Erik Shumaker

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs | VA · Veterans Health Administration

High social anxiety in adults is associated with self-report of impaired friendship quality, but not necessarily with impairment reported by friends. Further, prospective prediction of social anxiety and friendship quality over time has not been tested among adults. We therefore examined friendship quality and social anxiety prospectively in 126 yo...

BACKGROUND: Elective surgery can have long-term psychological sequelae, especially for patients who experience intraoperative awareness. However, risk factors, other than awareness, for symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after surgery are poorly defined, and practical screening methods have not been applied to a broad population of su...

Social anxiety disorder is known to be associated with self-report of global friendship quality. However, information about specific friendships, as well as information beyond self-report, is lacking. Such information is crucial, because known biases in information processing related to social anxiety disorder render global self-ratings particularl...

Although social anxiety disorder appears to confer impairment in friendships, evidence beyond self-report is minimal. We used the flexible iterated prisoner's dilemma as a simulated interaction with a friend with 27 individuals with the generalized type of social anxiety disorder and 23 demographically equivalent individuals without the disorder. P...

Anxiety disorder research may benefit from examining motivational factors, such as the difference between approach and avoidance goals. Self-regulation theories in particular suggest that affect serves as feedback for goal pursuit, with anxiety primarily providing feedback regarding avoidance. However, little information is available on participant...

Perfectionism is a trait with multiple dimensions, which vary in terms of associated costs and benefits. Maladaptive perfectionism is related to neuroticism and involves self-criticism and perceptions of difficulty meeting high standards. In contrast, adaptive perfectionism is associated with conscientiousness and can be considered the healthy purs...

Some researchers contend that high standards are an essential component of social anxiety. We tested this hypothesis in two independent samples. The consistent finding across samples was that higher scores on measures of high standards from two perfectionism scales predicted lower scores for social anxiety measures. These findings suggest lower, no...