Current developments in cognitive and emotion theory suggest that anxiety plays a rather central role in negative emotions. This article reviews findings in the area of anxiety and depression, helplessness, locus of control, explanatory style, animal learning, biology, parenting, attachment theory, and childhood stress and resilience to articulate a model of the environmental influences on the development of anxiety. Evidence from a variety of sources suggests that early experience with diminished control may foster a cognitive style characterized by an increased probability of interpreting or processing subsequent events as out of one's control, which may represent a psychological vulnerability for anxiety. Implications for research are discussed.

Historically, studies of childhood and adult anxiety and depression have been characterized by a discontinuity between major theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and research paradigms particular to each area. Recently, however, theoretical advances in the understanding of both childhood and adult anxiety and depression are beginning to highlight consistencies and to allow the emergence of a more unified model. For example, in recent adult theories, the dimensional nature of pathological syndromes, the relation of normal to abnormal processes, the multiplicity and interaction of psychosocial and biological influences, and the continuity of anxious and depressive features have received increased emphasis (Alloy, Kelly, Mineka, & Clements, 1990; Barlow, 1991). Findings from outside the clinical literature have also contributed to the integration and extension of childhood and adult models of anxiety. For example, conditioning models (Mineka, 1985; Mineka & Zinbarg, 1996) and biopsychological models (Gray, 1982, 1987; Gray & McNaughton, 1996) have become increasingly relevant to traditional developmental notions of attachment (e.g., Bowlby, 1969), inhibition (e.g., Kagan, 1989),...