Are You a Worrywart?

Chronic worriers don’t give up easily. There’s the classic anecdote about the fretful wife who retorted to her husband: "Please don’t tell me worry doesn’t help. Most everything I worry about doesn’t come true!"

The tendency to be vexed occasionally by life’s stressors is such a basic part of the human condition that to never worry would probably be considered an abnormality by mental health professionals. Worry exists at all ages, in all times, and in all places. You probably won’t find the term "worry" in most psychology textbooks, however; it’s called "anxiety" instead, and it ranges from a disquieting distraction to a highly disturbed mind state.

Professors Raymond B. Cattell at the University of Illinois in Chicago, and J. P. Guilford, formerly of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, studied the traits of the chronic worrywart and devised questionnaires to identify such types. The following quiz is based on questions similar to those they used.