PERSONIFIED ANXIETY IMAGE: FACTOR STRUCTURE

Abstract

The article represents a theoretical analysis of approaches and forms of understanding anxiety as a psychological phenomenon, as well as the study of the personified anxiety image. Anxiety is usually understood as an emotional state caused by moments of uncertainty, unpredictability and the need to make a decision in a situation of limited information. Different theories distinguish emotional, cognitive, psychological and physiological components of anxiety. Recently, the views of scientists on the phenomenon of anxiety have deepened and become more holistic, and negative evaluative connotations have disappeared. The main difficulty in studying anxiety is the subjectivity of the subject’s perception and experience of the phenomenon. In the study of anxiety in adults, questionnaires are most often used, but expanding the toolkit can significantly deepen the understanding of anxiety and open up prospects for further research. This article uses a narrative method to identify existing practices of understanding anxiety. The study involved 38 university students aged 18 to 23. The task of the participants was to create a personalized image of anxiety. The semantic analysis of the texts showed that the image of anxiety includes components of appearance, description of the internal state, communication features, and some features of the life style. In general, the personalized description of anxiety demonstrates an unwillingness to interact with the environment, loss of direct interaction with it; the presence of certain neurotic symptoms (phobias, obsessions, anxiety and somatoform disorders); the dominance of avoidance, self-deprecation and hostility as forms of communication. Based on factor analysis, a model of a personalized image of anxiety was built (75.4% of the original data matrix), which included the following factors: “Asthenic detachment” (30.4%), “Individualism and alienation” (26.8%), “Selfdeprecation and social gullibility” (24.81%), “Trivial identity” (18.7%). According to the results, anxiety exists as a modus operandi in the space of dynamic interaction between the individual and the environment.