Hey, RomanSunburn, welcome to PsychCentral. What an interesting question, I'd never thought of it like that.

One thing your question reminds me of is an incident I had where I was involved in a car accident; I wasn't in my car, it had stalled and I had walked to the gas station to call for a tow truck, etc. But someone ran into my car and pushed it through the intersection (it was at a light, a huge, heavy, Mercury Grand Marquis, in Park with its flashers on at a red light!) and totaled it.

I was coming from my therapists office where I was being treated for General Anxiety Disorder :-) and the car had had trouble starting in the first place and I'd had to go ask to use my therapist's phone to call and get my battery charged just half an hour before (and that was terrifying to me) and then the car stalled, and then this happened and meanwhile, I was due to be at my husband's work Christmas party (the first year we'd gone and I knew no one) in less than two hours and it was that far to get there, etc. Talk about anxious!

But I took care of each thing as it came up; called my husband, called the tow truck, went and dealt with policemen, etc. but then next several weeks I had all sorts of anxiety that my car would stall and driving past that intersection (in my "new" car :-) was heck even though it was an excellent, newer car than the one it replaced, etc. I commented to my therapist about that; how I'd done what needed to be done when it came up (General Coping) but then things were horrible after, what was with that? She explained that's how we're built; that we cope with the emergency (are the "hero") when it's happening and then when it's over and it's "safe" to fall apart, we do that.

So maybe that's what the difference is; day-to-day how well does someone cope with life whether they're anxious or not. Not everyone can cope when they're anxious but I have always done pretty well all the time. It must be teasing out the differences there, whether you can "think" under pressure so-to-speak. Does that make sense?