Anxiety is a generalized
mood that can occur without an identifiable triggering
stimulus. As such,
it is distinguished from fear, which is an appropriate cognitive and emotional response to a perceived threat. Additionally,
fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, whereas anxiety is related to situations perceived as uncontrollable or unavoidable.[8] Another view defines anxiety as "a future-oriented mood state in which one is ready or prepared to attempt to cope with upcoming negative events,"
[9] suggesting that it is a distinction between future and present dangers which divides anxiety and fear. In a 2011 review of the literature,
[10] fear and anxiety were said to be differentiated in four domains: (1) duration of emotional experience, (2) temporal focus, (3) specificity of the threat, and (4) motivated direction. Fear is defined as short lived, present focused, geared towards a specific threat, and facilitating escape from threat; while anxiety is defined as long acting, future focused, broadly focused towards a diffuse threat, and promoting caution while approaching a potential threat. While most everyone has an experience with anxiety at some point in their lives, as it is a common reaction to real or perceived threats of all kinds, most do not develop long-term problems with anxiety. When someone does develop chronic or severe problems with anxiety, such problems are usually classified as being one or more of the specific types of
Anxiety Disorders.