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Whether, how, and when social anxiety shapes positive experiences and events: A self-regulatory framework and treatment implications
... According to Kashdan et al. (2011), those classified as individuals with high social anxiety require more self-control than their counterparts in many social encounters, and the demands for self-control will be particularly elevated during stressful or challenging social interactions. In other words, those who were awkward and socially withdrawn ruminated over a lot about potential ostracism in society (Blackhart et al., 2015). ...
... These actions could put more strain on the ability to sustain self-control in the long term. Furthermore, the attenuation of self-control tends to diminish the favorable outcomes and experiences that socially anxious people might encounter in social contexts, aggravating social anxiety symptoms (Kashdan et al., 2011). That is, when people with social anxiety were attempting at regulating their fear and were engaging in behaviors which were intended to prevent social rejection, they failed to divert their attention to the potential benefits of those fruitful social engagements. ...
... That is, when people with social anxiety were attempting at regulating their fear and were engaging in behaviors which were intended to prevent social rejection, they failed to divert their attention to the potential benefits of those fruitful social engagements. Thus, they felt less connected to others and have less positive affect following a satisfying social contact (Kashdan et al., 2011) Such feelings might fuel social anxiety and reinforce it, leading to a vicious spiral of actions. Apart from studies targeting on social anxiety, other researchers observed that individuals with greater degree of fear of negative evaluation also have a higher level of negative affect and a lower level of positive affect (Levinson et al., 2013;Weeks & Howell, 2012;Weeks et al., 2010;Wolniewicz et al., 2018). ...
Previous studies have found a robust positive relationship between trait self-control and life satisfaction mediated by both positive and negative affect, but the simultaneous inclusion of the effect of apprehension of being evaluated by others is less commonly investigated. The present study aimed to examine (1) whether the relationship between self-control and life satisfaction was mediated by positive affect and negative affect in parallel, and (2) whether fear of negative evaluation would moderate the strengths of the mediational pathways. With a sample of two hundred fifty university students in Hong Kong, mediational analysis (ME) revealed that both positive affect and negative affect were the mediators between self-control and life satisfaction. Subsequent moderated mediation analysis (moME) supported the moderating role of fear of negative evaluation on the mediational pathway through positive affect, but not on the pathway through negative affect. In particular, higher scores on fear of negative evaluation would attenuate the strength of association between self-control and positive affect. Therefore, to optimize university students’ well-being and mental health functioning, treatment modalities should target both behavioral (i.e., self-control) and socio-emotional (i.e., apprehension of being evaluated critically from others) aspects.
... Much of the focus within the literature on interpretation bias has been on negative interpretation bias of negative, ambiguous, or neutral social events. However, social anxiety is associated with fear of evaluation in and avoidance of social situations regardless of valence (Kashdan et al., 2011). Interpretation of positive social events (e.g., a friendly social event, doing well in a presentation) is an under-researched area among socially anxious individuals. ...
... A variety of 'positivity deficits' have been found among socially anxious individuals, including diminished positive affect (Goodman et al., 2018;Kashdan et al., 2011;Richey et al., 2019;Taylor et al., 2010). Positive emotions such as joy and gratitude, in turn, are associated with increased well-being (Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002;Livingstone & Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. ...
... Thus, it was not possible to examine the association between changes in IU and decreases in negative interpretations of positive social events over treatment. Multiple positivity deficits have been identified amongst individuals with SAD (e.g., Kashdan et al., 2011), yet, this study only included a single measure of negative interpretations. The current study represents the first study examining pre-post treatment changes in negative interpretations of positive social events and therefore, given its preliminary nature, did not include other measures of negatively biased judgments. ...
Background
Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) report interpreting social events negatively regardless of valence. Fear of causing discomfort to others and intolerance of uncertainty (IU) are associated with negative interpretations of positive social situations. However, no studies have examined whether these negative interpretations change over CBT for SAD, nor predictors of such changes. This study examined if: negative interpretations of positive social events improve during CBT for SAD; these negative interpretations correlate with social anxiety symptom severity, fear of causing discomfort to others, and IU at the start of treatment; and fear of causing discomfort to others, IU and its subfactors at the start of treatment predict changes in these negative interpretations over treatment.
Methods
Eighty-five treatment-seeking DSM diagnosed individuals with primary SAD completed measures of the tendency to interpret positive events negatively pre-post CBT, and IU and fears of causing discomfort to others at pre-treatment.
Results
Results demonstrated significant pre-post decreases after CBT for SAD in negative interpretations of positive social events. All measures were significantly correlated with each other. None of the pre-treatment variables significantly predicted decreases in negative interpretations of positive social events over treatment.
Conclusions
CBT may be effective in reducing these negative interpretations.
... Individuals with social anxiety exhibit emotional instability, impatience, and impulsivity; express their emotions through repression and concealing (Wu and Liu, 2006); and display poor emotion regulation ability and low self-efficacy (Kashdan et al., 2011). Regulatory emotional self-efficacy, a type of self-efficacy, not only has a direct impact on behaviors but also can indirectly affect behaviors by influencing cognition, motivations, decisions and emotions, thereby playing a pivotal role in regulating individual personality and behavior and further maintaining the mental health state of individuals (Tang et al., 2010). ...
... Kashdan and McKnight (2010) found that some individuals with social anxiety have poor emotion regulation ability, face difficulty in adapting to environmental changes, and experience varied negative emotions and strong hostile impulses. Individuals with social anxiety are emotionally instable, impatient, and impulsive; they express their emotions through repression and concealing and exhibit poor emotion regulation ability (Kashdan et al., 2011). In addition, the self-negative belief held by socially anxious individuals has an influence on their meta-evaluation of mood; therefore, their regulatory emotional self-efficacy is lower than that of other individuals (Mennin et al., 2005;Bassi et al., 2018). ...
... On the one hand, college students with a high social anxiety level lack social skills and use inappropriate coping strategies in social activities, leading to unfavorable social outcomes (Li et al., 2003) and thus addiction behaviors. On the other hand, college students with a high social anxiety level have poor emotion regulation ability and cognition, which render them incapable of adjusting their emotional state well (Kashdan et al., 2011), leading to the low regulatory emotional self-efficacy and thus mobile phone addiction. ...
The present study explores the underlying mechanism of the relationship between college students’ social anxiety and mobile phone addiction. Adopting college students’ social anxiety scale, regulatory emotional self-efficacy scale, subjective well-being scale and mobile phone addiction scale, this research tested valid samples of 680 Chinese college students. The results indicated that social anxiety exerted a significant and positive impact on mobile phone addiction. Regulatory emotional self-efficacy played a partial mediating role between social anxiety and mobile phone addiction. Subjective well-being also played a partial mediating role between social anxiety and mobile phone addiction. Moreover, both regulatory emotional self-efficacy and subjective well-being were found to play a chain mediating role between social anxiety and mobile phone addiction. The study provides valuable insights into the impact of college students’ social anxiety on mobile phone addiction.
... People with SAD are excessively concerned about social evaluation and rejection (Moscovitch 2009;Moscovitch et al., 2013). To avoid unfavorable social outcomes, they devote considerable energy to managing their emotions, characterized by overreliance on avoidance and infrequent use of alternative strategies (Kashdan et al., 2011). People with SAD place high value on controlling their emotions, in part because they fear they offer additional opportunities for rejection, opting to avoid uncomfortable feelings and constrain emotional expression Kashdan et al., 2014). ...
... People with SAD place high value on controlling their emotions, in part because they fear they offer additional opportunities for rejection, opting to avoid uncomfortable feelings and constrain emotional expression Kashdan et al., 2014). Therefore, regulatory patterns of people with SAD have been described as "inflexible" and "rigid", characterized by persistent avoidance Kashdan et al., 2011). ...
... Dysfunctional emotion regulation is thought to be at the core of SAD (Kashdan et al., 2011), anxiety disorders (Hofmann et al., 2012), internalizing disorders (Bullis et al., 2019), externalizing disorders (McHugh & Goodman, 2019), and psychopathology more broadly (Fernandez et al., 2016). Yet, conceptual and methodological ambiguity has resulted in a lack of clarity on the core features of emotion dysregulation (Aldao et al., 2016). ...
Background
Emotion regulation flexibility is a person's tendency to shift their use of emotion regulation strategies in response to contextual demands. A lack of flexibility is thought to underlie affective disorders, yet conceptualizations of “flexibility” vary widely, and few studies have empirically assessed flexibility. In this study, we outline methods for measuring emotion regulation flexibility and then examine evidence for inflexibility in people with a common affective disorder: social anxiety disorder (SAD).
Methods
Participants were community adults diagnosed with SAD and a psychologically healthycontrol group who completed a 14-day experience-sampling study. Participants recorded their most anxiety-provoking event each day, how they evaluated contextual demands (i.e., perceived controllability, emotional intensity) of these events, and their use of seven emotion regulation strategies to manage anxiety. Hypotheses and analyses were preregistered with the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/s7kqj/).
Results
Participants with SAD demonstrated some evidence of inflexibility. They used three disengagement strategies (rumination, thought suppression, expressive suppression) more often than controls and did so independently of contextual demands (specifically, perceived controllability). Nonetheless, participants with SAD largely demonstrated similar regulatory patterns as controls, most notably in their use of engagement strategies (acceptance, cognitive, reappraisal, problem-solving).
Limitations
We measured two of many possible contextual demands, did not compare to a mixed clinical group or other affective disorders (e.g., depression), and did not assess temporal sequences of strategy use.
Conclusions
People with SAD demonstrate some inflexibility in their use of disengagement regulation strategies.
... The suggestion is that positive self-views such as (they think I gave a good speech) would motivate a person to seek out new social experiences that are rewarding and generate positive affect. This view is supported by research showing that there are two different and independent biobehavioural systems, an avoidance system to prevent exposure to danger and an approach system to guide individuals towards potentially rewarding situations and that these systems are associated with distinct cognitive and affective processes (Kashdan, Weeks, & Savostyanova, 2011). A review of positive psychological functioning in socially anxious individuals implies that a greater activation of the avoidant versus approach system is linked to dampened positive experiences (Kashdan et al., 2011). ...
... This view is supported by research showing that there are two different and independent biobehavioural systems, an avoidance system to prevent exposure to danger and an approach system to guide individuals towards potentially rewarding situations and that these systems are associated with distinct cognitive and affective processes (Kashdan, Weeks, & Savostyanova, 2011). A review of positive psychological functioning in socially anxious individuals implies that a greater activation of the avoidant versus approach system is linked to dampened positive experiences (Kashdan et al., 2011). One way to address the under-activated approach system could lie in a greater focus on positive self-views. ...
... The current study's focus on enhancing positive cognitions is in line with other recent intervention approaches that focus on positive dimensions, such as positivity-approach training for depressive symptoms (Becker et al., 2019) and Positive Affect Treatment (PAT) for depression and anxiety (Craske, Meuret, Ritz, Treanor, & Dour, 2016). If, as suggested by Thurston et al. (2017), enhancement of positive self-thoughts would bring about behavioural engagement, activating the approach system (Kashdan et al., 2011) this could yield further benefits such as a reinforcement of positive responses in a young person's daily life and, in turn decreases social anxiety symptoms (Thurston et al., 2017). A next study using our approach could include the effects of positive peer feedback on more distal and consequential constructs such as self-esteem, social anxiety symptoms, and social approach behaviour. ...
This study investigated whether positive feedback from same-age peers can modify self-relevant cognitive processes of high socially anxious youth in a positive direction. Thirty-three high socially anxious and 32 non-socially anxious undergraduate students (17–22 years) gave an impromptu speech and received either positive or neutral feedback post-speech. Anticipatory processing (AP) was rated prior to the speech via self-report. One week later participants returned to the laboratory and completed questionnaires assessing post-event processing (PEP) thoughts related to the impromptu speech and AP about a future speech. For high socially anxious youth receiving positive feedback, AP about their speech performance significantly improved over time. In addition, high socially anxious participants who received positive feedback reported a higher frequency of positive PEP thoughts about their speech in the intervening week. These improvements did not occur in the neutral peer feedback condition. Non-socially anxious participants’ AP improved in both feedback conditions, whereas their frequency of PEP was unaffected by feedback. These findings suggest that, in high socially anxious youth, positive feedback from same-age peers can modify self-relevant cognitive processes in a positive direction. We discuss how methodological improvements could more thoroughly investigate the potential of positive peer feedback for changing cognitions.
... Extant literature on SAD has observed two symptom presentations of the disorder: Social observation anxiety, which refers to fear of public speaking and performances, and social interaction anxiety, which relates to interpersonal interactions (APA, 2013). Symptoms associated with social interaction anxiety, in particular, relate to social avoidance or withdrawing behavior (Kashdan et al. 2011a) and a depressive affect profile (Brown et al. 1998;Chorpita et al. 2000;Kashdan 2004; Kashdan et al. 2011b;Watson et al. 1988). This relates to increased loneliness and inhibition, as well as decreased energy, pleasure, well-being, and relationship satisfaction (Kashdan 2004;Kashdan et al. 2011a;Kashdan et al. 2011b;Safren et al. 1996;Schneier et al. 1994;Stein and Kean 2000). ...
... Symptoms associated with social interaction anxiety, in particular, relate to social avoidance or withdrawing behavior (Kashdan et al. 2011a) and a depressive affect profile (Brown et al. 1998;Chorpita et al. 2000;Kashdan 2004; Kashdan et al. 2011b;Watson et al. 1988). This relates to increased loneliness and inhibition, as well as decreased energy, pleasure, well-being, and relationship satisfaction (Kashdan 2004;Kashdan et al. 2011a;Kashdan et al. 2011b;Safren et al. 1996;Schneier et al. 1994;Stein and Kean 2000). ...
... Regarding sexual satisfaction, individuals with social interaction anxiety report lower in sexual satisfaction regardless if they engage in HRSB. This supported other findings that people high in social anxiety are low in sexual satisfaction (Kashdan et al. 2011b;Montesi et al. 2013). Engagement in sexual behavior does not appear to contribute to sexual fulfillment, and other concerns may need clinical assessment and intervention. ...
Social anxiety disorder is prevalent and negatively impacts adolescents and young adults. People with social interaction anxiety, a presentation category of social anxiety disorder pertaining to social relationships, tend to be more withdrawn, avoidant, and sexually dissatisfied. Some individuals with social interaction anxiety are more likely to engage in health-risk sexual behavior (HRSB), likely associated with individual differences. The present study used finite mixture modeling to discern profiles comprised of social interaction anxiety and individual differences previously associated with HRSB, replicating and extending previous findings (Rahm-Knigge et al. 2018). We also examined differences in sexual satisfaction among profiles. We replicated identifying two profiles high in social interaction anxiety that substantively differed in response to positive and negative emotions, emotion-regulation strategies, risk seeking, and non-acceptance of emotions. The profile high in social interaction anxiety and these individual differences was likelier to engage in HRSB than the other high social anxiety profile. Both high social interaction anxiety profiles were similarly low in sexual satisfaction. Despite differences in individual differences and engagement in HRSB, profiles high in social interaction anxiety reported similarly lower sexual satisfaction than the profiles low in social interaction anxiety.
... Furthermore, appetitive responding seems to be reduced in anxiety, as well as depressive disorder [19]. Impairments regarding the experience of positive affect have especially been observed in social anxiety disorder [20,21]. Patients with social phobia display a neural hyposensitivity during reward anticipation compared to healthy controls [22,23]. ...
... In turn, reduced reward sensitivity, especially during socially rewarding experiences, could amplify symptoms [66]. Decreased positive experiences in social phobia [20,67] and emerging social anhedonia [68] can be consequences. ...
Background
Reward sensitivity constitutes a potential key mechanism regarding the etiology and maintenance of mental disorders, especially depression. However, due to a lack of longitudinal studies, the temporal dynamics are not clear yet. Although some evidence indicates that reward processing could be a transdiagnostic mechanism of disorders, these observations could be also a product of comorbidity with depression. This study aimed at investigating the temporal dynamics of reward sensitivity and the course of psychopathological symptoms in a longitudinal investigation, while taking a possible mediating role of depression into account.
Methods
We conducted a three-wave longitudinal online survey with a 4-week interval. A total of N = 453 participants filled out all three questionnaires. Reward sensitivity was assessed with the Positive Valence System Scale-21 (PVSS-21), depression with the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), eating disorder symptoms with the Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire-8 (EDE-Q-8), social anxiety with the Mini-social phobia inventory (Mini-SPIN) and alcohol consumption with the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Consumption (AUDIT-C). Cross-lagged panels and mediation analyses were calculated using path analyses.
Results
Depressive and eating disorder symptoms predicted reward insensitivity at later points in time. Effects were larger from T2 to T3. A bidirectional relationship concerning social anxiety was found. Higher alcohol consumption predicted higher reward sensitivity. Depression at T2 fully mediated the association between psychopathological symptoms at T1 and reward sensitivity at T3 for social anxiety and eating disorder symptoms.
Conclusions
Our findings imply that reduced reward sensitivity seems to be a consequence rather than an antecedent of psychopathological symptoms. Comorbid depression plays a crucial role in other mental disorders regarding observed hyposensitivity towards rewards. Therefore, our results do not support a transdiagnostic notion of reward sensitivity, but they indicate a potential role of reward sensitivity for symptom persistence.
Trial registration
The study was preregistered at the Open Science Framework (OSF) (https://archive.org/details/osf-registrations-6n3s8-v1; registration DOI https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/6N3S8).
... Therefore, individuals need to expend resources of selfcontrol to overcome these bad feelings. Kashdan et al. (2011) found individuals with high social anxiety exert more effort to self-regulate during social activities than those with low. Blackhart et al. (2015) found for socially anxious people, simply communicating with others would deplete self-control resources, leading to reducing the effect of subsequent self-regulation. ...
... Additionally, this research discovered that social anxiety and selfcontrol act as a chain mediator between parental phubbing and adolescents' academic burnout. The result of this study further supports the findings that social anxiety leads to reduced self-control (Kashdan et al., 2011;Blackhart et al., 2015). Parental phubbing can make adolescents have negative expectations about interpersonal interactions and then trigger social anxiety (Zhang et al., 2022). ...
Based on the limited resource model of self-control, we construct a chain mediation model to examine the relationship between parental phubbing and adolescents' academic burnout, and whether social anxiety and self-control play a mediating role in it. We used 4 questionnaires to investigate parental phubbing, social anxiety, self-control, and adolescents' academic burnout among 828 high school students in Wuhu and Huangshan City, Anhui Province, China. The findings indicated that: (1) parental phubbing, social anxiety, and self-control all significantly predict adolescents' academic burnout directly and (2) parental phubbing could indirectly influence adolescents' academic burnout through three pathways: the separate mediating effect of social anxiety and self-control, and the chain mediating effect on both. The results of this study help parents understand how their phubbing actions affect adolescents' academic burnout and the mechanism of action.
... People with SAD also report a limited repertoire of strategies beyond those that are avoidant (Rusch et al., 2012). Taken together, people with SAD devote considerable effort to managing their emotions through primarily avoidance-oriented strategies (Kashdan et al., 2011) and persistent avoidance is core to the pathology (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). ...
... As such, lower ER diversity may be associated with higher (vs. lower) social anxiety severity, given that SAD is characterized by rigid, overreliance on avoidance-oriented strategies (Kashdan et al., 2011). ...
Emotion regulation (ER) diversity, defined as the variety, frequency, and evenness of ER strategies used, may predict social anxiety severity. In a sample of individuals with high ( n = 113) and low ( n = 42) social anxiety severity, we tested whether four trait ER diversity metrics predicted group membership. We generalized existing trait ER diversity calculations to repeated measures data to test whether state-level metrics (using 2 weeks of ecological momentary assessment [EMA] data) predicted social anxiety severity within the higher severity group. As hypothesized, higher trait ER diversity within avoidance-oriented strategies predicted greater likelihood of belonging to the higher severity group. At the state level, higher diversity across all ER strategies, and within and between avoidance- and approach-oriented strategies, predicted higher social anxiety severity (but only after analyses controlled for number of submitted EMAs). Only diversity within avoidance-oriented strategies was significantly correlated across trait and state levels. Findings suggest that high avoidance-oriented ER diversity may co-occur with higher social anxiety severity.
... Regarding anhedonia, CBT has been shown to improve subjective anhedonia in individuals with depression (Alsayednasser et al., 2022;Hanuka et al., 2022). We are not aware of a study that examined anhedonia following CBT in SAD even though anhedonia is also observed in SAD and other anxiety disorders (Brown et al., 1998;Kashdan, 2007;Kashdan et al., 2011). Since anhedonia is expected to cut across diagnostic boundaries, we would expect CBT to improve anhedonia regardless of principal diagnosis. ...
... Therefore, it was not possible to verify that participants with SAD or MDD experienced anhedonia. As previous work indicates anhedonia is transdiagostic (Brown et al., 1998;Kashdan, 2007;Kashdan et al., 2011;Pizzagalli, 2014), we expected SAD and MDD groups would not differ in capacity for pleasure, which can be parsed into anticipatory (e.g., prediction of pleasure from future reward) and consummatory (e.g., experience of pleasure in the moment) components (Berridge & Robinson, 2003;Gard et al., 2006). Since RewP represents consummatory pleasure (i.e., response to feedback), only self-reported consummatory pleasure was used to examine an association with RewP. ...
Suicidality is prevalent in Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Limited data indicate the reward positivity (RewP), a neurophysiological index of reward responsivity, and subjective capacity for pleasure may serve as brain and behavioral assays for suicide risk though this has yet to be examined in SAD or MDD in the context of psychotherapy. Therefore, the current study tested whether suicidal ideation (SI) relates to RewP and subjective capacity for anticipatory and consummatory pleasure at baseline and whether Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) impacts these measures. Participants with SAD (n=55) or MDD (n=54) completed a monetary reward task (gains vs. losses) during electroencephalogram (EEG) before being randomized to CBT or supportive therapy (ST), a comparator common factors arm. EEG and SI data were collected at baseline, mid-treatment, and post-treatment; capacity for pleasure was collected at baseline and post-treatment. Baseline results showed participants with SAD or MDD were comparable in SI, RewP, and capacity for pleasure. When controlling for symptom severity, SI negatively corresponded with RewP following gains and SI positively corresponded with RewP following losses at baseline. Yet, SI did not relate to subjective capacity for pleasure. Evidence of a distinct SI-RewP association suggests RewP may serve as a transdiagnositic brain-based marker of SI. Treatment outcome revealed that among participants with SI at baseline, SI significantly decreased regardless of treatment arm; also, consummatory, but not anticipatory, pleasure increased across participants regardless of treatment arm. RewP was stable following treatment, which has been reported in other clinical trial studies.
... There is a need for innovative psychological and philosophical research to address the broader implications of healthy philautia's positive self-qualities, which could deliver the potential for self-love and societal concern to the SAD person, opening the bridge to the procurement of all forms of interpersonal love. Kashdan, Weeks, and Savostyanova (2011) cite the "evidence that social anxiety is associated with diminished positive experiences, infrequent positive events, an absence of positive inferential biases in social situations, fear responses to overtly positive events, and poor quality of life." Models of CBT that attempt only to reduce the individual's avoidance behaviors would benefit from addressing more specifically the relational deficits that such people experience, as well as positive psychological measures to counter SAD's culture of maladaptive self-beliefs. ...
... One such step is the integration of positive psychology within the cognitive behavioral therapy model which, "despite recent scientific attention to the positive spectrum of psychological functioning and social anxiety/SAD … has yet to be integrated into mainstream accounts of assessment, theory, phenomenology, course, and treatment" (Kashdan et al., 2011). CBT would continue to modify automatic maladaptive self-beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors, and positive psychology would replace them with positive self-qualities. ...
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is one of the most common psychophysiological malfunctions, affecting the emotional and mental well-being of over 15 million U.S. adults who find themselves caught up in a densely interconnected network of fear and avoidance of social situations. These observations provide insight into the relationship deficits experienced by people with SAD. Their innate need-for-intimacy is no less dynamic than that of any individual, but their impairment disrupts the ability (means-of-acquisition) to establish affectional bonds in almost any capacity. The spirit is willing, but competence insubstantial. It is the means-of-acquisition and how they are symptomatically challenged by SAD that is the context of this research. Notwithstanding overwhelming evidence of social incompatibility, there is hope for the startlingly few SAD persons who commit to recovery. A psychobiographical approach integrating positive psychology's optimum human functioning with CBT's behavior modification, neuroscience's network restructuring, and other supported and non-traditional approaches can establish a working platform for discovery, opening the bridge to the procurement of forms of intimacy previously inaccessible. It is an arduous and measured crossing that only 5% of the afflicted will even attempt in the first year of onset.
... The researchers proposed that people with SAD will seem to have less negative emotion separation in their lifestyle, and that these contrasts would lead to social inability (Juretić and Živčić-Bećirević, 2013). It was found that people with SAD have been shown to have high levels of negative emotions and low levels of positive emotions, as well as a tendency to see positive experiences as worsening, which can lead to the co-occurrence of insignificant positive and over-the-top negative emotions (Kashdan, Weeks and Savostyanova, 2011). Extending previous theorising on SAD and emotions, we believe that people with SAD will also display signs of low negative emotion fraction (Parkinson and Manstead, 2015). ...
... One insight is that people with high levels of social anxiety find it challenging to experience and communicate genuinely positive feelings, particularly in social-evaluative situations. People with high levels of social anxiety express a fear of being positively judged (Kashdan, Weeks and Savostyanova, 2011). Strangling positive emotions can help to diminish the importance of social thinking toward them, as well as efforts to build indicate connections through shared positive emotion expressions. ...
The prevalence of 'Generalized Anxiety Disorder' among adults in Selangor, Malaysia is fewer. However, there are no specific data shown in Malaysia on 'Social Anxiety Disorder' among adolescents. Social anxiety is a critical factor in understanding social dysfunction, especially among adolescents in a group sample, as well as its interaction with capacitances in their emotional functioning. The overall aim of this research is to study social anxiety with respect to determining how social anxiety affects their emotions. It commences with a literature review, followed by the methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion. Methodology: In the current study, the researchers adapted the quantitative research technique. The purposive sampling method was used to obtain data from 200 youngsters within the age limit of 18 to 25 years old. A survey method is used to collect the data through the online platform. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used in analyzing the data obtained from the respondents. Result and Discussion: The results revealed that there is a significant effect between social anxiety and emotion. Moreover, the study also found there is a difference in emotion-based on gender among teenagers. While there was no difference in social anxiety based on gender among the teenagers. Conclusion and Recommendation: However, the results of this study have been helpful in illustrating to teenagers the precise effect of social anxiety on their emotions, and they can strive toward restructuring the social environment to reduce the social strains and conflicts that are placed on adolescents. The purposive sampling method was used to obtain data from 200 youngsters within the age limit of 18 to 25 years old. A survey method is used to collect the data through the online platform. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used in analysing the data obtained from the respondents. The results revealed that there is a significant effect between social anxiety and emotion. Moreover, the study also found there is a difference in emotion-based on gender among teenagers. While there was no difference in social
anxiety based on gender among teenagers. However, the results of this study have been helpful in illustrating to teenagers the precise effect of social anxiety on their emotions, and they can strive toward re-structuring the social environment to reduce the social strains and conflicts that are placed on adolescents.
... As a result, socially anxious (SA) individuals tend to either withdraw from social situations entirely, or rely on maladaptive self-protective strategies to conceal self-perceived flaws (Moscovitch, 2009;Moscovitch et al., 2013). Unfortunately, such strategies diminish SA individuals' social functioning, often leading to chronic loneliness and impaired positive connections (Alden et al., 2014;Gilboa-Schechtman et al., 2014;Kashdan et al., 2011;Rowa et al., 2015;Plasencia et al., 2016). ...
... Furthermore, social interactions during the pandemic may inherently offer greater opportunities for self-concealment to counter SA individuals' intensified evaluative concerns, emboldening them to pursue more social opportunities. During the pandemic, SA individuals may be inconspicuously co-opting newly introduced social normssuch as communicating online, interacting from a physical distance, or conversing from behind a maskas self-regulatory strategies, allowing them to remain concealed while conforming to societal expectations, and thus reducing the typical attentional costs of employing these strategies (Kashdan et al., 2011), especially for those with the highest levels of impairment. As for the moderating role of COVID-related stressors, such experiences may further encourage people to obtain social support to cope in difficult circumstances (Rimé, 2009;Schachter, 1959). ...
Background and objectives
Individuals with social anxiety (SA) have well-established fears of being negatively evaluated and exposing self-perceived flaws to others. However, the unique impacts of pre-existing SA on well-being and interpersonal outcomes within the stressful context of the pandemic are currently unknown.
Design
In a study that took place in May 2020, we surveyed 488 North American community participants online.
Methods
We used multiple linear regression to analyze whether retrospective reports of pre-pandemic SA symptoms predicted current coronavirus anxiety, loneliness, fears of negative evaluation, use of preventive measures, and affiliative outcomes, and whether pre-pandemic functional impairment and recent COVID-related stressors moderated these relations.
Results
Results highlighted the negative effects of pre-pandemic SA on current mental health functioning, especially for participants with higher pre-pandemic functional impairment and greater exposure to COVID-related stressors. Although participants with higher pre-pandemic SA reported currently feeling lonelier and more fearful of negative evaluation, they also endorsed greater efforts to affiliate with others.
Conclusions
High SA individuals may have heightened desire for social support within the isolating context of the pandemic, in which COVID-related social restrictions enable greater avoidance of social evaluation but may also mask the enduring impairment associated with pre-pandemic SA.
... As a result, socially anxious (SA) individuals tend to either withdraw from social situations entirely, or rely on maladaptive self-protective strategies to conceal self-perceived flaws (Moscovitch, 2009;Moscovitch et al., 2013). Unfortunately, such strategies diminish SA individuals' social functioning, often leading to chronic loneliness and impaired positive connections (Alden et al., 2014;Gilboa-Schechtman et al., 2014;Kashdan et al., 2011;Rowa et al., 2015;Plasencia et al., 2016). ...
... Furthermore, social interactions during the pandemic may inherently offer greater opportunities for self-concealment to counter SA individuals' intensified evaluative concerns, emboldening them to pursue more social opportunities. During the pandemic, SA individuals may be inconspicuously co-opting newly introduced social normssuch as communicating online, interacting from a physical distance, or conversing from behind a maskas self-regulatory strategies, allowing them to remain concealed while conforming to societal expectations, and thus reducing the typical attentional costs of employing these strategies (Kashdan et al., 2011), especially for those with the highest levels of impairment. As for the moderating role of COVID-related stressors, such experiences may further encourage people to obtain social support to cope in difficult circumstances (Rimé, 2009;Schachter, 1959). ...
Background and objectives: Individuals with social anxiety (SA) have well-established fears of being negatively evaluated and of exposing self-perceived flaws to others. However, the unique impacts of pre-existing SA on well-being and interpersonal outcomes within the stressful context of the pandemic are currently unknown. Design: In a preregistered study that took place in May 2020, we surveyed 488 North American community participants online. Methods: We used multiple linear regression to analyze whether pre-existing SA symptoms predicted current coronavirus anxiety, loneliness, fears of negative evaluation, use of preventive measures, and affiliative outcomes, and whether pre-existing functional impairment and recent COVID-related stressors moderated these relations. Results: Results highlighted the negative effects of pre-existing social anxiety (SA) on current mental health functioning, especially for participants with higher pre-existing functional impairment and greater exposure to COVID-related stressors. Although participants with higher pre-existing SA reported currently feeling lonelier and more fearful of negative evaluation, they also endorsed greater efforts to affiliate with others. Conclusions: High SA individuals may have heightened desire for social support within the isolating context of the pandemic, in which COVID-related social restrictions enable greater avoidance of social evaluation but may also mask the enduring impairment associated with pre-existing SA.
... Indeed, individuals with SAD often rate themselves, their character, and their appearance more negatively than non-anxious individuals [5,6]. SAD is also associated with low self-esteem and self-compassion [7,8], low positive affect [9], and high self-criticism [10,11]. ...
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by an excessive fear of social evaluation and a persistently negative view of the self. Here we test the hypothesis that negative biases in brain responses and in social learning of self-related information contribute to the negative self-image and low self-esteem characteristic of SAD. Adult participants diagnosed with social anxiety (N = 21) and matched controls (N = 23) rated their performance and received social feedback following a stressful public speaking task. We investigated how positive versus negative social feedback altered self-evaluation and state self-esteem and used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to characterize brain responses to positive versus negative feedback. Compared to controls, participants with SAD updated their self-evaluation and state self-esteem significantly more based on negative compared to positive social feedback. Responses in the frontoparietal network correlated with and mirrored these behavioral effects, with greater responses to positive than negative feedback in non-anxious controls but not in participants with SAD. Responses to social feedback in the anterior insula and other areas mediated the effects of negative versus positive feedback on changes in self-evaluation. In non-anxious participants, frontoparietal brain areas may contribute to a positive social learning bias. In SAD, frontoparietal areas are less recruited overall and less attuned to positive feedback, possibly reflecting differences in attention allocation and cognitive regulation. More negatively biased brain responses and social learning could contribute to maintaining a negative self-image in SAD and other internalizing disorders, thereby offering important new targets for interventions.
... Ultimately, the cumulative benefits of simulationbased self-updating in SAD ought to stimulate the pathways from the vmPFC to downstream neural-reward centers elsewhere in the brain, outside the autobiographical memory system, which will enable socially anxious patients to begin adopting and benefiting from approach-oriented social-behavioral goals (Hudd & Moscovitch, 2020;Richey et al., 2014). Following successful schema updating, individuals with SAD should begin to engage in more frequent social-approach behaviors while also relinquishing avoidance-based self-regulatory strategies that block their ability to derive pleasure from social relationships and occupy valuable attentional resources that interfere with adaptive social problem solving and emotion regulation (see Alden et al., 2018;Barber, Michaelis, & Moscovitch, 2021;Gilboa-Schechtman et al., 2014;Kashdan et al., 2011;Moscovitch, Rowa, et al., 2013;Plasencia et al., 2016). ...
Negative schemas lie at the core of many common and debilitating mental disorders. Thus, intervention scientists and clinicians have long recognized the importance of designing effective interventions that target schema change. Here, we suggest that the optimal development and administration of such interventions can benefit from a framework outlining how schema change occurs in the brain. Guided by basic neuroscientific findings, we provide a memory-based neurocognitive framework for conceptualizing how schemas emerge and change over time and how they can be modified during psychological treatment of clinical disorders. We highlight the critical roles of the hippocampus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and posterior neocortex in directing schema-congruent and -incongruent learning (SCIL) in the interactive neural network that comprises the autobiographical memory system. We then use this framework, which we call the SCIL model, to derive new insights about the optimal design features of clinical interventions that aim to strengthen or weaken schema-based knowledge through the core processes of episodic mental simulation and prediction error. Finally, we examine clinical applications of the SCIL model to schema-change interventions in psychotherapy and provide cognitive-behavior therapy for social anxiety disorder as an illustrative example.
... Indeed, SAD is associated with a wide range of emotion regulation difficulties (e.g., Helbig-Lang et al., 2015;Mennin et al., 2007). Socially anxious individuals may feel distressed when experiencing and expressing positive emotion due to concerns about bringing attention to themselves, leading to attempts to inhibit the expression of emotions in general (Kashdan et al., 2011;Turk et al., 2005). Consistently, socially anxious individuals engage in more positive emotion suppression compared to nonsocially anxious individuals (Farmer & Kashdan, 2012). ...
Fear of negative evaluation (FNE) is a hallmark feature of social anxiety disorder (SAD). There is also evidence that people with SAD fear receiving positive evaluation, and that fear of positive evaluation (FPE) is distinct from FNE. However, researchers have speculated that concerns related to negative evaluation may actually underlie FPE. This study sought to advance our understanding of FPE by employing both quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the reasons underlying participants’ endorsement of FPE on the Fear of Positive Evaluation Scale (FPES; Weeks, Heimberg, & Rodebaugh, 2008) and the extent to which these reasons reflect FNE versus FPE in a sample of individuals with SAD (n = 47) and a nonclinical comparison group (n = 49). Results indicated that responses to the FPES items primarily reflected an underlying FNE. Consistent with contemporary cognitive‐behavioral theories of SAD, fear of proximal or eventual negative judgment emerged as the most common reason for participants’ responses on the FPES. However, participants reported other reasons that did not reflect FNE, such as fear of hurting people’s feelings, and uncertainty associated with positive evaluation. All of the reasons underlying participants’ ratings on the FPES were reported by both the SAD group and the nonclinical comparison group; however, individuals with SAD endorsed each of the reasons to a greater extent. These findings suggest that the FPES does not exclusively assess FPE as intended; however, the emergence and endorsement of reasons other than FNE suggests that FPE exists as a distinct construct.
... The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, includes a specifier for performance-only social anxiety (APA, 2013), and research has supported two presentation categories of social anxiety: social interaction anxiety, which relates to apprehension about coming into contact with or speaking with others, and social observation or social performance anxiety, which concerns circumstances in which people are observed by others, presenting, or performing (see Kashdan, 2004). People who have high degrees of social interaction anxiety report losing interest in enjoyable activities, having less energy, being less satisfied in their relationships, and having more behavioural inhibition (Kashdan, 2004;Kashdan et al. 2008;Kashdan et al., 2011a;Kashdan et al., 2011b). ...
According to literature, a person's level of social connection greatly influences how brave they will be when speaking in front of others. In the twenty-first century, speaking up in public with confidence is crucial for all undergraduate students. Therefore, after completing their university degree, every undergraduate student needs to have sufficient social interaction. Additionally, a student's level of social anxiety affects how much they engage with others. The amount of social interaction anxiety experienced by undergraduate students at Nigerian universities, however, has received less attention in the literature. This study investigated the undergraduate students at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka's level of social interaction anxiety. A sample of 223 undergraduate students from the University of Nigeria was used in this cross-sectional survey study. Data were gathered using the social interaction anxiety scale (α = .86), and frequency, percentage, and bar charts were utilized to analyze the results. The findings showed that most undergraduate students reported very high levels of social interaction anxiety. This means that if this high degree of social interaction anxiety is not addressed, undergraduate students will not be able to properly develop their social interaction.
... As it relates to the current study, research has shown that offline social support is associated with increased self-regulation [50] while social skills deficits have an adverse effect [26] . The ability to understand and manage one's behavior involves many different biopsychosocial mechanisms, which taken together, can assist us in understanding how social media addiction develops and is maintained. ...
Social media can be used to acquire online social support, and this online support appears to offer similar benefits to face-to-face social support. However, some research suggests that gaining this online support may increase the likelihood of developing a dependence on online platforms leading to addictive behaviors toward social media. Individual differences likely play a role in predicting who is most or least vulnerable to social media addiction, and the competing hypotheses of social enhancement (i.e., rich-get-richer) versus social compensation (i.e., poor-get-richer) help contextualize the use of social media, including addictive use. The present study explored the association between online social support and addictive use of social media, as well as the potential moderating roles of social anxiety and offline social support. Results showed that online social support was positively correlated with addictive use of social media, and social anxiety and offline social support significantly moderated the relationship between online social support and addictive use of social media. Results are discussed in relation to the “rich-get-richer” hypothesis, and implications regarding social anxiety and the importance of offline social support and clinical practice are considered.
... Other research emphasizes cognitive-behavioural factors such as maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (Farmer & Kashdan, 2012;Kashdan et al., 2013), experiential avoidance (Kashdan et al., 2013;Kashdan & Breen, 2008;Kashdan & Steger, 2006;Rodebaugh & Shumaker, 2012), and excessive use of maladaptive self-regulation strategies during social interaction (Kashdan et al., 2011;Rodebaugh & Heimberg, 2008). Studies supporting this view have shown that people with SAD are motivated to suppress displays of emotion and conceal other aspects of themselves that they worry others might evaluate negatively (Moscovitch et al., 2013), resulting in the potential depletion of cognitive resources required to benefit from positive social experiences (see Morrison & Heimberg, 2013). ...
Prior research has shown that Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is associated with significantly diminished positive affect (PA). Few studies have examined PA reactivity to pleasant experimental stimuli in individuals with SAD and whether emotional responses might be moderated by social context. Here, we investigated repeated measures of PA reactivity among individuals with SAD (n = 46) and healthy controls (HC; n = 39) in response to standardized neutral images, pleasant music, and social versus nonsocial guided imagery. Primary analyses revealed that SAD and HC participants did not differ in their PA reactivity when PA was conceptualized as a unitary construct. Exploratory analyses examining discrete subfacets of PA revealed potential deficits for SAD participants in relaxed and content PA, but not activated PA. Although participants with SAD reported relatively lower levels of relaxed and content PA overall compared with controls, they exhibited normal increases in all PA subfacets in response to pleasant music as well as pleasant social and nonsocial stimuli. These findings support a more nuanced conclusion about PA deficits in SAD than is described in the extant literature, suggesting that detecting PA deficits in SAD may depend upon how PA is conceptualized, evoked, and measured. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
... The limited resources of self-control theory posit that individuals' self-control strength depends on limited resources, and all self-control behaviors (including emotion regulation, mind control, and decision-making) consume the same resources (31). The depletion of self-control resources in some areas leads to a decline in self-control ability (32). One recent study showed that individuals with social anxiety risk poor self-control after social interaction (33). ...
Background and Aims
Mobile phone addiction among college students has gained considerable research attention because of its adverse effects on their health and academic performance. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying the relationship between shyness and mobile phone addiction among college students.
Methods
Four questionnaires were used to examine whether mobile phone addiction tendency was predicted by shyness and the mediating roles of social anxiety and self-control among 3,189 Chinese college students. Correlation and mediation analyses were conducted using Hayes PROCESS.
Results
The results showed that (1) social anxiety (indirect effect = 0.22, 95% CI = 0.18–0.26) and self-control (indirect effect = 0.23, 95% CI = 0.21–0.25) played a partial mediating role in the relationship between shyness and mobile phone addiction tendency; (2) social anxiety and self-control also mediated the link between shyness and mobile phone addiction tendency sequentially (indirect effect = 0.10, 95% CI = 0.09 to 0.12).
Conclusion
These results suggest that mobile phone addiction among shy college students could be eliminated by alleviating social anxiety and strengthening self-control.
... 明确感到社交焦虑 [2] ，且社交媒体焦虑会产生降低社交倾向 [3] 、降低自我表露意向 [4] 、滋生 网络被害恐惧感 [5] 等消极影响。由此可见，社交媒体焦虑业已成为一项青少年社会化过程中 影响身心健康发展的潜在威胁。然而遗憾的是，目前国内学界大都将研究重点置于线下的学 业焦虑 [6] 、职业焦虑 [7] 、现实人际焦虑 [8] 等议题，缺乏对于社交媒体焦虑形成机制的实证归 因。因此，本研究聚焦于大学生社交媒体焦虑的影响因素和形成机制的剖析，以期更加精准 的对线上社交焦虑进行缓解和预防，进而提出改善大学生的身心健康的循证对策。 自我控制(Self-control)，作为个体人格结构当中自我调控系统的组成部分之一 [9] ，是 指个体因抑制或克服自身的欲望、需求而改变固有的或者习惯的行为、思维的方式的过程 [10] 。自我控制理论(Self-control theory)指出，自我控制水平较低的个体通常倾向于从事可 带来短期利益的行为并忽视该行为所造成的长期消极后果 [11] ，且低自我控制会削弱个体在 社交情境中可能经历的积极体验与正向结果，从而加剧其社交焦虑症状 [12] 。换句话说，由 于社会焦虑的个体试图控制他们的焦虑，并且努力从事能够使自身避免被社会排斥的行为， 而这种控制机能的缺乏遂致使其难以得到由积极社会互动而产生的良性回报 [13] 。网络社交 媒体作为一项当下青少年生活的必需品，能够在短时间内迅速满足个体的信息需求、娱乐需 求、交往需求，在稳定的自我控制系统尚未形成之时，延迟享受障碍会给青少年群体的长期 目标实现增设诸多干扰因素。当个体因过度透支长期、系统性个人目标而导致的自我心理预 期与他人对自己的预期相冲突时，其对于线上焦虑感可能也会相继提升。由此，本研究提出 假 H1：低自我控制对大学生社交媒体焦虑具有显著正向影响。 ...
Objective: The current study aims to explore the relationship among low self-control, Tiktok intensity, and social media anxiety and test the moderating effects of bridging social capital and bonding social capital on the mediation paths. Methods: A sample of 743 university students were recruited in the study to complete the questionnaires of low self-control, Tiktok intensity, social anxiety of social media, and social capital, and the study using structural equation model and Johnson-Neyman analysis to test hypothesis. Results: Low self-control has a significant and direct effect on social media anxiety (β = 0.381, P＜0.001) and a significant indirect effect through Tiktok intensity (β = 0.101, P＜0.05; β = 0.157, P＜0.001). Bridging social capital and bonding social capital could significantly and negatively moderate the effect of Tiktok intensity on social media anxiety. Conclusions: Tiktok intensity acts as a mediator between low self-control and social anxiety of social media, while bridging social capital and bonding social capital play protective roles in the effects of Tiktok intensity on social media anxiety.
... Effect sizes for cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between positive affect and anxiety are significant and indistinguishable from corresponding effect sizes for positive affect and depression (Khazanov & Ruscio, 2016;Kotov, Gamez, Schmidt, & Watson, 2010). Moreover, in experimental paradigms, hedonic impairments have been observed in social anxiety disorder (Kashdan, Weeks, & Savostyanova, 2011), posttraumatic stress disorder (Hopper et al., 2008;Litz, Orsillo, Kaloupek, & Weathers, 2000), and generalized anxiety disorder (Srivastava, Sharma, & Mandal, 2003), including youth samples (Morris, Bylsma, Yaroslavsky, Kovacs, & Rottenberg, 2015). ...
... These findings may have important implications for the understanding and treatment of hedonic dysregulation and functional impairment among individuals with social anxiety disorder (Alden et al., 2008;Kashdan et al., 2011). ...
Objective:
Although previous studies have demonstrated the association between social anxiety symptom severity and the tendency to appraise positive social events negatively among individuals with social anxiety disorder, no study has examined mediators of this relationship. The current study sought to examine whether intolerance of uncertainty and its subfactors mediate the relationship between social interaction anxiety and the tendency to interpret positive social events negatively.
Method:
One hundred and sixty-five individuals with social anxiety disorder completed measures of social interaction anxiety symptom severity, intolerance of uncertainty, and negative interpretations of positive social events.
Results:
Total intolerance of uncertainty and the inhibitory-intolerance of uncertainty subscale scores significantly mediated the relationship between social interaction anxiety and negative interpretations of positive events. Exploratory post-hoc analyses regarding the possible contributing role of depression demonstrated mixed results. The same mediation pattern was found in the full sample as well as those without a secondary comorbid mood disorder diagnosis. In contrast, serial mediation showed a mediating role of depressive symptom severity.
Conclusion:
Inhibitory-intolerance of uncertainty plays a role in the relationship between social interaction anxiety and negative interpretations of positive social events.
... Finally, we did not find a notable difference between how social anxiety is related to positive and negative social events to support a valence-related bias, as hypothesised by several theoretical accounts, such as the "positivity deficit" hypothesis, which states that social anxiety is associated with degraded memories of positive social events (Kashdan et al., 2011). ...
Research on memory bias in social anxiety has yielded contradictory results, pointing to the possibility of important but neglected moderators and confounding factors. This study aimed to investigate the link between social anxiety and autobiographical memory performance for social and nonsocial events, while controlling for and evaluating the effects of several factors including event valence, type of memory detail, and, most noticeably, in-event state anxiety, as well as the interactions between them. Forty-eight students retrieved a total of 191 memories and rated their memory clarity of each event. In a hierarchical linear model, state anxiety predicted higher memory clarity, especially of self-referential details. Trait social anxiety had a significant decreasing effect only on the memory of sensorial details. Furthermore, a multilevel mediation analysis revealed an indirect enhancement effect of social anxiety on the memory of self-referential details, mediated by state anxiety; importantly, the direct and indirect effects were in the opposite directions, pointing to a possible suppression effect. This study suggests that in research on memory bias in social anxiety, not including state anxiety may distort the results. Furthermore, it seems that social anxiety and state anxiety do not affect different types of memory details equally.
... Up to 75% of individuals with major depressive disorder report anhedonia (Franken et al. 2007). Anhedonia is a transdiagnostic symptom, in that it extends beyond major depression to social anxiety disorder and generalized anxiety disorder (Kashdan et al. 2011), as well as schizophrenia (Watson and Naragon-Gainey 2010) and substance use disorder (Thomsen et al. 2015). Although anhedonia is also relevant to other disorders, this chapter focuses on psychological treatments for anhedonia primarily in the context of depression and anxiety. ...
Anhedonia, a loss of interest or pleasure in activities, is a transdiagnostic symptom that characterizes many individuals suffering from depression and anxiety. Most psychological interventions are designed to decrease negative affect rather than increase positive affect, and are largely ineffective for reducing anhedonia. More recently, affective neuroscience has been leveraged to inform treatments for anhedonia by targeting aspects of the Positive Valence Systems, including impairments in reward anticipation, reward responsiveness, and reward learning. In this chapter, we review the efficacy of treatments and, when possible, highlight links to reward constructs. Augmented behavioral approaches and targeted cognitive interventions designed to target reward anticipation, responsiveness, and learning show preliminary efficacy in reducing anhedonia, while there is a relative lack of treatments that target positive emotion regulation and reward devaluation. In addition to developing treatments that address these targets, the field will benefit from establishing standardized measurement of anhedonia across units of analysis, mapping mechanisms of change onto aspects of reward processing, and examining anhedonia outcomes in the long-term.
... Participants completed a measure of social comparison after browsing each profile and completed measures of affect and state self-esteem before and after the browsing task. Although others have conceptualized affect in terms of overall affect balance, we separated positive affect (PA) from negative affect (NA) to account for social anxiety's distinct relationships with each (e.g., Kashdan et al., 2011). We hypothesized that higher social anxiety would be associated with lower, and greater decreases in, rank perceptions while browsing influencer profiles. ...
Individuals with social anxiety are sensitive to social hierarchies and tend to compare themselves unfavorably with others, perceiving themselves as inferior or lower in social rank. The current study explores patterns of change in these negative perceptions, and their associated emotional outcomes, in an online social context. Undergraduate students (N = 291) browsed the profiles of eight Instagram influencers and completed a measure of social comparison after viewing each profile, yielding multiple ratings of their own perceived social rank. Participants completed measures of affect and state self-esteem before and after the profile browsing task. Higher social anxiety predicted lower, and greater declines in, social rank self-perceptions during browsing. Higher social anxiety also predicted greater decreases in positive affect, increases in negative affect, and decreases in state self-esteem from the beginning to the end of the browsing task. Low baseline rank perceptions contributed to change in all three emotional variables. Decreases in rank perceptions contributed further to decreases in positive affect and appearance-related self-esteem. This study elaborates on cognitive-evolutionary theory, suggesting that the inferiority self-perceptions of socially anxious individuals translate to online social contexts, may be strengthened with increased exposure to such contexts, and may have a detrimental emotional impact. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
... Future work could also test for a causal relationship between impaired "dopaminergic" salience processing and anhedonia. Social anxiety includes components of anhedonia and anxiousness (Brown, Chorpita & Barlow, 1998;Kashdan, 2007;Kashdan, Weeks & Savostyanova, 2011). If the dopamine system was indeed involved, we predict that anhedonia in socially shy participants was the underlying cause of the relationship between salience processing and shyness observed here. ...
Like socio-economic status and cognitive abilities, personality traits predict important life outcomes. Traits that reflect unusually low or high approach motivations, such as low extraversion and high disinhibition, are linked to various forms of mental disorder. Similarly, the dopamine system is theoretically linked to approach motivation traits and to various forms of mental disorder. Identifying neural contributions to extremes of such traits should map to neural sources of psychopathology, with dopamine a prime candidate. Notably, dopamine cells fire in response to unexpected reward, which suggests that the size of non-invasive, scalp-recorded potentials evoked by unexpected reward could reflect sensitivity in approach motivation traits. Here, we evaluated the validity of evoked electroencephalography (EEG) responses to unexpected reward in a monetary gain/loss task to assess approach motivation traits in 137 participants, oversampled for externalizing psychopathology symptoms. We demonstrated that over the 0–400 ms period in which feedback on the outcome was presented, responses evoked by unexpected reward contributed to all theoretically relevant approach motivation trait domains (disinhibition, extraversion and the behavioural activation system); and did so only at times when dopamine responses normally peak and reportedly code salience (70–100 ms) and valuation (200–300 ms). In particular, we linked “dopaminergic” salience and valuation to the psychopathology-related constructs of low extraversion (social anxiety) and high disinhibition (impulsivity) respectively, making the evoked potential components biomarker candidates for indexing aberrant processing of unexpected reward.
... This broader body of work therefore highlights the possibility that childhood maltreatment may trigger systemic inflammation later in life through its connection with affective disorders that involve anhedonia, or loss of interest or pleasure toward stimuli that were previously perceived as rewarding (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Whereas most work exploring connections between anhedonia and inflammation has focused on depression (Danese et al., 2008), more recent work has highlighted that social anxiety comprises an anhedonic component (e.g., Kashdan et al., 2011). Additionally, recent work has indicated that anhedonia within social anxiety is observed more frequently amongst adult survivors of childhood maltreatment (e.g., Simon et al., 2009). ...
Prior work has established a robust association between childhood maltreatment and systemic inflammatory activation later in life; however, the mechanisms involved in this process remain incompletely understood. The purpose of this investigation was to examine potential mechanistic roles for social anxiety (SA) symptoms and low positive affect (PA) in the path from childhood maltreatment to elevations in circulating interleukin (IL)-6, a common biomarker of inflammatory activation. In addition, building on prior work establishing linkages between mindful awareness and reductions in systemic inflammation, we examined the potential role of trait mindfulness as a moderator of the relationships among childhood maltreatment, SA, low PA, and IL-6. A serial mediation model utilizing a large epidemiologic dataset (final N = 527) supported our central hypothesis that the direct effect of childhood maltreatment on IL-6 was fully serially statistically mediated by SA symptoms and low PA (but not high negative affect). Additionally, results indicated that individuals falling in the upper versus lower quartiles of SA symptoms demonstrated significantly elevated concentrations of IL-6, a finding that has not been previously reported. Trait mindfulness moderated the association between low PA and IL-6, to the exclusion of any paths related to negative affect. Additionally, results indicated that the effect of child maltreatment on IL-6 bypasses SA to indirectly impact IL-6 via negative affect. Overall, we conclude that childhood maltreatment and SA symptoms have a significant influence on IL-6, albeit indirectly via low PA, and the influence of PA on IL-6 may be uniquely susceptible to influence by individual differences in mindfulness.
... An experimental study showed that due to greater hypersensitivity to social punishment, people with social anxiety may have greater difficulty adapting to increased social reinforcement after being rejected by someone (or perceiving they were) even when that person later becomes more rewarding (36). This overactivation of avoidance goals may be part of why people with SAD tend to interpret positive social stimuli in threatening ways (30) and show increased fear of positive evaluation from others (37). For example, people with SAD often react to positive feedback by expecting that their partner will expect more from them in the next interaction and that they will fall short of those expectations (38,39). ...
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a prevalent and often debilitating psychiatric disorder that can assume a chronic course even when treated. Despite the identification of evidence-based pharmacological and behavioral treatments for SAD, much room for improved outcomes exists and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) has been proposed as a promising adjunctive treatment to psychological interventions for disorders characterized by social dysfunction. A small randomized, placebo-controlled trial of MDMA-assisted therapy (MDMA-AT) for social anxiety in autistic adults offered encouraging results, but more research is sorely needed to explore the potential for MDMA-AT in treating SAD. This review aims to stimulate future study by summarizing research on disruptions in neurological, perceptual, receptive, and expressive systems regulating social behavior in SAD and proposing how MDMA-AT may alter these systems across four domains. First, we review research highlighting the roles of social anhedonia and reduced social reward sensitivity in maintaining SAD, with specific attention to the reduction in positive affect in social situations, infrequent social approach behaviors, and related social skills deficits. We posit that MDMA-AT may enhance motivation to connect with others and alter perceptions of social reward for an extended period following administration, thereby potentiating extinction processes, and increasing the reinforcement value of social interactions. Second, we review evidence for the central role of heightened social evaluative threat perception in the development and maintenance of SAD and consider how MDMA-AT may enhance experiences of affiliation and safety when interacting with others. Third, we consider the influence of shame and the rigid application of shame regulation strategies as important intrapersonal processes maintaining SAD and propose the generation of self-transcendent emotions during MDMA sessions as a mechanism of shame reduction that may result in corrective emotional experiences and boost memory reconsolidation. Finally, we review research on the role of dysfunctional interpersonal behaviors in SAD that interfere with social functioning and, in particular, the development and maintenance of close and secure relationships. We discuss the hypothesized role of MDMA-AT in improving social skills to elicit positive interpersonal responses from others, creating a greater sense of belonging, acceptance, and social efficacy.
... Despite persistent and chronic deficits in PA (Kashdan, Weeks, & Savostyanova, 2011), people with SAD may derive enhanced emotional benefits from social experiences. The "mood brightening" effect is a phenomenon in which people with mood difficulties experience greater emotional benefits from positive experiences than people without mood difficulties. ...
Quality contact with other people serves as a reliable mood enhancement strategy. We wondered if the emotional benefits of socializing are present even for those with a psychological disorder defined by social distress and avoidance: social anxiety disorder (SAD). We conducted two ecological momentary assessment (EMA) studies and analyzed 7,243 total surveys. In both studies, community adults diagnosed with SAD and healthy controls received five surveys each day for two weeks. Consistent with research on positivity deficits in SAD, between-person analyses in both studies suggest that, on average, participants with SAD reported lower positive and higher negative affect in social and non-social situations than healthy controls. Within-person analyses, however, revealed that in both studies participants with SAD and healthy controls reported higher positive affect when with others than when alone; no differences were found for negative affect. The difference in positive affect between social and nonsocial situations was smaller for participants with SAD in Study 1, suggesting that people with SAD may experience diminished reward responding when socializing. Our results suggest that even those with a mental illness defined by interpersonal distress can and do derive positive emotions from social interactions.
... There is little literature exploring positive perceptions and implications of anxiety. Kashdan et al. [122] suggest that social anxiety may play a role in shaping positive experiences and events. In Parkinson's populations, Sotgiu and Rusconi [123] suggest that investigating the positive experiences of emotional events, such as anxiety, could lead to a greater understanding of the complex emotional landscape experienced by PWPs. ...
Purpose
Anxiety is a common non-motor symptom of Parkinson’s and there is no specific pharmacological intervention for people with Parkinson’s who experience anxiety. Yet there is little specific research documenting how individuals with this condition experience anxiety. It is important to explore the experiences of people with Parkinson’s to identify potential issues in developing future non-pharmacological interventions. This study explored the lived experience of anxiety for people with Parkinson’s.
Materials and methods
Six participants were recruited into a descriptive phenomenological study, through the charity Parkinson’s UK, using a maximum variation sampling strategy. Face to face interviews were conducted. Data analysis employed thematic analysis.
Results
Three key themes encapsulated the data: Finding ways to cope to “Try not to let it rule your life”, Amplifies symptoms “It’s emotionally draining it it’s also physically draining” and “Anxiety is a funny thing” experienced in myriad ways. A model of the experience of PWP experience of anxiety is proposed.
Conclusions
Anxiety is a complex experience constructed of interlinked parts affecting people with Parkinson’s in myriad ways. Researchers and healthcare professionals should take these findings into account when designing future studies and interventions.
... However, considering findings suggesting low trait positive affectivity in SAD (Kashdan, 2007;Kashdan, Weeks, & Savostyanova, 2011), and studies documenting biases in the processing of positive stimuli (Frewen, Dozois, Joanisse, & Neufeld, 2008;Taylor, Bomyea, & Amir, 2010), researchers have begun to explore whether anxiety may also be characterized by abnormal reward responses. Results from investigations probing reward processing in anxious samples have indeed indicated altered neural responses to social and monetary rewards (Bar-Haim et al., 2009;Forbes et al., 2006;Guyer et al., 2006;Richey et al., 2014;Silk, Davis, McMakin, Dahl, & Forbes, 2012). ...
Objective:
Increasing evidence supports the presence of an anhedonic endophenotype in major depressive disorder (MDD), characterized by impairments in various components of reward processing, particularly incentive motivation, effort-based decision making, and reward learning. In addition to its prominent role in MDD, reward processing dysregulation has been proposed as a transdiagnostic risk and/or maintenance factor for a range of other forms of psychopathology. Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD)-a condition that frequently co-occurs with MDD-demonstrate low trait positive affectivity and altered processing of rewards and positively valenced information. However, no studies to date have directly tested reward learning-the ability to modulate behavior in response to rewards-in this population.
Materials and methods:
The current study evaluated reward learning in MDD, SAD, and healthy control subjects (N = 90) using a well-validated signal detection task. Given increasing data supporting transdiagnostic features of psychopathology, we also evaluated associations between anhedonia and task performance transdiagnostically in the patient sample.
Results:
Contrary to expectations, results indicated no significant group differences in response bias in the full sample, suggesting no diagnostic differences in reward learning. However, dimensional analyses revealed that higher self-reported anhedonia (but not general distress or anxious arousal) was associated with worse reward learning in both the MDD and SAD groups explaining about 11% of the variance.
Conclusion:
Deficits in implicit reward learning are associated with anhedonia but not necessarily with major depressive disorder as a diagnosis, which supports the use of transdiagnostic approaches to understanding psychopathology.
... However, they are far less effective as a singular approach than in concert with others. Critical studies downplay CBT's effectiveness (David et al., 2018;Kashdan et al., 2011), arguing it fares no better than non-CBT programs. ...
... In particular, theorists posit that social anxiety is associated with a tendency to underestimate one's control over daily events (Hofmann 2005), including one's emotional experiences (Barlow 2002). These negative beliefs are theorized to be relatively fixed and to contribute to emotion dysregulation (Kashdan et al. 2011). It is not surprising then that social anxiety is also associated with fixed emotion beliefs, at least at the trait level. ...
Background
The extent to which a person believes they can change or control their own emotions is associated with trait-level symptoms of mood and anxiety-related psychopathology.Method
The present study examined how this belief relates to momentary and daily self-reports of affect, emotion regulation tendencies, and perceived effectiveness of emotion regulation attempts throughout a five-week experience sampling study conducted in N = 113 high socially anxious people (https://osf.io/eprwt/).ResultsResults suggest that people with relatively stronger beliefs that their emotions are malleable experienced more momentary and daily positive affect (relative to negative affect), even after controlling for social anxiety symptom severity (although only daily positive affect, and not momentary positive affect, remained significant after correcting for false discovery rate). However, emotion malleability beliefs were not uniquely associated with other emotion regulation-related outcomes in daily life, despite theory suggesting malleability beliefs influence motivation to engage in emotion regulation.Conclusion
The paucity of significant associations observed between trait malleability beliefs and momentary and daily self-reports of emotion regulation (despite consistent findings of such relationships at trait levels) calls for additional research to better understand the complex dynamics of emotion beliefs in daily life.
... On the other hand, it suggests that other forces may inhibit the full potential benefits of PA on reducing social stress reactivity. Candidate processes that could diminish the salutary effects of PA include safety behaviors (Plasencia, Taylor, & Alden, 2016) or maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (e.g., suppression; Kashdan, Weeks, & Savostyanova, 2011). Research is needed to replicate the current findings suggesting attenuation of the PA-anxiety reactivity link in SAD, and to examine putative mechanisms that account for such effects. ...
Background
Positive affect (PA) attenuates negative reactivity to stress; however, this adaptive function of PA is seldom studied in psychiatric conditions characterized by more extreme forms of affective responding. We tested distinct associations of PA and negative affect (NA) with anxiety reactivity in participants with social anxiety disorder (SAD)—a condition characterized by heightened NA and diminished PA—and non-SAD control subjects.
Method
Adults with a principal diagnosis of SAD (n = 71) and those without a psychiatric history (n = 36) rated their PA and NA during the past week, and were exposed to a laboratory stressor wherein they delivered a video-recorded speech on a controversial topic. Anxiety reactivity was assessed in terms of anticipatory anxiety prior to the speech, and observer-rated anxiety-related behavior during the speech.
Results
Across all participants, higher PA significantly predicted lower anticipatory anxiety and less anxiety-related behavior, beyond level of NA; lower NA significantly predicted attenuated anticipatory anxiety, but not anxiety-related behavior, beyond level of PA. The association between PA and stress reactivity was diminished for individuals with especially elevated NA, as well as for individuals with SAD compared to those without.
Conclusions
PA may be protective against negative reactivity to social stress; however, theoretical models and clinical applications should consider possible interactive effects of PA and NA in modulating stress reactivity.
Positive and negative interpretation biases have been conceptualized as distinct constructs related to anxiety and social anxiety, but the field lacks psychometrically sound self-report measures to assess positive and negative interpretations of social ambiguity. This study examined the psychometric properties of the Ambiguous Social Scenarios Questionnaire (ASSQ) in two samples of 2,188 and 454 undergraduates with varying levels of anxiety. Results supported a bifactor model with a general interpretation bias factor and specific factors assessing positive and negative interpretation biases. The ASSQ demonstrated measurement invariance across genders and levels of social anxiety, as well as convergent and incremental validity with two existing measures of interpretation bias. It also demonstrated concurrent validity with attentional control, intolerance of uncertainty, total anxiety, and social anxiety and discriminant validity with emotional awareness. Findings support the ASSQ as a brief, valid, and reliable measure of positive and negative interpretation biases toward ambiguous social situations.
Objective:
Determine whether a novel psychosocial treatment for positive affect improves clinical status and reward sensitivity more than a form of cognitive behavioral therapy that targets negative affect and whether improvements in reward sensitivity correlate with improvements in clinical status.
Method:
In this assessor-blinded, parallel-group, multisite, two-arm randomized controlled clinical superiority trial, 85 treatment-seeking adults with severely low positive affect, moderate-to-severe depression or anxiety, and functional impairment received 15 weekly individual therapy sessions of positive affect treatment (PAT) or negative affect treatment (NAT). Clinical status measures were self-reported positive affect, interviewer-rated anhedonia, and self-reported depression and anxiety. Target measures were eleven physiological, behavioral, cognitive, and self-report measures of reward anticipation-motivation, response to reward attainment, and reward learning. All analyses were intent-to-treat.
Results:
Compared to NAT, individuals receiving PAT achieved superior improvements in the multivariate clinical status measures at posttreatment, b = .37, 95% CI [.15, .59], t(109) = 3.34, p = .001, q = .004, d = .64. Compared to NAT, individuals receiving PAT also achieved higher multivariate reward anticipation-motivation, b = .21, 95% CI [.05, .37], t(268) = 2.61, p = .010, q = .020, d = .32, and higher multivariate response to reward attainment, b = .24, 95% CI [.02, .45], t(266) = 2.17, p = .031, q = .041, d = .25, at posttreatment. Measures of reward learning did not differ between the two groups. Improvements in reward anticipation-motivation and in response to reward attainment correlated with improvements in the clinical status measures.
Conclusions:
Targeting positive affect results in superior improvements in clinical status and reward sensitivity than targeting negative affect. This is the first demonstration of differential target engagement across two psychological interventions for anxious or depressed individuals with low positive affect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
Cognition is mediated and combined by mental processes formed by inner speech and cognitive processes play a key role in generalized anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The aim of this study was to compare the frequency and content of inner speech in people with generalized anxiety disorder traits, obsessive-compulsive disorder traits and normal. 348 (boys: 203, girls: 145) students of Shahid Beheshti University were selected by convenience sampling method and participants answered the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Scale (Spitzer et al., 2006), the Self-talk Scale (Brinthaupt et al.., 2009) and the Padua Inventory–Washington State University Revision (Burns et al.., 1996). Findings were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance and multivariate analysis of variance. The results showed a significant difference in frequency between the normal group and clinical groups. Also, the research findings showed a significant difference between the normal group and clinical groups in the negative subscales of inner speech content (self-criticism and social assessment) and not the positive subscales (self-regulation and self-reinforcement).
Background:
Stress generation theory suggests that people engage in certain behaviors that causally generate "dependent" stressful life events. Stress generation has primarily been studied in the context of depression with limited consideration of anxiety. People with social anxiety exhibit maladaptive social and regulatory behaviors that may uniquely generate stress.
Method:
Across two studies, we examined if people with elevated social anxiety experienced more dependent stressful life events than those lower in social anxiety. On an exploratory basis, we examined differences in perceived intensity, chronicity, and self-blame of stressful life events. As a conservative test, we examined whether observed relationships held after covarying depression symptoms. Community adults (Ns = 303; 87) completed semi-structured interviews about recent stressful life events.
Results:
Participants with higher social anxiety symptoms (Study 1) and social anxiety disorder (SAD; Study 2) reported more dependent stressful life events than those with lower social anxiety. In Study 2, healthy controls rated dependent events as less impactful than independent events; those with SAD rated dependent and independent events as equally impactful. Regardless of social anxiety symptoms, participants placed greater blame on themselves for the occurrence of dependent than independent events.
Limitations:
Life events interviews are retrospective and preclude conclusions about short-term changes. Mechanisms of stress generation were not assessed.
Conclusions:
Results provide initial evidence for the role of stress generation in social anxiety that may be distinct from depression. Implications for assessing and treating unique and shared features of affective disorders are discussed.
Experiencing childhood trauma (CT) can create barriers for developing relationships and is a risk factor for anxiety and depression. Expressive suppression (ES; i.e., reducing expression associated with experiencing emotions) might explain the link between CT and relationship formation difficulties. We examined the association between (1) CT and ES during a dyadic paradigm intended to facilitate connectedness between unacquainted partners and (2) ES and desire for future interaction (DFI). Individuals with an anxiety or depressive disorder diagnosis (N=77) interacted with a trained confederate; partners answered a series of increasingly intimate questions about themselves. Participant ES for positive and negative emotions, and participant and confederate DFI were collected during the task. Participants completed global anxiety, depression, and CT measures. CT correlated with positive (r=.35, p=.002), but not negative, ES (r=.13, p=.273). In a multiple linear regression model, CT predicted positive ES beyond symptom variables and gender, β=.318, t=2.59, p=.012. Positive ES correlated with participant (r=-.38, p=.001) and confederate DFI (r=-.40, p<.01); and predicted participant DFI beyond symptom variables and ethnicity, β=-.358, t=-3.18, p=.002, and confederate DFI, β=-.390, t=-3.51, p=.001, beyond symptom variables. Mediation analyses suggested positive ES accounted for the relationship between greater CT severity and less desire for future interaction from participants, 95%CI [-0.26,-0.02], and confederates, [-0.38, -0.01]. Positive ES may be an important factor in the reduced capacity to form new social relationships for individuals with a history of CT, anxiety, and depression.
We present a novel method for quantifying transitions within multivariate binary time series data, using a sliding series of transition matrices, to derive metrics of stability and spread. We define stability as the trace of a transition matrix divided by the sum of all observed elements within that matrix. We define spread as the number of all non-zero cells in a transition matrix divided by the number of all possible cells in that matrix. We developed this method to allow investigation into high-dimensional, sparse data matrices for which existing binary time series methods are not designed. Results from 1728 simulations varying six parameters suggest that unique information is captured by both metrics, and that stability and spread values have a moderate inverse association. Further, simulations suggest that this method can be reliably applied to time series with as few as nine observations per person, where at least five consecutive observations construct each overlapping transition matrix, and at least four time series variables compose each transition matrix. A pre-registered application of this method using 4 weeks of ecological momentary assessment data (N = 110) showed that stability and spread in the use of 20 emotion regulation strategies predict next timepoint affect after accounting for affect and anxiety’s auto-regressive and cross-lagged effects. Stability, but not spread, also predicted next timepoint anxiety. This method shows promise for meaningfully quantifying two unique aspects of switching behavior in multivariate binary time series data.
Flexible use of emotion regulation (ER) strategies in daily life is theorized to depend on appraisals of occurring stressful events. Yet, to date, little is known about (a) how appraisals of the current situation modulate the use of ER strategies in daily life and (b) how individual differences in affective symptoms impact these relations among appraisals and ER strategy use. This study attempted to address these two limitations using a 5-day experience sampling protocol, with three surveys administered per day in a sample of 97 participants. Each survey measured momentary appraisals of stress intensity and controllability as well as ER strategy use (i.e., rumination, reappraisal, avoidance, and active coping). Results showed that, in situations of low-stress intensity, higher stress controllability was related to greater use of reappraisal and rumination. In situations of high-stress intensity, higher controllability was related to reduced use of rumination. This pattern of flexible use of ER strategies depending on momentary stress appraisals was found for both rumination and avoidance and occurred specifically in individuals reporting lower levels of depression and/or anxiety levels. These findings provide new insight into how flexible use of ER strategies in daily life is modulated by interactions between stress intensity and controllability appraisals at varying levels of affective symptoms.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-022-00122-9.
The Pavlovian-Instrumental Transfer (PIT) paradigm examines probabilistic and reinforcement learning. Disruptions in mechanisms that mediate PIT (i.e., cues not triggering adaptive behaviors) are thought to be contributors to psychopathology, making the study of probabilistic and reinforcement learning clinically relevant. The current study evaluated an appetitive PIT effect and its relationship with symptom dimensions spanning depression and anxiety, with a particular focus on anhedonia. Forty young adults ranging in scores across dimensions of depression and anxiety symptoms completed the PIT paradigm and self-report symptom measures. The PIT paradigm consisted of three phases. The instrumental phase consisted of a contingent association in which participants squeezed a handgrip for monetary reward. The Pavlovian phase established a purely predictive association between three visual stimuli (CS + , CS-, baseline) and presence or absence of monetary reward. In the transfer phase, participants’ responses allowed for examination of whether motivational characteristics of Pavlovian predictors influenced the vigor of their handgrip squeezes (instrumental action), which were formerly independent of Pavlovian associations. Analyses revealed a baseline-reward PIT effect, whereby a reward-associated Pavlovian cue enhanced instrumental responding in the transfer phase. However, there were no significant differences between CS + and CS- or CS- and baseline cues, suggesting a disrupted interaction of Pavlovian and instrumental learning. Further, the appetitive PIT effect captured in this paradigm was not associated with anhedonia, fears, or general distress. Future work should investigate the influence of mood states using more specific appetitive PIT paradigms to further understanding of the implications of disrupted reflexive and instrumental responding.
Purpose
Due to ongoing significant life changes during the transition into higher education, social anxiety can be problematic, especially for college students. It has adverse effects on various aspects of one’s life, including one’s feelings and emotions. The study investigated the interplay between social anxiety and emotions and its impact on affect. The aim of this study is to examine the role of difficulties in emotion regulation in the relationship between social anxiety and change in affect.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a longitudinal study. Data was collected with self-report instruments at two time points with a gap of four months. Participants were Indian undergraduate students from a technical institute.
Findings
The result revealed that high social anxiety in tandem with difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior significantly impacts changes in positive affect. However, this effect was significant only in the presence of depression.
Research limitations/implications
This study highlights the harmful impact of comorbid issues such as depression in socially anxious individuals. The present study might have implications for educators and clinicians working with college students.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the only study to test the proposed research model in a sample of Indian college students. The use of a moderated moderation analysis with the three regulation strategies and depression also adds to the uniqueness of this study.
Positive valence system (PVS) deficits are increasingly recognized as important treatment targets for depression and anxiety. Emerging behavioral treatments designed to upregulate the PVS show initial promise; however, neural mechanisms underlying these approaches remain unknown. This study investigated neural reward-processing-related changes following Amplification of Positivity (AMP)—a treatment designed to enhance positive thinking, emotions and behaviors through positive activity interventions (Clinicaltrials.gov:NCT02330627).
Individuals with depression and/or anxiety (N=29) were randomized to 10 sessions of AMP (n=16) or waitlist (WL;n=13). Participants completed a monetary incentive delay task during fMRI at baseline and post-assessment. Hypothesis-driven region of interest (ventral striatum, insula, anterior cingulate) and exploratory whole-brain activation and connectivity analyses evaluated pre-to-post changes for AMP vs. WL when anticipating potential monetary gain or loss.
No between-group brain activation changes emerged in regions of interest or whole-brain analyses. Increased neural connectivity from pre-to-post-treatment was observed in AMP vs. WL, including ventral striatum, anterior insula, and anterior cingulate connectivity with prefrontal, limbic, occipital and parietal regions—predominantly during loss anticipation.
This preliminary study is the first to examine neural mechanisms of positive activity interventions in depression and anxiety and suggests that AMP may strengthen brain connectivity in reward processing, attention, and emotion regulation networks.
Previous research examining the relationship between social anxiety (SA) and approach and avoidance motivations has been rather limited, and the results – contradictory. We sought to investigate the motivational profiles in SA while differentiating between approach and avoidance motivations in the social-rank and affiliation domains. Based on cognitive, evolutionary, and interpersonal models of SA, we expected that SA will be positively associated with affiliation and social-rank avoidance motivations, and negatively associated with affiliation and social-rank approach motivations. To examine these hypotheses, we conducted three studies. In Study 1 (N = 212), SA was uniquely associated with higher avoidance and lower approach motivations in the domain social-rank. In Study 2 (N = 648), SA was uniquely associated with lower approach motivations in both interpersonal domains. In Study 3 (N = 366), SA was associated with higher avoidance and lower approach motivations in both interpersonal domains. The findings in all three studies were significant above and beyond depression severity and age. These results highlight the importance of motivational profiles for the understanding of SA, which may be useful for the construction of personalized treatments for this condition.
Analysis of longitudinal within-person networks over the course of therapy allows an identification of possible targets of treatment. This study examined within-person networks of clinical features in social anxiety disorder (SAD) patients during cognitive (CT) and interpersonal (IPT) therapy. Patients (n = 80) were randomized to either CT or IPT in a 10 week residential program. They completed a measure of clinical features two times a week. The 60 (75 %) patients who had completed at least 18 measurements were included in the analyses. The multilevel vector autoregressive (mlVAR) model was used to analyze the data, producing a temporal, contemporaneous, and between-person network. In the temporal network and as expected, more homework compliance in a half-week predicted less social anxiety and less social avoidance the subsequent half-week. Also better social function predicted less social avoidance, whereas more social anxiety predicted more self-focus. Unexpectedly, less social avoidance predicted more self-focus and less self-focus predicted less social function and social joy. In the contemporaneous network, self-focus, anxiety and avoidance displayed a conditional independence structure. The estimated temporal network suggests that homework compliance and social function are promising targets of treatment.
Cognitive Reactivity (CR), an established diathesis for depression, has been defined as the within-person strength of association between sad affect and dysfunctional attitudes. Watson and Tellegen (1985) proposed that sad affect is a combination of high negative affect (NA) and low positive affect (PA). The current study integrated the CR and the affect literatures by examining the differential and conjoint roles of cognitive reactivity to high negative affect (CR-highNA) and cognitive reactivity to low positive affect (CR-lowPA). In the current study, college student participants completed daily diary measures of CR-highNA, CR-lowPA, and CR to sadness (CR-Sad). Results showed that naturally occurring NA and PA accounted for the relation of sadness to dysfunctional cognitions. Further, the relation of depressive symptoms to CR-Sad was explained by high levels of CR-highNA and CR-lowPA. Born out of the integration of research on CR and affective structures, the current results have implications for both theory and treatment of depression.
The personality construct of alexithymia is thought to reflect a deficit in the cognitive processing and regulation of emotional states. To explore the relations between alexithymia and emotional responding, 50 older adults (28 men, 22 women) were studied across different contexts: (1) initial exposure to an emotion‐evoking movie; (2) second exposure to that stimulus; (3) reports of rumination and social sharing; and (4) describing their emotional response (verbal re‐evocation). Facets of the alexithymia construct were associated at the initial exposure with lower emotional responses at the cognitive‐experiential level, but with higher emotional responses at the physiological level as measured by heart rate. At the second exposure, the results were replicated for physiological responses. Certain facets of alexithymia were associated also with lower reports of rumination and social sharing involving emotional aspects, and with a lower proportion of emotional words related to the emotional stimulus during the verbal re‐evocation.
Several literatures converge on the idea that approach and positive affect related to goal pursuit are managed by one self-regulatory system and that avoidance (or withdrawal) and negative affect related to threats are managed by a second self-regulatory system. After briefly reviewing these literatures, the authors consider the relation of these themes to the broader domain of personality. In particular, they map individual differences in the responsivity of the approach system onto the personality dimension of extraversion and map individual differences in the responsivity of the withdrawal system onto the dimension of neuroticism. This mapping requires a slight refocusing of current conceptions of extraversion and neuroticism. However, such a refocusing brings a gain as well as a cost: In particular, it would embed these dimensions more explicitly in a process-oriented conceptualization of action control.
A substantial literature indicates that anxiety is often associated with selec- tive attention to threat cues. Socially anxious individuals are excessively concerned about negative evaluation by others. One might therefore predict that high social anxiety would be associated with selective attention to negative facial expressions. On the other hand, some recent models have suggested that social anxiety may be associated with reduced processing of external social cues. A modi® ed dot-probe task was used to investigate face attention. High and low socially anxious individuals were presented with pairs of pictures, consisting of a face (positive, neutral, or negative) and a household object, under conditions of social-evaluative threat or no threat. The results indicated that, compared to low socially anxious individuals, high socially anxious individuals show an attentional bias away from emotional (positive and negative) faces but this effect is only observed under conditions of social-evaluative threat. Theoretical and clinical implications of the results are discussed.
Over twenty years of research have examined the cognitive consequences of positive affect states, and suggested that positive affect leads to a broadening of cognition (see review by Fredrickson, 2001). However, this research has primarily examined positive affect that is low in approach motivational intensity (e.g., contentment). More recently, we have systematically examined positive affect that varies in approach motivational intensity, and found that positive affect high in approach motivation (e.g., desire) narrows cognition, whereas positive affect low in approach motivation broadens cognition (e.g., Gable & Harmon-Jones, 2008a21.
Gable , P. A. and Harmon-Jones , E. 2008a . Approach-motivated positive affect reduces breadth of attention . Psychological Science , 19 : 476 – 482 . [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references; Harmon-Jones & Gable, 2009). In this article we will review past models and present a motivational dimension model of affect that expands understanding of how affective states influence attentional and cognitive breadth. We then review research that has varied the motivational intensity of positive and negative affect and found that affect of low motivational intensity broadens cognitive processes, whereas affect of high motivational intensity narrows cognitive processes.
Positive psychologists have developed a variety of techniques to increase well-being. This study explored whether preferences for some interventions are linked to preferences for other interventions. A total of 792 participants received up to six positive psychology exercises. After each exercise, participants indicated their preference for each exercise and how often they engaged in it. A factor analysis of these scores revealed three groupings of subjective preferences: active-constructive responding and savoring; blessings and life summary; and gratitude visit and strengths. Individuals who had high preference for an exercise were more likely to complete the exercise. Implications for application of positive psychology exercises and future recommendations are discussed including the use of such a framework for tailoring custom programs of interventions.
W. Wilson's (1967) review of the area of subjective well-being (SWB) advanced several conclusions regarding those who report high levels of "happiness." A number of his conclusions have been overturned: youth and modest aspirations no longer are seen as prerequisites of SWB. E. Diener's (1984) review placed greater emphasis on theories that stressed psychological factors. In the current article, the authors review current evidence for Wilson's conclusions and discuss modern theories of SWB that stress dispositional influences, adaptation, goals, and coping strategies. The next steps in the evolution of the field are to comprehend the interaction of psychological factors with life circumstances in producing SWB, to understand the causal pathways leading to happiness, understand the processes underlying adaptation to events, and develop theories that explain why certain variables differentially influence the different components of SWB (life satisfaction, pleasant affect, and unpleasant affect). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Counseling psychologists often work with clients to increase their well-being as well as to decrease their distress. One important aspect of well-being, highlighted particularly in humanistic theories of the counseling process, is perceived meaning in life. However, poor measurement has hampered research on meaning in life. In 3 studies, evidence is provided for the internal consistency, temporal stability, factor structure, and validity of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ), a new 10-item measure of the presence of, and the search for, meaning in life. A multitrait-multimethod matrix demonstrates the convergent and discriminant validity of the MLQ subscales across time and informants, in comparison with 2 other meaning scales. The MLQ offers several improvements over current meaning in life measures, including no item overlap with distress measures, a stable factor structure, better discriminant validity, a briefer format, and the ability to measure the search for meaning.
Associations between exercise and mental well-being have been documented repeatedly over the last two decades. More recently, there has been application of exercise interventions to clinical populations diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and eating disorders with evidence of substantial benefit. Nonetheless, attention to the efficacy of exercise interventions in clinical settings has been notably absent in the psychosocial treatment literature, as have been calls for the integration of these methods within the clinical practice of psychologists. In this article, we provide a quantitative and qualitative review of these efficacy studies in clinical samples and discuss the potential mechanism of action of exercise interventions, with attention to both biological and psychosocial processes. The meta-analysis of 11 treatment outcome studies of individuals with depression yielded a very large combined effect size for the advantage of exercise over control conditions: g = 1.39 (95% CI: .89–1.88), corresponding to a d = 1.42 (95% CI: .92–1.93). Based on these findings, we encourage clinicians to consider the role of adjunctive exercise interventions in their clinical practice and we discuss issues concerning this integration.
Individuals differ considerably in their emotion experience. Some experience emotions in a highly differentiated manner, clearly distinguishing among a variety of negative and positive discrete emotions. Others experience emotions in a relatively undifferentiated manner, treating a range of like-valence terms as interchangeable. Drawing on self-regulation theory, we hypothesised that indivi-duals with highly differentiated emotion experience should be better able to regulate emotions than individuals with poorly differentiated emotion experience. In particular, we hypothesised that emotion differentiation and emotion regulation would be positively related in the context of intense negative emotions, where the press for emotion regulation is generally greatest. To test this hypothesis, parti-cipants' negative and positive emotion differentiation was assessed using a 14-day diary protocol. Participants' regulation of negative and positive emotions was assessed using laboratory measures. As predicted, negative emotion differentiation was positively related to the frequency of negative emotion regulation, particularly at higher levels of emotional intensity.
This study examined the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on the brain–behavior mechanisms of self-referential processing in patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD). Sixteen patients underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while encoding self-referential, valence, and orthographic features of social trait adjectives. Post-MBSR, 14 patients completed neuroimaging. Compared to baseline, MBSR completers showed (a) increased self-esteem and decreased anxiety, (b) increased positive and decreased nega-tive self-endorsement, (c) increased activity in a brain network related to attention regula-tion, and (d) reduced activity in brain systems implicated in conceptual-linguistic self-view. MBSR-related changes in maladaptive or distorted social self-view in adults diagnosed with SAD may be related to modulation of conceptual self-processing and attention regulation. Self-referential processing may serve as a functional biobehavioral target to measure the effects of mindfulness training. S ocial anxiety disorder (SAD) is a common and frequently debilitating condition character-ized by intense fear of evaluation in social or performance situations (Jefferys, 1997; Kessler et al., 1994). SAD has an early onset (Otto et al., 2001) and regularly precedes other anxiety, mood, and substance abuse/dependence disorders (Lampe, Salde, Issakidis, & Andrews, 2003; Matza, Revicki, Davidson, & Stewart, 2003). SAD is associated with significant distress and functional impairment in both work and social domains (Lochner et al., 2003; Rapee, 1995; Schneier et al., 1994) and typically persists unless treated (Clark & Wells, 1995). The early onset of SAD magnifies its impact, including increased school dropout (Van Ameringen, Mancini, & Farvolden, 2003), poor social integra-tion, and increased comorbid psychopathology (Lampe et al., 2003; Matza et al., 2003; Randall, Thomas, & Thevos, 2001).
Background: Research has shown that beliefs about one's capacity to savour positive outcomes, a form of perceived control over positive emotions, are largely independent of beliefs about coping, a form of perceived control over negative emotions. Aim: To describe a new measure of savouring beliefs, the Savoring Beliefs Inventory (SBI). Method: Six studies validating the SBI that is designed to assess individuals' perceptions of their ability to derive pleasure through anticipating upcoming positive events, savouring positive moments, and reminiscing about past positive experiences. Results: SBI scores were found to be: (a) positively correlated with affect intensity, extraversion, optimism, internal locus of control, reported self-control behaviours, life satisfaction, value fulfilment, self-esteem, and intensity and frequency of happiness; (b) negatively correlated with neuroticism, guilt, physical and social anhedonia, hopelessness, depression, and the frequency of unhappy and neutral affect; and (c) uncorrelated with socially desirable responding. SBI was validated prospec-tively by first measuring college students' savouring beliefs and then later assessing their behaviours and affects in looking forward to, enjoying the actual experience of, and looking back on their Christmas vacation. Within each of the three time frames, the relevant SBI subscale generally predicted behaviours and affects more strongly than did the subscales associated with the other two temporal orientations. Finally, SBI was cross-validated in a sample of older adults. Conclusion: These results provide strong evidence that the SBI is a valid and reliable measure of individuals' beliefs about their capacity to savour positive experiences through anticipation, present enjoyment, and reminiscence.
The effect of a grateful outlook on psychological and physical well-being was examined. In Studies 1 and 2, participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 experimental conditions (hassles, gratitude listing, and either neutral life events or social comparison); they then kept weekly (Study 1) or daily (Study 2) records of their moods, coping behaviors, health behaviors, physical symptoms, and overall life appraisals. In a 3rd study, persons with neuromuscular disease were randomly assigned to either the gratitude condition or to a control condition. The gratitude-outlook groups exhibited heightened well-being across several, though not all, of the outcome measures across the 3 studies, relative to the comparison groups. The effect on positive affect appeared to be the most robust finding. Results suggest that a conscious focus on blessings may have emotional and interpersonal benefits.
A substantial literature indicates that anxiety is often associated with selective attention to threat cues. Socially anxious individuals are excessively concerned about negative evaluation by others. One might therefore predict that high social anxiety would be associated with selective attention to negative facial expressions. On the other hand, some recent models have suggested that social anxiety may be associated with reduced processing of external social cues. A modified dot-probe task was used to investigate face attention. High and low socially anxious individuals were presented with pairs of pictures, consisting of a face (positive, neutral, or negative) and a household object, under conditions of social-evaluative threat or no threat. The results indicated that, compared to low socially anxious individuals, high socially anxious individuals show an attentional bias away from emotional (positive and negative) faces but this effect is only observed under conditions of social-evaluative threat. Theoretical and clinical implications of the results are discussed.
Ostracism is such a widely used and powerful tactic that the authors tested whether people would be affected by it even under remote and artificial circumstances. In Study 1, 1,486 participants from 62 countries accessed the authors' on-line experiment on the Internet. They were asked to use mental visualization while playing a virtual tossing game with two others (who were actually computer generated and controlled). Despite the minimal nature of their experience, the more participants were ostracized, the more they reported feeling bad, having less control, and losing a sense of belonging. In Study 2, ostracized participants were more likely to conform on a subsequent task. The results are discussed in terms of supporting K. D. Williams's (1997) need threat theory of ostracism.
Social phobia is increasingly recognized as a prevalent and socially impairing mental disorder. However, little data is available regarding the general and disease-specific impairments and disabilities associated with social phobia. Furthermore, most studies have not controlled for the confounding effects of comorbid conditions. This study investigates: (a) the generic quality of life; (b) work productivity; and, (c) various other disorder-specific social impairments in current cases with pure (n = 65), comorbid (n = 51) and subthreshold (n = 34) DSM-IV social phobia as compared to controls with no social phobia (subjects with a history of herpes infections). Social phobia cases reported a mean illness duration of 22.9 years with onset in childhood or adolescence. Current quality of life, as assessed by the SF-36, was significantly reduced in all social phobia groups, particularly in the scales measuring vitality, general health, mental health, role limitations due to emotional health, and social functioning. Comorbid cases revealed more severe reductions than pure and subthreshold social phobics. Findings from the Liebowitz self-rated disability scale indicated that: (a) social phobia affects most areas of life, but in particular education, career, and romantic relationship; (b) the presence of past and current comorbid conditions increases the frequency of disease-specific impairments; and, (c) subthreshold social phobia revealed slightly lower overall impairments than comorbid social phobics. Past week work productivity of social phobics was significantly diminished as indicated by: (a) a three-fold higher rate of unemployed cases; (b) elevated rates of work hours missed due to social phobia problems; and, (c) a reduced work performance. Overall, these findings underline that social phobia in our sample of adults, whether comorbid, subthreshold, or pure was a persisting and impairing condition, resulting in considerable subjective suffering and negative impact on work performance and social relationships. The current disabilities and impairments were usually less pronounced than in the past, presumably due to adaptive behaviors in life style of the respondents. Data also confirmed that social phobia is poorly recognized and rarely treated by the mental health system.
The present study examined the impact of a group treatment protocol based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) that was tailored toward the avoidant behaviors and life problems typical for socially anxious persons. Twenty-two participants enrolled in the group treatment, which consisted of 10 sessions. Twelve participants completed treatment. Post-treatment and follow-up data revealed significant decreases on the social phobia and experiential avoidance measures (follow-up effect sizes: 0.83 and 1.71, respectively). Completers' ratings of effectiveness in living, specifically pertaining to social relationships, significantly increased at follow-up. Symptoms decreased despite their not being a treatment target. This results suggests that symptom improvement may result from an increased willingness to both experience aversive emotions and engage in social behaviors that are consistent with what the participants valued, but previously avoided. Despite its exploratory nature and limitations, the study provides a basis for further application of ACT in this population.
This article reports the development and validation of a scale to measure global life satisfaction, the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Among the various components of subjective well-being, the SWLS is narrowly focused to assess global life satisfaction and does not tap related constructs such as positive affect or loneliness. The SWLS is shown to have favorable psychometric properties, including high internal consistency and high temporal reliability. Scores on the SWLS correlate moderately to highly with other measures of subjective well-being, and correlate predictably with specific personality characteristics. It is noted that the SWLS is suited for use with different age groups, and other potential uses of the scale are discussed.
Socially anxious people often report high negative affect (NA) and low positive affect (PA). This mood state may be associated with elevated or undesired social evaluation, such as interactions with unfamiliar people or poor quality communication. In this study, high and low anxious undergraduates completed structured diaries assessing interaction partner familiarity, quality of communication, PA, and NA after conversations in their natural environment. Results supported hypotheses of higher NA and lower quality of communication in the anxious group. In addition, quality of communication and familiarity were differently related to NA in the high versus low anxious groups. Results suggest that social-interaction parameters affect high anxious individuals' mood. Implications of the current social interaction based results are contrasted with time-interval diary research.
The SWLS consists of 5-items that require a ratingon a 7-point Likert scale. Administration is rarely morethan a minute or 2 and can be completed by interview(including phone) or paper and pencil response. The in-strumentshouldnotbecompletedbyaproxyansweringfortheperson.Itemsofthe SWLSaresummedtocreatea total score that can range from 5 to 35.The SWLS is in the public domain. Permission isnot needed to use it. Further information regardingthe use and interpretation of the SWLS can be foundat the author’s Web site http://internal.psychology.illinois.edu/∼ediener/SWLS.html. The Web site alsoincludes links to translations of the scale into 27languages.
Divergent trajectories characterize the aging mind: Processing capacity declines, while judgment, knowledge, and emotion regulation are relatively spared. We maintain that these different developmental trajectories have implications for emotion–cognition interactions. Following an overview of our theoretical position, we review empirical studies indicating that (a) older adults evidence superior cognitive performance for emotional relative to non-emotional information, (b) age differences are most evident when the emotional content is positively as opposed to negatively valenced, and (c) differences can be accounted for by changes in motivation posited in socioemotional selectivity theory.
Based on hierarchical models of emotional disorders, relationships between higher- and lower-order components of anxiety and depression and emotion-congruent cognitive biases were examined. Two groups of participants (n=189) were selected based on their scores on General Distress (the nonspecific factor of anxiety and depression). They performed an explicit memory test of incidentally-learned selfreferenced material and an emotional Stroop interference task, using three types of stimuli: anxiety-related, depression-related and neutral non-valenced words. It was hypothesized that an attentional bias for anxiety-relevant words and a memory bias for depression-relevant words would be best predicted by anxiety-related and depression-related measures, respectively. Strengthening the notion that demonstration of these types of biases is not reliable in subclinical populations, both a correlational analysis as well as a more powerful extreme group analysis could not detect the existence of any emotion-related cognitive biases.
Conflicting findings concerning the nature and presence of attentional bias in social anxiety and social phobia have been reported in the literature. This paper reports the findings of two studies comparing people with high and low social anxiety on dot probe tasks using words, faces photographed in front view, and faces photographed in profile as stimuli. In Study 1 those with high social anxiety displayed an attentional bias towards negative faces. The low social anxiety group showed an attentional bias towards positive faces. No significant effects were observed on the dot probe using words as stimuli. Study 2 used pairs of faces presented in profile as though looking at each other. One of the faces displayed either a positive, negative or neutral expression. The second face always had a neutral expression, and in half of the trials it was the subject's own face. The findings of this more ecologically valid procedure replicated those of Study 1. Facilitated attention to dots following emotional faces was specific to threatening facial stimuli. From these studies it appears that the facial dot probe task is a more sensitive index of attentional bias than the word task in a non-clinical sample with social anxiety.
It is typically assumed that people always want to feel good. Recent evidence, however, demonstrates that people want to feel unpleasant emotions, such as anger or fear, when these emotions promote the attainment of their long-term goals. If emotions are regulated for instrumental reasons, people should want to feel pleasant emotions when immediate benefits outweigh future benefits, but when future benefits outweigh immediate benefits, people may prefer to feel useful emotions, even if they are unpleasant. In this article, I describe an instrumental account of emotion regulation, review empirical evidence relevant to it, and discuss its implications for promoting adaptive emotional experiences.
Cognitive-behavioral theorists have proposed that fear of negative evaluation (FNE) is the core feature of social anxiety (Clark & Wells, 1995; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997). However, emerging evidence supports the notion that fear of evaluation in general is important in social anxiety, including fear of positive evaluation (FPE) as well as negative evaluation (e.g., see Weeks, Heimberg, & Rodebaugh, 2008; Weeks, Heimberg, Rodebaugh, & Norton, 2008). The purposes of the present study were to test several new hypotheses related to this expanded conceptualization of social anxiety, as well as to replicate the two-factor structural model consisting of separate factors for fears of positive and negative evaluation originally reported by Weeks, Heimberg, and Rodebaugh, et al. (2008). The present findings further support FPE and FNE as distinct latent constructs. FPE and FNE related similarly to social anxiety but demonstrated unique relationships with several social anxiety-related constructs and emerged as distinct from several discriminant constructs with strong thematic overlap to FPE/FNE. The findings from the present study provide additional support for the hypothesis that fear of evaluation in general is important in social anxiety.
The majority of definitions, research studies, and treatment programs that focus on social anxiety characterize the prototypical person with the disorder as shy, submissive, inhibited, and risk averse. This stereotype, however, has been challenged recently. Specifically, a subset of people with social anxiety who are aggressive, impulsive novelty seekers deviate from that prototype. People with this atypical profile show greater functional impairment and are less likely to complete or fare well in treatment compared with inhibited socially anxious people. The difference between these two groups of people with social anxiety cannot be explained by the severity, type, or number of social fears, nor by co-occurring anxiety and mood disorders. Conclusions about the nature, course, and treatment of social anxiety may be compromised by not attending to diverse behaviors and self-regulatory styles. These concerns may be compounded in neurobiological and clinical studies of people with social anxiety problems that rely on smaller samples to make claims about brain patterns and the efficacy of particular treatments.
