title: Latent structure of anxiety: taxometric exploration.
abstract: Taxometrics is a statistical tool that can be used to discern categories from continua. Taxometric analyses (MAXCOV and MAXEIG) were conducted in a large nonclinical sample (N=1,215) to determine whether extreme anxiety forms a distinct psychopathological category, an anxiety taxon. Anxiety was operationalized with self-report measures of subjective anxiety, anxious cognitive style, physiological arousal, and anxiety-related impairment. Procedures consistently identified a taxon with a prevalence of approximately 11%. Examination of the taxon's convergent and discriminant validity revealed that it reflects general distress rather than physiological arousal. Taxon membership showed some evidence of incremental validity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.
authors.forename: Roman
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kotov
authors.forename: Norman B
authors.initials: NB
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: Darin R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Lerew
authors.forename: Thomas E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Joiner
authors.forename: Nicholas S
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Ialongo
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012650:Self Disclosure; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology