---
title: "Stress and Anxiety | Cognitive Psychology"
description: "Stress and anxiety are responses to threat or uncertainty that shape attention, memory, and decision-making in Cognitive Psychology."
canonical: "https://fiveable.me/cognitive-psychology/key-terms/stress-and-anxiety"
type: "key-term"
subject: "Cognitive Psychology"
unit: "Unit 6"
---

# Stress and Anxiety | Cognitive Psychology

## Definition

Stress and anxiety are mental and bodily responses to perceived threat or uncertainty. In Cognitive Psychology, they matter because they can narrow attention, disrupt memory, and change how you make decisions.

## What It Is

Stress and anxiety are cognitive and physiological responses to a situation that feels demanding, threatening, or uncertain. In Cognitive Psychology, the focus is not just on how they feel, but on how they change information processing. When stress rises, your body can shift into a higher-alert state, and that shift can change what you notice, what you remember, and how well you think through a problem.

Stress is usually tied to a specific demand or pressure, like an exam, a deadline, or a conflict. Anxiety is often more future-focused and internal, which means you can feel anxious even when the stressor is not right in front of you. That difference matters in cognitive psychology because anxiety can keep attention pulled toward worry, even when there is no immediate problem to solve.

A big idea here is that stress and anxiety use up mental resources. Working memory has limited capacity, so if part of that capacity is occupied by worry, fewer resources are left for reading, reasoning, or solving a problem. That is why someone under stress may reread the same paragraph, forget steps in a math problem, or freeze during a class discussion.

The body’s stress response also shapes cognition. Sympathetic nervous system arousal can increase alertness, but too much arousal can make thinking less flexible. A little pressure may sharpen focus, but high pressure can lead to rushed decisions, weak retrieval from memory, and trouble shifting attention away from a threat.

Cognitive psychology also looks at the feedback loop between thoughts and feelings. If you interpret a challenge as dangerous or impossible, that appraisal can increase anxiety, which then makes performance worse, which then feeds more worry. That cycle is one reason stress and anxiety can feel self-reinforcing.

A simple class example is test anxiety. You may know the material, but once you start thinking, “I am going to blank out,” your attention shifts from the questions to the fear of failing. The result is not just emotion, it is a measurable change in cognition.

## Why It Matters

Stress and anxiety sit right inside the topic of capacity and limitations because they show what happens when working memory gets overloaded. Cognitive Psychology is full of examples where a person seems to know the answer but cannot access it in the moment. Stress and anxiety help explain that gap between knowing and performing.

This term also connects to decision-making. When you feel threatened, you are more likely to rely on quick judgments, narrow attention, or familiar habits instead of carefully comparing options. That can be useful in some situations, but it can also lead to errors, tunnel vision, or impulsive choices.

The term matters for interpreting behavior in everyday scenarios and research studies. If a participant does poorly on a memory task after being told they are being evaluated, the problem may not be memory capacity alone. It may be anxiety changing attention, retrieval, and confidence all at once.

It also helps you explain why coping strategies work. Techniques like mindfulness, relaxation, or external memory aids do not erase a stressful situation, but they can free up mental resources so attention and working memory are less crowded. That is a very cognitive psychology way to think about coping: reduce the mental load so thinking can work normally again.

## Connections

### Cognitive Load

Stress and anxiety increase the mental load already on working memory. If you are trying to solve a problem while worrying about failure, part of your cognitive capacity is taken up by the worry itself. That leaves less room for the task, which can make even simple steps feel harder.

### Mindfulness

Mindfulness is often used to reduce the attention hijack that comes with anxiety. Instead of chasing every worried thought, you practice noticing thoughts without getting pulled into them. In cognitive terms, that can lower distraction and make it easier to keep attention on the task in front of you.

### Cortisol

Cortisol is one of the hormones involved in the stress response. When stress is prolonged, cortisol can affect memory and attention, especially if arousal stays high for too long. In cognitive psychology, it helps explain why chronic stress can interfere with learning and recall, not just mood.

### [external memory aids](/cognitive-psychology/key-terms/external-memory-aids)

External memory aids, like notes, calendars, and checklists, can reduce the strain that stress puts on working memory. If anxiety makes it harder to hold information in your head, putting the information somewhere visible frees up mental space. That is why these tools are useful during heavy workloads or high-pressure tasks.

## On the AP Exam

A quiz question or short-answer prompt may ask you to identify how stress or anxiety changes cognition in a scenario, such as a student blanking during a timed test. Your job is to connect the emotion to a mental process like attention, working memory, retrieval, or decision-making. If the prompt gives a lab or research example, explain whether the stressor is external, like a deadline, or more internal, like worry about performance. You may also need to predict the effect of reducing stress, such as improved recall, fewer mistakes, or better focus. In problem sets or discussion questions, use the term to explain why someone’s behavior changes even when they already know the material.

## Stress and Anxiety vs Cognitive Load

Stress and anxiety are emotional and physiological responses to threat or uncertainty, while cognitive load is the amount of mental effort a task requires. They can interact, because anxiety can raise the load on working memory, but they are not the same thing. One comes from the person’s state, the other from the task demands.

## Key Takeaways

- Stress and anxiety affect thinking, not just feelings, because they change attention, memory, and decision-making.
- Stress is usually tied to an outside demand, while anxiety is often more internal and can continue even without a clear trigger.
- Too much stress can overload working memory, making it harder to read, remember, or solve problems accurately.
- The stress response can improve alertness at low levels, but high arousal often narrows attention and hurts performance.
- Coping tools like mindfulness, social support, and external memory aids work partly by freeing up mental resources.

## FAQs

### What is stress and anxiety in Cognitive Psychology?

Stress and anxiety are responses to perceived threat or uncertainty that change how the mind processes information. In Cognitive Psychology, they matter because they can disrupt attention, working memory, and decision-making. The focus is on how those mental processes shift, not just on how the person feels.

### How are stress and anxiety different?

Stress is often linked to a specific pressure or demand, like a deadline or exam. Anxiety is usually more internal and future-focused, so you can feel anxious even when the stressor is not present. They overlap a lot, but the source and time frame are not exactly the same.

### How do stress and anxiety affect memory?

They can make it harder to hold information in working memory and harder to retrieve stored information when you need it. If your mind is busy worrying, fewer resources are left for the task. That is why someone may know material well but still struggle during a high-pressure moment.

### What is an example of stress and anxiety in a psychology class?

A common example is test anxiety. A student may study hard but then freeze on the exam because worries about failing start taking up attention and working memory. The content is still there, but the stress response makes it harder to access.

## Related Study Guides

- [6.2 Capacity and Limitations](/cognitive-psychology/unit-6/capacity-limitations/study-guide/zPTbK26Np4sETH4Z)

## About This Document

Canonical Fiveable pages are available as Markdown at the same path plus `.md`.

- [llms.txt](https://fiveable.me/llms.txt): index of Fiveable's sections and URL patterns
- [llms-full.txt](https://fiveable.me/llms-full.txt): complete subject and unit listing
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