The psychology of looming vulnerability: Its relationships to loss

Abstract

Abstract Looming vulnerability is proposed as an important cognitive component of threat or danger that elicits anxiety, sensitizes the individual to threat, biases cognitive processing, and makes the anxiety more persistent and less likely to habituate. In addition, it is postulated to be a principal theme that discriminates anxiety and fear from depression. The present article briefly outlines the model of looming vulnerability, with a particular emphasis on applying it to the study of psychological aspects of reactions to loss. It is held that a study of perceived threat as a static construct must give way to a more dynamic understanding of how people experience and perceive threat and loss. Moreover, many pathological reactions to threat and trauma can represent adaptations to ongoing states of looming vulnerability. The looming vulnerability model generates new hypotheses and opens several productive lines of inquiry for future research.