiple views of static images from similar displays. Additionally, a study indicates that dynamic faces can enhance memorability for up to a month, highlighting the valuable information they provide (Matthews et al., 2007).
Similar to experiments on attention and memory, studies using neurophysiological measures support the idea that stimuli that change and move (dynamic) act as early warning signals. Approaching stimuli elicit different brain activity patterns than those that are static or receding (Bach et al., 2009; Billington et al., 2011; Coker-Appia et al., 2013; Mobbs et al. 2010; Van Wassenhove et al., 2011). In one study, participants were told that a monitor-displayed tarantula was in a covered box where their feet were placed (Mobbs et al. (2010)). Even after controlling for the tarantulas’ apparent proximity, viewing images of the tarantula as moving toward their feet caused distinct fMRI responses and higher self-reported anxiety. Other fMRI studies found that sentences describing objects moving toward a participant evoked a more pronounced activation in the MT/V5 brain region compared to static descriptions (Rueschemeyer et al., 2010). Such sentences were found to activate midline cortical regions, known for their role in self-referential processing. This suggests these sentences were perceived as more personally relevant.
Evolutionary Antecedents in Predator Defense Systems
The looming vulnerability model emphasizes the evolutionary importance of early threat detection to avoid being caught unprepared and off-guard, which can lead to overestimation of an approaching threat object’s speed and proximity. As regards this matter, Haselton and Buss’s “error management” theory proposes that natural selection rewards mental biases that yield greater survival benefits over time. Hence, slightly overestimating the speed and proximity of an approaching lion or bear should result in greater survival benefits relative to costs. In line with this, research shows that people recall dynamically moving stimuli one or two steps ahead of their last actual position in their direction of motion, particularly when the scene involves danger, like a knife-wielding person (Greenstein et al., 2016).
On a similar note, studies show that individuals often overestimate the speed and arrival time of approaching fear-inducing stimuli like spiders or snakes compared to harmless ones like butterflies (Basanovic et al., 2018; McGuire et al., 2016; Vagnoni et al., 2012). Individuals also overestimate the speed and proximity of approaching threat stimuli when encumbered by an additional cognitive load, which would make them feel more vulnerable to threat (McGuire et al., 2016). The “anticipatory auditory looming bias” is a phenomenon where individuals overestimate the arrival time of an approaching sound source, and this is stronger where danger is involved: it is stronger when the sound source is interpreted as signaling potential physical danger (Labos & Neuhoff, 2014), when individuals are anxious (Riskind et al., 2014), or when they are female or males with weaker physical strength (Neuhoff et al., 2009, 2012).
Of note, women are found to be more sensitive to dynamic temporal cues in facial expressions, suggesting they are generally more sensitive to these cues in faces and other domains (Edwards, 1998). Paralleling these findings, studies show that wild animals, who are more vulnerable to physical danger, escape the approach of potential predators sooner than their domestic counterparts (Stanovich & Blumstein, 2005).
The looming vulnerability model suggests that predator defense systems may rely on sensitivity to dynamic cues of moving and approaching threats as a core survival mechanism (Gilbert, 2001; Fanselow & Lester, 1988). Indeed, most animals, including mammals, reptiles, fish, fruit flies, locusts, and barnacles, respond defensively to looming stimuli, demonstrating their evolutionary warning roles in threat processing. Chickens flap their wings in fright, monkeys raise their arms, cockroaches flee potential predators, and barnacles close their shells (e.g., Ball & Tronick, 1971; Card & Dickenson, 2008; Dill, 1990; Gwilliam, 1963; Westby et al., 1990). Even human infants as young as 4–6 months of age, exhibit avoidance responses to looming sounds but not to other equivalent sounds (Freiberg et al., 2001; Joen et al., 2000; Schmuckler et al., 2007), and young children display greater stranger anxiety to unfamiliar persons who approach them rapidly rather than slowly (Reingold & Eckerman, 1973; Trause, 1977).
The ubiquity of these effects suggests that both humans and nonhumans possess genetically based mechanisms for detecting and responding to dynamic stimuli crucial for survival (Riskind & Rector, 2018). Cacioppo and Freberg (2012) stated that the human brain, and its sensory systems, evolved to detect movement and dynamic changes in the perceptual field. Moreover, humans, like most other animals, sense and assess the presence of threats by perceived changes in size, proximity, or intensity (Riskind & Calvete, 2019).
Impact of the Dynamic Aspects of Stimuli in Thought and Emotion
Charles Osgood’s “semantic differential” approach suggests that people naturally perceive, assess, and recognize the dynamic aspects of stimuli. As he stated:
Organisms without other specialized adaptive mechanisms (e.g., armor, coloration, poisons, etc.) which were unable to represent for themselves the good versus bad implications of the signs of things (antelope versus saber-toothed tiger), the strong versus weak of things (saber-toothed tiger versus mosquito) and the quick versus slow of things (saber-toothed tiger versus quicksand) would have little chance of survival" (Osgood, 1969, p. 195) (Italics added by the present author).
Using the semantic differential approach, several correlational studies have documented that anxious college students rated a variety of target concepts as more active (fast, energetic) than non-anxious students (Costello & Comrey, 1967; Galassi et al., 1981; Karoly & Ruehlman, 1983; Ruehlman, 1985); however, depression does not show these associations.
Theoretical and Experimental Work on Emotion
The looming vulnerability model finds common ground with emotion theorists who hold the expectation that emotions aren't simply reactions to emotion-inducing stimuli but also to dynamic changes in these stimuli (e.g., Baumeister & Bratslavsky 1979; Ellsworth & Sherer, 2003; Lazarus, 1991). Extending this idea, Baumeister and Bratslavsky stated that “emotions should therefore be plentiful in times of change, but, once the situation stabilizes, they will taper off (p. 53).” In their cybernetic control model of emotions, Carver and Scheier (1990) highlighted the influence of dynamic factors, specifically focusing on the rate-of-change in movement towards or away from goals. In their theoretical framework, the valence and nature of the goal, whether it involves moving towards desired objectives or away from undesired ones, plays a critical role in shaping the emotional response. Thus, positive emotions tend to amplify with a rapid rate of change in movement towards positive goals, while negative emotions such as anxiety may escalate when the pace of moving away from unwanted goals is perceived as too slow or sluggish. Of note, progress away from negative goals (i.e., threats) is slower when looming stimuli are rapidly approaching.
Although not specifically designed to test the looming vulnerability model, a number of studies have investigated the impact of dynamic stimuli on negative emotional responses. For instance, Hsee and Abelson (1990) revealed that rapid declines in grades elicit more negative emotional reactions than slower ones. Furthermore, studies demonstrate that negative stimuli, like images of deceased babies, moving swiftly towards the viewer and visually expanding, induce stronger negative emotional responses than static or receding stimuli (Mühlberger et al., 2008). Additionally, directing individuals to mentally simulate negative stimuli as approaching produces the same emotional impact as physically manipulating their movement, as demonstrated by Davis et al. (2011) (see also, Tajadura-Jiménez et al., 2010). Another recent study revealed that looming threat stimuli elicit more negative facial expressions than receding threat, (Mulier et al., 2023).
Overall, studies show that people's perceptions of looming threats are not only influenced by emotional responses or by fear, nor by proxies for such responses, but also act as significant causal determinants that significantly impact attention, memory, and emotional responses. Furthermore, the rapid approach of negative stimuli significantly influences emotions, whether it is imagined or real (e.g., Davis et al., 2011). This is reminiscent of another recent study that found that simply reading sentences depicting approaching objects enhances memory, relative to reading sentences describing their movement away (Diez-Alamo et al., 2020).
Through such studies, there is also experimental evidence that outcomes that maintain a constant high level of proximity or probability elicit less negative affective responses than those that grow from lower levels to equal levels of proximity or probability (Hsee et al., 2014; Mobbs et al., 2010). For example, Mobbs et al. found that tarantulas that remained at fixed proximity to observer’s feet elicited less fear than tarantulas that moved closer to their feet. In eight studies of “approach aversion,” Hsee et al. found that individuals have more negative (or less positive) emotional reactions to a range of stimuli, such as emoticons, letters, posters, or possible visits from distant relatives, when they perceive them as approaching, as opposed to remaining static or as moving away. Moreover, approach aversion occurs irrespective of whether objects or events approach in space, time, or certainty (increasing likelihood), or whether they are real or hypothetical. For example, the hypothetical visit by a distant (unfamiliar) relative from another city led to more negative emotional responses when the odds of the visit increased sharply over a short period, compared to when they were a constant high or low or sharply dropped. Thus, the approach of objects or events had more negative impact than their static aspects.
Moreover, Hsee et al. (2014) found that ostensibly positive stimuli, like smiling emoticons, can induce approach aversion, a finding in line with the revised looming vulnerability model's premise that approaching objects possess a lower threshold for being considered threats. It is reasonable to assume that there would have been at least some uncertainty to fuel this because participants may have remained unsure that the use of these odd stimuli was actually benign.
Static Probabilities Often Have Less Than the Expected Impact
In Hsee et al.’s (2014) studies, higher static probability or proximity values had minimal impact on emotional responses, relative to approaching ones, consistent with previous research suggesting that individuals often struggle to intuitively understand fixed probability or likelihood when estimating risk (Sunstein, 2002; Sunstein & Zeckhauser, 2010). Sunstein and Zeckhauser’s research suggests that individuals frequently neglect probability information when assessing health and safety threats, responding in an 'all-or-nothing' manner to even the slightest risk potential. For example, in one study, respondents were just as afraid of a 1% chance of contamination by poisonous chemicals as of a 90% chance (Sunstein & Zeckhauser, 2010). Similarly, studies show that people are insensitive to “variations in the probability of shock—unless this probability was zero” if they anticipate receiving painful electric shocks at an expected time but have an unclear probability of this (i.e., 5%, 50%, or 100%) (e.g., Monat, Averill, & Lazarus, 1972; Bankhart & Elliot, 1974).
Research suggests that likelihood and cost are crucial appraisal dimensions in anxiety, as individuals with higher anxiety overestimate both probability and cost of events (Clark & Beck, 2010). However, the approaching proximity of threat can also drive these anxiety-related negative expectations to become higher (Riskind et al., 1992), and such threat overestimates may at least partly reflect looming cognitive styles. Moreover, static judgements may be less adept at discriminating anxiety from depression (Riskind & Williams, 2005).
Overall, the findings support the looming vulnerability account, suggesting dynamic approaching stimuli serve as early warning signals with unique survival value, receiving priority in attention and memory, eliciting distinct brain activation patterns, and inducing negative emotions.
Cognitive-Perceptual Distortions of Time, Distance, Size, and Movement in Looming Threat
The revised formulation formalizes previous assertions indicating that perceptions of looming vulnerability are related to alterations in an individual's perception of size, motion, space, and time. In a recent publication, Riskind and Calvete (2023) proposed that multiple simultaneous “looming vulnerability” distortions like these (called “estimation biases” elsewhere in the literature), may cause threat stimuli to at once look as if they are rapidly approaching, larger, more frightening, and less avoidable and controllable. Together, the distortions magnify the sense of dynamic looming threat.
As previously noted, individuals tend to overestimate the speed and time of arrival of approaching stimuli that elicit fear such as spiders and snakes (Basanovec et al., 2018; McGuire et al., 2016; Vagnoni et al., 2012). Moreover, individuals with spider and snake phobias exaggerate the frequency of these animals jumping or moving toward them when they are seen in an aquarium (Rachman & Cuk, 1992). These creatures are perceived and interpreted as dynamic and approaching by spider-phobic individuals (Riskind et al., 1991, 1992, 1995), while individuals with contamination fears perceive germs and pollutants as growing and spreading towards them (Elwood et al., 2011; Fink-Lamotte et al., 2024; Riskind et al., 1997a, 1997b; Riskind & Rector, 2007; Tolin et al., 2004). Spiders and dangerous strangers may appear larger and closer than they are, while stimuli that elicit disgust are perceived as further away (Cole et al., 2013; Leibovich et al., 2016; Shiban et al., 2016; Vasey et al., 2012). Socially anxious individuals (Givon-Benjio & Okon-Singer, 2020) and those fearing COVID (Givon-Benjio et al., 2024) overestimate the physical proximity of strangers to themselves.
Furthermore, when confronted with threats, individuals frequently overestimate the passage of time, possibly due to a mistaken impression of how quickly time is passing when threatened. This is observed when individuals are blindfolded on a cart moving towards the edge of a raised platform as opposed to a flat one (Langer et al., 1961, 1965), are exposed to spiders (Watts & Sharrock, 1984), or shown threatening images. When individuals perceive their goals as conflicting (Etkin et al., 2015), they tend to feel they have insufficient time. Langer and colleagues (1961, 1965) discovered that participants tended to simultaneously exaggerate both their physical proximity to threats and the duration of exposure to them.
Specific Evidence for the Importance of Dynamic Stimuli in the Looming Vulnerability Model
Having seen that many of the looming vulnerability model's hypotheses in Table 1 are supported in the broader scientific literature, we can proceed now to examine other key hypotheses, beginning with studies that investigate predictions about the role of dynamic aspects of threat pertaining to threat appraisal and anxiety, and on fear conditioning and extinction. Following this in the next section, we consider the research on the looming cognitive style.
Causal Impact of Dynamic Perceptions
The looming vulnerability model suggests that anxiety-inducing threats are not static still-life’s but are dynamic, requiring dynamic action. Numerous experimental studies have shown that dynamic aspects of threat stimuli are crucial beyond their static features alone (Riskind, 1997; Riskind & Wahl, 1992). For example, when threat situations were written in a dynamic rather than static manner (e.g., germs on a microscope slide moving and turning, or a psychiatric patient who appears to have escaped is described as tapping his feet in a restaurant), participants rate them as more threatening and anxiety-inducing. Conversely, if a germ on a microscope slide, a stranger in an elevator with oneself late at night, or a stinging insect is labeled as “threatening” (v. not threatening) people rate them with more dynamic impressions as faster, more active, and moving closer.
Consistent with studies on emotion-inducing stimuli-like images of dead babies-several studies have used video clips of tarantulas to manipulate their directional movement. Approaching tarantulas seem more threatening than stationary or retreating ones and elicit distinct patterns of fMRI brain activation and higher self-reported fear (Mobbs et al., 2010; Riskind et al., 1992; Riskind & Maddux, 1993). Moreover, individuals judge tarantulas as more dangerous, unpredictable, and uncontrollable when they are approaching, indicating that their threat appraisals are more severe when the tarantulas are approaching than when they are static or receding. However, no similar effects are observed for approaching bunny rabbits instead of tarantulas. (Riskind et al., 1992).
The looming vulnerability model provides a unified approach to various scenarios, including a moving spider, deadlines, and rising probabilities of undesirable events, with a notable study on speech anxiety focusing on threat approaching through time (Haikal & Hong, 2010). Participants in a “temporal looming” condition prepared a video presentation about themselves with a countdown clock, while control participants knew the presentation was imminent but had no countdown clock. The “temporal looming” participants with a countdown clock reported more anxiety and two social anxiety-related illusions: the “illusion of transparency” and the “spotlight effect”. These results suggest that salient dynamic perceptions of approaching danger considerably increase social anxiety.
Impact on Fear Acquisition and Habituation
In interviews with individuals with animal phobia, McNally and Steketee (1985) found that dynamic stimuli, especially movement, were salient fear-eliciting cues. The looming vulnerability model suggests that stimulus features and impressions may contribute to fear acquisition. An intriguing study more than two decades ago found that fathead minnows exhibit aversive conditioning when exposed to chemical alarm signals to a natural predator-like moving object or a non fear-relevant object shaped like a rod, but not to either stimulus when they were stationary (Wisenden & Harter 2001). This interesting research received little attention from researchers exploring fear-conditioning but underscores the necessity to study movement's role in fear responses.
The looming vulnerability model also hypothesizes that dynamic perceptions might impede fear stimulus habituation, while static stimuli normally increase habituation and reduce emotional reactivity (Riskind, 1997). A study by Dorfan and Woody (2006) tested the hypothesis by applying urine drops to college students' arms in one of three mental imagery conditions. Participants imagined germs spreading on their body in one condition and as static (immobile on the initial contamination site) or safe in two others. Although requiring replication, the study discovered that exposure to static and safety imagery was linked to desensitization, whereas dynamic, moving-spreading images hindered habituation and heightened sensitization, leading to increased SUDS scores after 30 minutes. Other than these few studies, there has been little research on the roles of dynamic cues in fear acquisition and extinction.
Self-Efficacy and Dynamic Perceptions
The looming vulnerability model suggests that anxiety triggered by moving and looming threats is influenced by individuals' perceptions of self-efficacy and control. Riskind and Maddux (1993) conducted an experiment in which they split participants who saw brief videos of tarantulas approaching or moving away into two groups: some participants were given instructions to induce high self-efficacy expectations while viewing the tarantulas shown on video clips, and others were given instructions to induce low-self-efficacy expectations. The study found that the looming movement manipulation primarily caused anxiety in individuals with low self-efficacy, and the brief videotapes of approaching tarantulas had a weaker impact on those with high self-efficacy. While self-efficacy can mitigate the impact of looming threats, additional studies show that looming threats can lower the expectancy of self-efficacy and perceived control (Riskind et al., 1992; see also, Riskind & Calvete, 2023).
Cognitive Vulnerability to Anxiety: The Looming Cognitive Style
We have focused on how dynamic threat cues, such as spiders approaching, affect emotions and other responses. Individual differences in persisting personal characteristics and habitual cognitive patterns also affect how people perceive and interpret the dynamic features of danger. According to the looming vulnerability model, some individuals have looming cognitive styles to generate exaggerated dynamic views and impressions of threats as rapidly escalating and approaching, even when they are not.
The validated and easy-to-administer "Looming Maladaptive Style Questionnaire" (LMSQ-R; Riskind et al., 2000) assesses differences in looming cognitive style. Respondents are asked to answer three questions for each of six hypothetical scenarios, three of which involve social threats and three of which involve physical threats (e.g., "In this scene, are the chances of your having an accident in this situation decreasing or expanding with each moment?"; "Is the level of threat in the situation staying fairly constant or is it growing rapidly larger with each passing moment?"; "How much do you visualize your problem as in the act of becoming progressively worse?"). Separate scores for social looming (e.g.., looming appraisals in response to potentially threatening social rejection) and physical looming (i.e., potentially threatening physical threats such as automobile accidents) can be generated by aggregating responses to their three vignettes.
Looming cognitive style assessments can be adapted to numerous threats, including OCD contamination, panic attacks, disease fears, romantic rejection, spider fear, and post-traumatic situations. Some studies have used items like "How fast or slow is the spider (contamination) moving as it approaches you" to assess looming cognitive style, rather than using questions in the LMSQ (how rapidly will get worse), but still resulting in equivalent results.
Psychometric Properties
The LMSQ has demonstrated excellent psychometric properties, with high reliability and strong construct validity evidenced by its associations with other relevant measures. Confirmatory factor analysis findings with SEM (e.g., Riskind et al., 2000) demonstrate that the looming cognitive style assesses a distinct construct from anxiety, and a latent looming variable was distinct from, but correlated with a latent anxiety variable assessed by three other measures. Moreover, the correlations between looming cognitive style and anxiety were not so high as to cast doubt onits divergent validity. In addition, studies show that the LMSQ is not confounded by neuroticism or social desirability responding (Elwood et al., 2011; Riskind & Calvete, 2023) Furthermore, confirmatory factor analyses confirm that the LMSQ has a two-factor structure with separate but correlated subscales for looming social threat such as rejection and looming physical threat of bodily harm (González-Díez et al., 2015; Hong et al., 2017). Hong et al. (2017) conducted a study with 5000 individuals from 10 nations (Canada, Croatia, Italy, Japan, Nepal, and Serbia). Singapore, Spain, Turkey, and the United States (US) and discovered that the LMSQ's measurement properties were similar across the various countries.
Notably, it will be seen that evidence also satisfies the main logical criteria for establishing strong support for the looming cognitive style as a putative vulnerability (Alloy et al., 1999; Riskind & Alloy, 2006): That the putative vulnerability covaries with the pertinent symptoms and displays stability and predictive validity, disorder-specificity (if hypothesized), and discriminant and incremental validity. Furthermore, there is evidence to rule out alternative explanations in terms of third variables, and to establish the construct validity of the looming cognitive style in terms of its hypothesized underlying mechanisms and causal chains as well as developmental antecedents. Before we look at this evidence, we briefly consider evidence that the looming cognitive style assesses dynamic danger content.
Looming Cognitive as Construct Representing Dynamic Danger
Riskind et al. (2000) found that LMSQ responses are linked to self-reports of seeing dynamic mental imagery of threat that resemble rolling videos. In a recent publication, Riskind and Calvete (2023) added extensive further evidence that the looming cognitive style captures dynamic aspects of threat that other constructs don’t. Their study developed a “ Looming Vulnerability Distortions Questionnaire” (LVDQ), which is depicted in Fig. 2, which assessed distortion perceptions of threatening stimuli that can simultaneously contribute to the perception of looming vulnerability (e.g. Space and Time Compression Distortions, Rapid Time Distortion). For example, a person may perceive a spider or a potential romantic rejection as closer in space or time than they are, as “looming larger, as approaching faster, and as leaving the person with little perceived time left to cope, and a lower sense of control.
Fig. 2
Looming cognitive distortions questionnaire (LVDQ, Riskind and Calvete, 2023)
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Results of confirmatory SEM analyses on a large student sample (N = 751) indicated that the LVDQ assessed an overall unitary and highly internally consistent construct. Furthermore, the LVDQ demonstrated a unique association with the looming cognitive style score, as well as a face-valid lab-based task, controlling for factors such as anxiety, worry, intolerance of uncertainty, logical distortions like black-white thinking, and social desirability. Furthermore, like the looming cognitive style, the LVDQ predicted a unique portion of variability in anxiety and other emotional distress not explained by other factors.
Covariance of the Looming Cognitive Style with Higher Levels of Anxiety and its Correlates
As just mentioned, one of the first requirements for establishing that a factor serves as a cognitive vulnerability is that it should covary with symptoms of the disorder. A multitude of studies have linked the looming cognitive style to anxiety and its various cognitive and behavioral correlates, supporting its cognitive vulnerability status based on covariation criteria. A meta-analysis conducted by Yeo et al. (2020) addressed the question of its links to anxiety measures by synthesizing 61 studies with 69 samples and 141 effect sizes. Yeo et al. found that the looming cognitive style had moderate effect sizes on both general anxiety symptoms (those unrelated to specific syndromes like social anxiety) and a variety of specific anxiety or anxiety-related syndromes (social anxiety, simple phobias, and OCD). Also, as shown in Table 1, the looming cognitive style has been linked to a multitude of cognitive and behavioral correlates of anxiety, including catastrophizing tendencies, worry, threat cognitions, sleep disruptions, interpretive and memory biases, "freeze responses" to threat stimuli (as evidenced by slower reaction times and inhibitory reactions to uncertainty), and stress generation.
Table 1
Associations of looming cognitive style with anxiety and its correlates
Category of correlates
Findings
Research
Emotional disturbances
Description
Studies
Anxiety and depression
Associated with nonspecific anxiety, worry, social anxiety, fears, OCD, PTSD and depression
Generally more related to anxiety than depression
Yeo et al. (2020). Meta-Analysis of 141 effect sizes from 61 articles and 69 studies
Reardon and Williams (2007), Williams et al. (2005)
Hostility suicidality
Modestly related to hostility and suicidality
Riskind et al. (2013a), Riskind and Calvete (2023), Schaefer et al. (2012)
Cognitive features of anxiety
Catastrophizing and threat cognitions
Associated with catastrophizing and threat cognitions on the cognition checklist and with spontaneous threat cognitions on thought tapping task. Linked to depression through lack of perceived control
Duffy et al. (2024 Hughes et al. ( 2008); Riskind et al. (2017a); Riskind & Calvete (2023); Riskind et al. (2000); Riskind & Williams (1999a)
Anxiety sensitivity
Small to moderates associations with anxiety sensitivity scores; social looming has a stronger association
Predicts stress generation when combined with other cognitive vulnerability factors
Kleiman and Riskind (2012), Riskind et al. (2012), Riskind et al.(2013b)
Overall, these findings amply support the construct validity of looming cognitive style. Moreover, the looming cognitive style’s divergent validity from other cognitive constructs is upheld by its moderate correlations with the constructs. Later evidence will reveal that the looming cognitive style is transdiagnostic throughout the anxiety disorder spectrum.
Of note, women generally score higher on the looming cognitive style than men (González-Díez et al., 2015; Hong et al., 2017; Riskind et al., 2017b) and exhibit a more robust "anticipatory auditory looming bias," in overestimating the speed and proximity of approaching sound sources (Neuhoff et al., 2009). As anxiety disorders are also more common in women (McLean et al., 2011), these gender differences might potentially contribute to the greater risk women have for anxiety disorders. However, their clinical significance remains to be determined.
Looming Cognitive Style and Disorder Specificity
A substantial body of research bolsters the model's core tenet that looming cognitive style is more closely linked to anxiety disorder symptoms compared to depression. Yeo et al’s (2020) meta-analyses, for instance, indicated that while looming cognitive style was significantly correlated to depression, it was significantly more strongly related to anxiety (including generalized anxiety symptoms and social anxiety). The looming cognitive style has also been shown to differentiate college and community participants with GAD from those with clinical depression and non-psychopathology controls (Riskind & Williams, 2005). There are also data indicating that the looming cognitive style is associated with hostility but less strongly than for anxiety (Riskind et al., 2a2013b; Riskind & Calvete, 2023)
The looming cognitive style, however, may contribute to depressed symptoms, particularly when people feel powerless to influence, change, or escape unfavorable events that they see as inevitable (Riskind & Rector, 2018; Tzur-Bitan et al., 2012; Yeo et al., 2020). For example, looming cognitive style synergistically predicts a higher risk for depression symptoms in individuals with co-occurring depressive explanatory styles (Kleiman & Riskind, 2012) or terminal cancer (Levin et al., 2007). In addition, evidence suggests that the looming cognitive style could contribute to suicidal ideation under some conditions (Schaefer et al., 2012).
Despite the fact that anxiety and depression are closely linked and share many common features that are targeted by transdiagnostic therapy strategies (Craske, 2012), the research indicates that looming cognitive style does, indeed, seem to help in distinguishing them. This is important because many cognitive-behavioral protocols highlight the need to understand each disorder's disorder-specific content to construct appropriate cognitive conceptualizations and successful therapies (Beck, 1976).
Looming Cognitive Style is a Prospectively Predicting Cognitive Vulnerability Factor
To be considered a cognitive vulnerability, the looming cognitive style must first be a stable or persisting personality trait. This criterion is satisfied by numerous studies (e.g., Riskind et al., 2000, 2021). In the latter study, test-retest stability coefficients of 0.83 were observed for looming cognitive style (LMSQ) over a span of 6 months, and 0.63 over the course of a year.
When it comes to demonstrating that a factor that exhibits stability is a cognitive vulnerability for anxiety, it is essential that it can be shown that it predicts future anxiety, controlling for current levels, and is not just related by correlation. As is evident from Table 2, at least ten prospective studies have examined whether looming cognitive style predicts future anxiety symptoms after adjusting for initial symptoms. These studies using timeframes from 10 days to a year consistently show the looming cognitive style predicts future increases in anxiety, social anxiety, OCD symptoms, worry, and negative thoughts, all while accounting for existing anxiety levels (Adler & Strunk, 2010; Calvete et al., 2016; Carnahan et al., 2022; González-Diez et al., 2016; Riskind et al., 2000, 2007, 2017a, 2017b, 2021; Kleiman & Riskind, 2012; Sica et al., 2012; Williams, 2002). Furthermore, looming cognitive style afford additional incremental prediction of related variables including intolerance of uncertainty, avoidance coping, and fears of emotional control loss (Carnahan et al., 2022; Riskind & Kleiman, 2012; Williams, 2002), and serves as a moderator for other factors such as anxiety sensitivity, and depressive cognitive style in predicting stress generation (Kleiman & Riskind, 2012; Riskind et al., 2012, 2013a, 2013b). Notably, studies that also used depression measures found that looming cognitive style does not predict depression symptoms unless combined with depressive cognitive style, except in one exception (Riskind et al., 2021). In that study, looming cognitive style predicted increased depression a year later. In one recent study, Duffy et al. (2024) found that the pathway from looming cognitive style to depression may be mediated by perceptions of low personal control.
Table 2
Prospective studies of looming cognitive style as a cognitive vulnerability: Prospective
Evidence from prospective studies that LCS predicts anxiety
Serial mediation study found that LCS predicts changes in intolerance of uncertainty and avoidance coping which predict changes in anxiety X months later during the pandemic
LCS combines with depressive cognitive style to synergistically predict more intense anxiety and depression and anxiety-depression comorbidity over six weeks
LCS social threat scale predicts the time course of anxiety and spontaneous threat cognitions over the four weeks leading to a required public classroom speech
LCS combines with anxiety sensitivity to synergistically predict more stress generation over four month
aUnpublished dissertation
A key feature of the hypothesized causal relations in cognitive vulnerability models is the assumption that cognitive vulnerability and stress interact (Riskind & Alloy, 2006). Cognitive vulnerability and stressful events, when combined, are more likely to lead to an episode of a disorder than single factors or their additive combination. Studies show that the looming cognitive style interacts with stress, enhancing the impact of stressful life events in predicting future anxiety symptoms (Adler & Strunk, 2010; see also, Williams, 2002). But looming cognitive style, while increasing anxiety in response to stressful events for anxiety, did not do so for depression symptoms. Hence, the looming cognitive style’s ability to prospectively predict anxiety symptoms is well established.
Another, but less preferred, way to investigate whether the looming cognitive style is a cognitive vulnerability is to examine whether it is related to prior lifetime history of anxiety disorders. Using this kind of “looking-back” design (Alloy et al., 1999), a study by Black et al. (2010) discovered a relationship between looming cognitive style and a prior lifetime history of anxiety disorders, particularly social anxiety disorder, but no such relationship was found for mood disorders. Of note, no studies have yet been conducted to investigate the potential cognitive vulnerability of looming cognitive styles for anxiety disorders using a prospective "behavioral high risk" design (Alloy et al., 1999).
Research has also investigated whether looming cognitive style anxiety can create a self-perpetuating cycle, worsening symptoms over time. Two prospective studies suggest a reciprocal relationship, where anxiety predicts increases in looming cognitive style and vice versa (Calvete et al., 2016; Riskind et al., 2017a), However, another study didn't find this effect (Riskind et al., 2021). Hence, further investigation is necessary.
Looming Cognitive Style and Biased Schematic Cognitive Processing
Once established, the looming cognitive style is believed to function as a danger schema, shaping interpretive and memory biases for threat-related information. (Riskind et al., 2000; Riskind & Williams, 2006). Consistent with this idea, the looming cognitive style predicts increases in spontaneous threat cognitions (e.g., "what if I don't do well") over repeated assessments three weeks before giving a public speech (Riskind et al., 2017a).
In more direct tests of the hypothesis, other studies show that individuals with high looming cognitive style tend to choose threatening spellings of audio recordings of homophones with both menacing and non-threatening meanings (such as die vs. dye or slay vs/sleigh) (Riskind et al., 2000). These individuals are also more likely to complete word stems with threatening alternative spellings (such as completing “kni___: as “knife" instead of "knight”). Moreover, Prieto-Fidalgo et al. (2022) found that individuals with high looming cognitive style scores tend to interpret even subtle changes in facial expressions more negatively. They are also more prone to generalize negative attitudes learned from previous unpleasant experiences with stimuli to new stimuli in computer games (Pietri et al., 2012). A study of perceptual bias found that anxious participants who scored high on the looming cognitive style subscale for approaching bodily harm overestimate the speed and arrival time of an approaching sound source (Riskind et al., 2014).
Importantly, in the homophone study above, which used SEM analysis, Riskind et al. (2000) found that latent looming cognitive style had a distinct relationship with performance on the homophone task, and that looming cognitive style contributed to predicting threatening homophone spelling bias when in models with anxiety and with nondynamic probability of occurrence appraisals, while they did not. Moreover, these findings were replicated in a low anxiety subsample.
In a separate study, Riskind et al. (2000) found that the looming cognitive style significantly predicts more memory bias on a free recall task for visual threat information over neutral or positive information (such as traffic accidents vs. fish or flowers). Threat-related images were also more accessible, since they were recalled sooner on the free recall task.
A false memory study by Monds et al. (2013) revealed that individuals with high looming cognitive style scores are more susceptible to false intrusions, recalling extra trauma words during free recall tasks that were not on an original list. (Monds et al., 2013). Presumably, the looming cognitive style can create false memories by acting as a danger schema that influences mental associations and fills in memory gaps for specific information. However, high looming cognitive style did not lead to increased false recognition memory for critical trauma words or lures. Monds et al. hypothesized that the looming cognitive style enhances vigilance for threat stimuli, facilitating the recognition that critical lures were not on the original list while not deterring false intrusions of a threat-related nature.
Defensive Compensatory and Dysfunctional Behavior
The model postulates that people with the looming cognitive style use a range of self-defense strategies to shield themselves from potentially threatening thoughts and emotions (Riskind et al., 2000; Riskind & Williams, 2006). Studies have found evidence that the looming cognitive style correlates with worry, thought suppression, cognitive-experiential avoidance, and risk aversion (Clemente et al., 2013; Hughes & Alloy, 2008; Pietri et al., 2012; Riskind et al., 2000; Riskind & Kleiman, 2012).
The looming cognitive style has been found to prospectively predict future increases in worry and fears of losing self-control over intense emotions over a four-week period (Riskind et al., 2000, 2007; Riskind & Kleiman, 2012). A study using serial mediation modeling found that a looming cognitive style at the start of the pandemic predicted both subsequent avoidance coping and intolerance of uncertainty three months later, but these factors did not predict future scores for this cognitive style (Carnahan et al., 2022).
The looming cognitive style is also linked to freezing responses, with individuals displaying defensive inhibitory freezing responses when exposed to rapidly approaching threat stimuli, such as spiders (Sagliano et al., 2014), and those with high looming cognitive style scores showing stronger freezing responses, even when controlling for anxiety and behavioral inhibition (Riskind et al., 2016). Freezing reactions may indicate avoidance coping and inhibition, and the allocation of resources to assess a fast-approaching threat's severity. Likewise, looming cognitive style is linked to higher scores on the inhibitory or "mental paralysis" component of the intolerance of uncertainty scale (Hong & Lee, 2015). Furthermore, it is also associated with a tendency to weigh negative information from past experience more highly than positive information, which can lead to risk-averse behavior and avoidance of challenging situations (Pietri et al., 2012).
Taken together, this research indicates that individuals with high looming cognitive style are more likely to engage in cognitive avoidance and inhibitory defensive responses in response to threats and uncertainty. Although the previous version of the looming vulnerability model was somewhat unclear about this, recent research indicates that these defensive mental processes can impede or interfere with memory. A recent study has demonstrated that combining looming cognitive style with anxiety sensitivity and poor working memory impedes memory for threatening material (in contrast to other studies that show memory enhancement) (Matsumoto & Kawaguchi, 2020). Interestingly, strong working memory seems to buffer this effect. A self-reported measure of cognitive dissociation, a form of cognitive avoidance, further supported the notion of a role for cognitive avoidance, echoing the memory findings with a parallel three-way interaction.
Within the constellation of studies on the looming cognitive style, three prospective investigations of the stress generation process have also shown the importance of interaction effects. They showed that the interactions between the looming cognitive style with anxiety sensitivity or depressed cognitive style, predicts a far greater chance of engaging in behaviors leading to bad future outcomes (stress generation) than the additive combination of these factors (Kleiman & Riskind, 2014; Riskind et al., 2012, 2013b). Along with this, the interaction between the looming cognitive style and a depressive cognitive style also predicts higher levels of anxiety and comorbid depressive symptoms compared to the sum of the individual effects of these vulnerability factors. (Kleiman & Riskind, 2012; also see Tzur Bitan et al., 2012).
A study of contamination fears should be mentioned that found no significant relationship between looming germ spread appraisals and avoidance on a behavioral avoidance task (Dorfan & Woody, 2011). However, the findings might be less at odds with the looming vulnerability model than might initially appear. The study found a robust association between the perception of germ spread and anxiety and disgust ratings, and a danger appraisal measure, all of which in turn predicted avoidance behavior. The danger appraisal measure included questions on perceived vulnerability, risk, likelihood of negative events, disease likelihood, and severity. The looming vulnerability model holds the expectation that emotions like anxiety and disgust and other appraisals might act as intermediate steps (mediators) between perceiving germ spread appraisals and avoiding them (Riskind et al., 1997a, 1997b; Riskind & Rector, 2018), but this possibility wasn’t examined in the study.
Looming Cognitive Style as a Common Transdiagnostic Theme for Anxiety Disorders
Looming cognitive style is a shared transdiagnostic feature in anxiety and, to a lesser extent, depression. Likewise, it is expected to be transdiagnostic in OCD and PTSD, which were once classified as anxiety disorders. Two studies used structural equation modeling (SEM) and found that the looming cognitive style predicts a common underlying factor for symptoms like obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, worry, social anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (Reardon & Williams, 2007; Williams et al., 2005). Consistent with hypotheses, the looming cognitive style predicted the latent factor for anxiety symptoms but did not predict depression. To the contrary, anxiety sensitivity and depressive explanatory style were found to be non-specific predictors of both anxiety and depression (Reardon & Williams, 2007).
The looming cognitive style is also believed to have disorder-specific forms for specific anxiety subtypes or syndromes. For example, fears of spiders (Riskind et al., 1992; Riskind et al., 1995), HIV (Riskind & Maddux, 1994), and cancer (Levin et al., 2007) are associated with various types of looming cognitive style, such as imagining spiders approaching and perceiving HIV or cancer spreading and approaching rapidly. Social anxiety and GAD are associated with a tendency to simulate the rapid approach of "looming social rejection" (Brown & Stopa, 2008; Reardon & Williams, 2007; Riskind et al., 2011), which sets them apart from panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD, while a looming cognitive style for looming panic attacks (visualizing their catastrophic consequences as rapidly progressing) distinguishes panic disorder from OCD, social phobia, and GAD (Riskind et al., 2011). A specific type of looming cognitive style, where people see germs spreading fast (“looming contamination”) is linked to both contamination fear and disgust sensitivity (see also Williams et al., 2006, on “looming disgust.”), and has been observed in clinical and nonclinical samples (Dorfan & Woody 2006; Elwood et al. 2011; Riskind et al., 1997a, 1997b; Riskind & Rector, 2007; Williams et al., 2006). The looming cognitive style for contamination distinguishes clinical OCD patients from panic disorder, social phobia, and GAD (Fink-Lamott, et al., 2024; Riskind et al., 2011; Tolin et al., 2004). Of note, the "chain of contagion" effect in OCD, when even indirectly touched objects (for example, a pencil touching a pencil that had touched a contaminated object) are regarded as polluted, is linked to higher looming cognitive style for contamination and seemingly mediates the effects (Tolin et al., 2004)
Despite the few studies that have hitherto explored the links between looming cognitive style and PTSD (Greenblatt-Kimron, 2024; Reardon & Williams, 2007), which until recently was classified as an anxiety disorder, there is some evidence for such disorder-specific styles. PTSD flashback memories display more dynamic movement imagery than other memories (Hellawell & Brewin, 2004), and interpersonal trauma survivors exhibit a “looming-cognitive style type” interpretative bias, interpreting other people as moving with more rapid and dangerous movements (Elwood et al., 2007a, 2007b). Elwood et al’s study found that individuals who have undergone trauma perceived threatening situations as more predictable and more quickly escalating in risk than non-victims.
The Looming Cognitive Style Affords Incremental Prediction and is Not Redundant
Research shows that looming cognitive style offers significant additional predictive power for anxiety, even when considering established factors like negative emotions, personality traits (neuroticism), stress, anxiety sensitivity, uncertainty intolerance, depressive thinking, negative beliefs, and social desirability responding (Adler & Strunk, 2010; del Palacio-González & Clark, 2016; Elwood et al., 2011, Reardon & Williams, 2007; Riskind & Calvete, 2023; Riskind et al., 2000, 2007). Thus, the evidence suggests that the relationship between looming cognitive style and anxiety is not due to third factors like neuroticism or other alternative explanations. In addition to this, looming cognitive style goes beyond simply incrementally predicting anxiety. Research suggests it also interacts with, or moderates, the effects of other factors—such as stressful life events, anxiety sensitivity, depressive cognitive style, negative mood regulation, and perfectionism—potentially amplifying or diminishing their impact on anxiety (see Table 2) (e.g., Adler & Strunk, 2010; Altan-Atalay, 2018b, 2018c, 2020, 2023; Kleinman & Riskind, 2012; Matsumoto & Kawaguchi, 2020; Riskind et al., 2010).
Crucially, a significant body of research highlights that looming cognitive style predicts anxiety-related outcomes beyond the contributions of static probability judgments. It predicts anxiety symptoms in generalized anxiety, panic disorder, spider phobia, OCD-related contamination fears, and fears of HIV, even after accounting for static probability judgments (Riskind & Maddux, 1994; Riskind et al., 1995; Riskind & Williams, 2005; Riskind et al., 2011). Furthermore, looming cognitive style predicts interpretative bias in homophone performance on a laboratory task, even when static likelihood judgements and anxiety symptoms are controlled for (Riskind et al., 2000). Additionally, it predicts cognitive-perceptual distortions (e.g., temporal and size distortions) on a lab-based task, even when controlling for anxiety symptoms, intolerance of uncertainty, worry, logical distortions and social desirability responding (Riskind & Calvete, 2023).
Also underscoring the non-redundancy of the looming cognitive style, one study found that individuals with GAD exhibited a significantly stronger looming cognitive style compared to both clinical depression and nonclinical controls. Subjective likelihood judgments on a subscale included in vignette outcomes in the LMSQ did not show these group differences (Riskind & Williams, 2005). A separate study found that a panic-looming version of the looming cognitive style effectively differentiates DSM-IV diagnosed panic disorder from OCD, social phobia, and GAD groups, even when controlling for subjective likelihood judgements of catastrophic consequences of panic symptoms (Riskind et al., 2011). However, subjective likelihood judgments of catastrophic panic outcomes in the LMSQ vignettes did not differ between diagnostic groups when controlling for panic looming.
Hong (2013) found that the looming cognitive style did not mediate the effects of neuroticism on anxiety and depression symptoms in the context of many other social-cognitive vulnerability factors like ruminative style, intolerance of uncertainty, dysfunctional attitudes, and pessimistic explanatory style. Thus, further study is needed to explore the conditions in which the looming cognitive style uniquely contributes to prediction.
Developmental Antecedents of the Looming Cognitive Style
Looming cognitive style is thought to result from inadequate parenting, faulty attachment bonds, and past life traumas and abuse. Moreover, the impact of developmental antecedents like these on anxiety appears to be conveyed via looming cognitive style changes (Altan-Atalay& Ayvaşık, 2019; Gonzalez-Diez et al., 2015; Greenblatt-Kimron & Cohen, 2020; Milovanović et al., 2022; Riskind et al., 2004, 2017a, 2017b; Williams & Riskind, 2004). For example, Holocaust survivors (Greenblatt-Kimron, 2024; Greenblatt-Kimron & Cohen, 2020) and individuals who have suffered parental emotional abuse (González-Díez et al., 2016) have higher levels of looming cognitive style. Similarly, college students with higher looming cognitive style scores report having overprotective parents and exhibit anxious attachment patterns compared to their low looming cognitive style counterparts (Altan-Atalay& Ayvaşık, 2019; Riskind et al., 2004). Moreover, other studies also suggest that the adverse effects of developmental antecedents can be transmitted through changes in cognitive style. For example, persons with higher scores on the early maladaptive schema of other directedness and excessive desire for approval (González Díez et al., 2015) tend to score higher on looming cognitive style subscale for social rejection over time. The impact of this early maladaptive schema on later social anxiety in six months was transmitted through scores for the looming cognitive style for social threat. On a similar note, González-Díez et al. (2016) found that parental emotional maltreatment prospective predicted changes in looming cognitive style at six months, and looming cognitive style predicted and transmitted the impact of parental emotional maltreatment on future social anxiety changes.
Looming cognitive style may also contribute to the intergenerational transmission of anxiety, in which anxious parents tend to produce anxious offspring. College-aged offspring of high looming cognitive style parents show high looming cognitive style scores themselves and increased anxiety (Milovanović et al., 2022; Riskind et al., 2017b). Riskind et al. found that fathers looming cognitive styles significantly impacted college students' anxiety, even after adjusting for parental anxiety sensitivity, intolerance of uncertainty, and worry, while these did not appear to play a role in intergenerational transmission. However, parental looming cognitive style had no relationships to the depression of their offspring. Milovanović et al. focused on their attention on the intergenerational impact of mothers' looming cognitive style, finding evidence suggesting its transmission occurs via the modeling of maladaptive behavior.
Clinical Implications of the Looming Vulnerability Model
The looming vulnerability model has several clinical implications that can be suggested for prevention, assessment and treatment. First, the looming cognitive style and looming vulnerability distortions both have preventive implications. The preventive implications are the measures might afford an early way to identify and intervene with at-risk individuals before they develop more severe anxiety problems. Another possible use for the measures is to identify possible treatment targets as well as potential markers of the mediators of therapeutic change. For example, it could be theoretically expected that looming cognitive styles and looming vulnerability distortions (e.g., spatial or temporal distortions) might normalize over treatment. Consistent with this expectation, Katz et al. (2017) found during 12 weeks of group cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) that looming cognitive style scores decreased in patients with GAD. Also consistent with the expectation, the changes in looming cognitive style were linked to improved anxiety levels after treatment, even when accounting for initial anxiety levels.
Attempting to modify looming cognitive style and looming vulnerability distortions might thus have promise for designing novel treatment targets and personalized interventions and mechanisms for change. Regarding this matter, although it was not specifically intended to test the therapeutic implications of the looming vulnerability model, studies by Davis et al. (2011) suggest that using imagery to reverse looming vulnerability distortions might prove helpful. Davis et al. showed that participants who imagined disturbing images as moving away reported less negative emotional responses than those who imagined them as constant or as moving close. In testing hypotheses of the looming vulnerability model, Dorfan and Woody (2006) found that mental imagery instruction, such as imagining urine drops on students' arms as moving, impeded habituation and increased distress over a 30-minute exposure, while static and safety images reduced distress response. (see also earlier study by Riskind et al., 1997a, 1997b). It is interesting to speculate that the use of such additional procedures could improve therapy outcomes for those not fully responsive to exposure treatment.
Another study found that practicing mindfulness, focusing on being present in the moment, holds promise for reducing the looming cognitive style (Kiken & Shook, 2012). Finally, though scant research exists, Riskind and Rector (2018) presented case studies showing many techniques that clinicians might use to manage distorted looming threat perceptions (see also, Riskind & Williams, 1999b; Riskind et al., 2005, 2012). Various imagery techniques may assist anxious people "slow down" threats, alleviate their sense of urgency and give them more perceived coping time.
Conclusions
The looming vulnerability model suggests that dynamic threat perceptions, particularly those perceived as looming or rapidly unfolding, crucially serve as warning signals for escalating risk, influencing anxiety, negative emotions, cognitive-affective processing, behavior, and maladaptive coping. The looming cognitive style has been found to serve as a transdiagnostic individual difference and persisting cognitive vulnerability that predicts negative emotional reactions, anxiety, memory biases, and maladaptive coping and avoidance, and may have a superior capacity to discriminate anxiety from depression than many cognitive constructs. Evidence suggests that development of the looming cognitive style is influenced by social and developmental factors like maladaptive parenting, attachment anxiety, emotional abuse, and trauma.
Limitations and Future Directions
Although the looming vulnerability model has obtained considerable support, several limitations should be recognized. More research is required on clinical or treatment-seeking samples, and children are not included in studies, although some have examined adolescents. Further research is needed to examine whether the looming cognitive style is applicable across countries, as well as attempt to understand cultural differences, in order to follow up the previous metanalytic study to address this (Hong et al., 2017). Regarding the revised looming vulnerability model itself, the evidence has been promising but further research is needed. For example, more research is warranted to examine whether the looming cognitive style is transdiagnostic in clinical patients. In addition, research is needed to determine if looming cognitive style and its interaction with stressful life events can predict the future onset or maintenance of distinct anxiety disorders meeting diagnostic criteria. While a study using a “looking-back” retrospective research design supports its likely predictive validity (Black et al., 2010), stringent research using prospective designs is necessary.
Future research is also needed to more closely explore the contributions of various causal mechanisms that underpin the associations between looming cognitive style and anxiety. Looming cognitive style can predict future susceptibility to anxiety, particularly exposure to stressful events, but it remains unclear whether this occurs because anxiety symptoms are more intense or whether they are slower to return to pre-exposure anxiety levels. Moreover, it needs to be clarified whether maladaptive attempts to reduce anxiety through experiential and cognitive avoidance may prevent a person from returning to pre-exposure anxiety levels as well as contribute to stress generation. Additionally, future studies may find it fruitful to explore why the looming cognitive style interacts with various factors, including anxiety sensitivity, depressive cognitive style, poor working memory, attentional control, negative mood regulation, and perfectionism (Altan-Atalay, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2018d, 2020, 2023; Kleiman & Riskind, 2012, 2014; Matsumoto & Kawaguchi, 2020; Riskind et al., 2010, 2013b). For example, combining looming cognitive style with certain vulnerabilities can increase the difficulty individuals have in regulating emotions, potentially leading to worse outcomes and symptom comorbidity with depression (Kleiman & Riskind, 2012; Tzur-Bitan, et al., 2012). It may also be fruitful to examine whether resilience factors like grit and self-efficacy may mitigate the effects of looming cognitive style.
Extending looming cognitive style research to other psychological disorders may also prove a fruitful direction. For example, future research might usefully investigate the connection of the looming cognitive style to specific PTSD symptom clusters and underlying mechanisms like cognitive avoidance, rumination, and thought suppression. Looming cognitive style may also relate to other disorders in surprising ways. For example, the looming cognitive style is related to psychopathy, which is inversely related to anxiety, with two studies showing that college students with higher psychopathy exhibiting lower scores on the looming cognitive style (Sugiura & Sugiura, 2012). Individuals with higher levels of attentional control showed this relationship more strongly, possibly due to their ability to focus away from perceived threats. One recent study showed that looming cognitive style mediated the impact of neuroticism on reported sleep quality (Zamani et al., 2021). Research shows that looming cognitive style is strongly linked to worry in paranoid psychotic patients (Clemente et al., 2013), and thus could likely be predictive of threatening delusional content.
Finally, the scope of future research on the looming vulnerability model could also be extended in two other readily identifiable ways. First, the conceptual framework of the model can readily be applied to anxiety and fears related to pandemics, financial crises, social conspiracy theories, and natural disasters, offering additional insights into potential contributors to responses. Second, future investigations could also expand the scope of the logic of the conceptual model to include both negative and positive emotions. For example, preliminary studies indicate that dynamic perceptions of “looming opportunities” might boost optimism and positive affect, but also potentially contribute to conditions like problem gambling or bipolar disorder, while dynamic perceptions and simulations of escalating and continuing “looming provocations,” might contribute to anger and hostility beyond the mere provocation itself. Research on the dynamic cognitive appraisal content in anxiety and depression and other disorders, including impulsive gambling, bipolar disorder, paranoid disorders, psychopathy and other disorders, could potentially afford additional insights that advance treatment and prevention strategies.
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Ayse Altan-Atalay, Esther Calvete, Julien Basonovic, and Ryan Hong for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.
Declarations
Conflict of interest
John H. Riskind declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Animal Rights
No animal studies were carried out by the authors for this article.
Informed Consent
All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (national and institutional). Informed consent was obtained from all individual subjects participating in the study. If any identifying information is contained in the paper the following statement is also necessary—Additional informed consent was obtained from any subjects for whom identifying information appears in this paper.
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