Use of a religious hymn in remission of symptoms of social phobia (social anxiety disorder): a case study

This case report described a veteran with social anxiety disorder who reported fears of negative evaluation by others, social avoidance, and accompanying physiological symptoms of heart palpitations, gastrointestinal discomfort, muscle tension and mental confusion. The symptoms of social anxiety disorder subsided with the use of a Christian hymn "Be Still My Soul" and its accompanying musical poem, in Finlandia. The veteran attributed the symptom remission to the feeling of stillness and surrender to God conveyed by the words and music of the hymn. Although previous studies have shown that both music and religious beliefs can affect mental health, the findings in this case cannot be generalized without conducting further prospective empirical studies.     

The social phobia and anxiety inventory: Construct validity

The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI) is a new instrument composed of social phobia and agoraphobia subscales. The latter scale is used to detect social anxiety that may result from agoraphobia. The SPAI's construct validity was assessed through several procedures. First, confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to validate the existence of the two subscales. Second, exploratory factor analyses examined the underlying structure of the social phobia subscale. Third, a Q factor procedure determined if different anxiety diagnostic groups could be differentiated by their SPAI response pattern. The results confirmed the utility of the two SPAI subscales and identified a number of dimensions contained within the social phobia subscale which differed depending upon the specific subject sample. In addition, the complaints of social phobies appeared more homogeneous than those of an agoraphobic comparison group. The results are discussed in terms of construct validity and the sensitivity of the SPAI to various dimensions of social phobia fears.This study was supported in part by NIMH Grants 41852, 30915, 18269, and 16884.     

Perception of control over anxiety mediates the relation between catastrophic thinking and social anxiety in social phobia

Cognitive models of social phobia (social anxiety disorder) assume that individuals with social phobia experience anxiety in social situations in part because they overestimate the social cost associated with a potentially negative outcome of a social interaction. Some emotion theorists, on the other hand, point to the perception of control over anxiety-related symptoms as a determinant of social anxiety. In order to examine the relationship between perceived emotional control (PEC), estimated social cost (ESC), and subjective anxiety, we compared three alternative structural equation models: Model 1 assumes that PEC and ESC independently predict social anxiety; Model 2 assumes that ESC partially mediates the relationship between PEC and anxiety, and Model 3 assumes that PEC partially mediates the relationship between ESC and anxiety. We recruited 144 participants with social phobia and administered self-report measures of estimated social cost, perceived anxiety control, and social anxiety. The results support Model 3 and suggest that "costly" social situations are anxiety provoking in part because social phobic individuals perceive their anxiety symptoms as being out of control.     

Interpretations and judgments regarding positive and negative social scenarios in childhood social anxiety

The present study extended our understanding of cognitive biases in childhood social anxiety. A non-clinical sample of 11-13-year olds completed social anxiety and depression scales and were presented with scenarios depicting positive and mildly negative social events. Social anxiety was associated with tendencies to interpret positive social events in a discounting fashion, to catastrophize in response to mildly negative social events, and to anticipate more negative emotional reactions to the negative events. Implications for understanding and treating social anxiety are discussed.     

Preference organization in anxiety/phobia counselling: Preserving social solidarity

In this study attention is focused on how participants construct their talk in ways which maintain social solidarity: thereby maximizing the likelihood of affiliative actions and minimizing the likelihood of disaffiliative actions in the context of anxiety/phobia counselling. The first part of the study considers previous work and concludes that although such analysis is important, relatively few studies have directed attention to the actual structure of counselling interactions. The study concludes by suggesting that analyses which begin with detailed attention to the intricacies of data and then broaden out to focus on wider issues can be both analytically and practically impressive.     

Psychosocial treatments for social phobia

Increasing recognition of the prevalence and impairment associated with social phobia has spurred the development of effective psychosocial treatments for this disorder. Exposure-based interventions have the most empirical support. This article applies the tripartite model of anxiety to social phobia, describes state-of-the-art psychosocial treatments, and highlights studies on the comparative and combined efficacy of psychological and pharmacologic treatments. Clinical issues related to treatment implementation, limitations of extant psychosocial interventions, and suggestions for future research are also discussed.     

The social phobia and anxiety inventory: psychometric properties in a Spanish sample

This study is a validation of the Spanish version of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory using a nonclinical sample (198 participants) and a clinical sample (72 participants with social phobia). The factor structure and concurrent validity with Fear of Negative Evaluation and Social Avoidance and Distress scales were analyzed. The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory demonstrated good concurrent validity, showing statistically significant relationships with Fear of Negative Evaluation and Social Avoidance and Distress. Results confirmed the rationale for the division of the SPAI into two subscales. Results also demonstrated the utility of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for differentiating between a nonclinical sample and participants with a social phobia, and its adequate reliability.     

The social phobia and anxiety inventory: Further validation in two nonclinical samples

The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI) has been developed to assess specific symptoms of social phobia and agoraphobia. Although the SPAI was developed with both clinical and nonclinical populations, research with this measure is currently focused primarily on clinical samples. We examined the factor structure and psychometric properties of the SPAI in adult community and college undergraduate samples. We found that single-sample and multisample confirmatory factor analyses provided support for extending use of the correlated two-factor SPAI subscales to our nonclinical samples. In addition, we found evidence for the internal consistency reliability of the SPAI subscales in both samples. Limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Two cognitions observed in Taijin-Kyofusho and social anxiety symptoms

The offensive type is most characteristic in four types of social fear or anxiety in Japan, Taijin-kyofusho. This type is characterized by cognitions of other-offending and avoidance-by-others. The present purpose was to investigate which cognition is more important in the pathogenesis of the Offensive type. 220 undergraduates completed the Other-offending Cognition and the Avoidance-by-others Cognition Scale, the Interaction Anxiety Scale, and Audience Anxiety Scale. Partial correlations, controlling for each cognition in turn, showed a significant association only between scores on Social Anxiety Disorder and the other-offending cognition. Change in the other-offending cognition may have therapeutic importance.     

Memory for facial expressions in social phobia

Memory biases toward threat have been documented in several anxiety disorders, but contradictory findings have recently been reported in social phobics' recognition of facial expressions. The present study examined recognition memory in clients with social phobia, in an effort to clarify previous inconsistent results. Just before giving a speech to a live audience, social phobia clients and normal controls viewed photographs of people with reassuring and threatening facial expressions. The stimuli were later presented again alongside photographs of the same person with a different facial expression, and participants chose which face they had seen before. Individuals with social phobia were less accurate at recognizing previously seen photographs than controls, apparently due to state anxiety. In contrast, social phobics did not show a memory bias toward threatening facial expressions. Theoretical and treatment implications are discussed.     

Hyperventilation and anxiety in panic disorder, social phobia, GAD and normal controls

Patients with DSM-III Agoraphobia, Panic Disorder, GAD, Social Phobia and normal controls underwent a series of experimental procedures and measures to determine whether panic attack patients show a greater tendency towards hyperventilation that is independent from their anxiety levels. Contrary to expectations, the Agoraphobia and Panic Disorder patients did not show significantly lower levels of expired pCO2 at rest than the other anxious or non-anxious groups. However, the panic attack patients did show significantly higher levels of anxiety and hyperventilatory symptoms during a hyperventilation test and during breathing 5% CO2 in air. A strong relationship was found between hyperventilatory symptoms and anxiety in all groups of patients and in the controls. On the basis of these results it was concluded that Agoraphobia and Panic Disorder patients do not show a unique tendency toward hyperventilation, but rather that their hyperventilatory symptoms and perhaps intermittent overbreathing episodes are a function of the high levels of anxiety they experience.     

The social phobia and social interaction anxiety scales: An exploration of the dimensions of social anxiety and sex differences in structure and relations with pathology

This study sought to provide information on the Social Phobia Scale (SPS) and Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) of Mattick and Clarke (1989) with respect to factor structure, relations with psychopathology, and sex differences. A sample of 200 university students completed the SPS and SIAS and various measures of anxiety symptoms and depression. The results from the factor analyses for the sample as a whole suggest the presence of three factors corresponding to scrutiny fears, social interaction anxiety, and a general level of discomfort in social interactions. The results for men replicated this structure. For women, the three-factor solution demonstrated a blurring between the types of anxiety-provoking situations, and a general discomfort in situations involving differences in social power. In general, the discomfort factor was not correlated with measures of pathology, raising the possibility that uneasiness in these situations represents a process that is not part of social anxiety. The distinction between scrutiny fears and social interaction anxiety was also supported by the pattern of partial correlations that suggests that the presence of scrutiny fears is a stronger predictor of psychopathology than is social interaction anxiety, especially for men.