ReviewPathways from anxiety to stressful events: An expansion of the stress generation hypothesis

•We address whether anxiety predicts increased occurrence of dependent stressors.•In our review, physiological hyperarousal did not predict increased dependent stressors.•We propose a model that incorporates distal and proximal factors of stress generation.•As a distal factor, neuroticism was consistently associated with stress generation.•More longitudinal studies using contextual interviews will advance the literature.