The role of emotional maltreatment and looming cognitive style in the development of social anxiety symptoms in late adolescents

Background: Social looming constitutes a specific cognitive vulnerability that acts as a danger schema and biases the processing of threat-related information associated with the development of social anxiety disorder. This model characterizes early negative experiences as critical to the formation of looming cognitive style. Furthermore, research has found links between parental emotional abuse and peer victimization and social anxiety. Design: A three-wave longitudinal design was used to analyze the role of parents’ emotional abuse and peer victimization in the onset of social anxiety symptoms through the development of this cognitive style. Methods: The final sample was made up of 307 females and 243 males (M_age?=?16.97, SD_age?=?.81). Perceived parents’ emotional abuse and peer victimization by participants were measured at Time 1, social looming was measured at Time 1 and 2, and social anxiety symptoms were measured at Times 1, 2, and 3. Results: Parents’ emotional abuse and peer victimization were related to social anxiety cross-sectionally. Longitudinally, social looming acted as a mediator in the relationship between parents’ emotional abuse and social anxiety. Conclusions: These findings highlight the need to better understand the mechanisms through which emotional abuse and peer victimization impact social looming and contribute to social anxiety.     

The role of maladaptive beliefs in cognitive-behavioral therapy: Evidence from social anxiety disorder

Beliefs that are negatively biased, inaccurate, and rigid are thought to play a key role in the mood and anxiety disorders. Our goal in this study was to examine whether a change in maladaptive beliefs mediated the outcome of individual cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for social anxiety disorder (SAD). In a sample of 47 individuals with SAD receiving CBT, we measured maladaptive interpersonal beliefs as well as emotional and behavioral components of social anxiety, both at baseline and after treatment completion. We found that (a) maladaptive interpersonal beliefs were associated with social anxiety at baseline and treatment completion; (b) maladaptive interpersonal beliefs were significantly reduced from baseline to treatment completion; and (c) treatment-related reductions in maladaptive interpersonal beliefs fully accounted for reductions in social anxiety after CBT. These results extend the literature by providing support for cognitive models of mental disorders, broadly, and SAD, specifically.     

Short-term predictive effects of the looming cognitive style on anxiety disorder symptoms under restrictive methodological conditions

The looming cognitive style (LCS), an overarching cognitive vulnerability for anxiety syndromes, pertains to a tendency to construct dynamic expectations (mental scenarios, images) of negative events as progressively increasing in danger and rapidly escalating in risk. This study tested the hypothesis that the LCS has functions as a cognitive antecedent and moderator for even short-term changes over a brief time interval in anxiety syndromes (worry, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms, social anxiety, general anxiety) under restrictive methodological conditions. These included: (a) a one-week interval during which very little changes in anxiety were observed, and (b) controlling for participants' depression and intolerance of uncertainty. As hypothesized by our model, the looming cognitive style predicted short-term changes in worry and OCD symptoms over the week interval, and tended to predict changes in social (audience) anxiety. This style also functioned as a moderator and predicted changes in OCD symptoms among participants already high on this anxiety outcome. Intolerance of uncertainty predicted changes in social (audience) anxiety but not changes in OCD symptoms or worry. These findings support the looming vulnerability theory of anxiety, and encourage further attention into the possible role of the LCS as a cognitive antecedent and moderator of changes in a spectrum of anxiety syndromes.     

The mediating role of state maladaptive emotion regulation in the relation between social anxiety symptoms and self-evaluation bias

Although social anxiety symptoms are robustly linked to biased self-evaluations across time, the mechanisms of this relation remain unclear. The present study tested three maladaptive emotion regulation strategies – state post-event processing, state experiential avoidance, and state expressive suppression – as potential mediators of this relation. Undergraduate participants (N?=?88; 61.4% Female) rated their social skill in an impromptu conversation task and then returned to the laboratory approximately two days later to evaluate their social skill in the conversation again. Consistent with expectations, state post-event processing and state experiential avoidance mediated the relation between social anxiety symptoms and worsening self-evaluations of social skill (controlling for research assistant evaluations), particularly for positive qualities (e.g. appeared confident, demonstrated social skill). State expressive suppression did not mediate the relation between social anxiety symptoms and changes in self-evaluation bias across time. These findings highlight the role that spontaneous, state experiential avoidance and state post-event processing may play in the relation between social anxiety symptoms and worsening self-evaluation biases of social skill across time.     

Negative cognitive style and looming cognitive style synergistically predict stress generation

There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that cognitive vulnerabilities to depression or anxiety may lead individuals to generate negative interpersonal life events. However, there has been no study to date that examines the effects of co-occurring vulnerabilities to depression and anxiety. In a sample of 304 participants, we examined the potential interaction of co-occurring negative cognitive style, a vulnerability to depression and looming cognitive style, vulnerability to anxiety. Results indicate that co-occurring cognitive vulnerabilities synergistically predict higher levels of negative interpersonal life events six weeks later, even when controlling for initial levels of stressful life events and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Thus, co-occurring vulnerabilities may have stronger stress generating effects than would be expected from the additive effects of each vulnerability considered separately. This finding highlights the importance of examining cognitive vulnerabilities as interactive effects rather than as individual vulnerabilities.     

Psychopathy and looming cognitive style: Moderation by attentional control

Psychopathy has long been associated with lower anxiety. This study examined the relationship between self-reported psychopathy and one of the anxiety-related cognitions, looming cognitive style (LCS; Riskind, Williams, Gessner, Chrosniak, & Cortina, 2000), among students. LCS reflects the tendency to perceive danger as rapidly increasing, as opposed to making a static risk assessment. This study focused on LCS not only because it has a strong association with anxiety, but also because studies employing the Card Playing Task have shown that psychopathy predicts difficulty in detecting changing contingencies. Attentional control was included as a possible moderator of a psychopathy-LCS link. Two questionnaire studies (n = 157 and 312) revealed an inverse relation between psychopathy and LCS in low-attention participants. This suggests that reduced cognitive resources inhibited those with psychopathic tendencies from imagining rapidly developing threats. The results are discussed in terms of the resource requirements of risk cognitions, the multi-dimensional nature of attention, and a defective behavioral inhibition system in (secondary) psychopathy. This study suggests the importance of considering attention when analyzing the psychopathy-anxiety link. Future studies should use multi-dimensional analysis of attentional control and multiple measures of psychopathy.     

Interpersonal style and anxiety

Agoraphobic anxiety has been linked to traditional feminine sex role attitudes and related dyadic interactions. This research correlated measures of panic experience and agoraphobic anxiety with interpersonal style in a college student population. Significant positive correlations were observed between anxiety scores and the following interpersonal styles: submissive/deferent, self-effacing/obedient, mistrusting/cold, submissive, inhibited, and unassured. Results lend support to clinical reports that some individuals may develop agoraphobic symptoms as a result of the interaction of interpersonal style with relationship patterns.     

Social anxiety and depressive symptoms mediate instrumentality and maladaptive interpersonal styles

This study sought to examine the relationships between stereotypically masculine (instrumentality) and feminine (expressiveness) personality traits, social anxiety and depressive symptoms, and three interpersonal styles of relating: destructive overdependence (DO), dysfunctional detachment (DD), and healthy dependence (HD). Based on theories of social anxiety and recent research on social anxiety and close relationships, it is argued that individuals with higher levels of social anxiety would display greater detachment and overdependence in their interpersonal relationships. Students at an Australian university (n = 524) completed a battery of online self-report measures. The findings suggest that low levels of instrumentality are related to social anxiety and depressive symptoms, which both mediate the relationship between instrumentality and the two maladaptive interpersonal styles of relating: DO and DD.     

Negative self-imagery in social anxiety contaminates social interactions

Patients with social phobia report experiencing negative images of themselves performing poorly when in feared social situations. The present study investigates whether such negative self-imagery (based on memory of past social situations) contaminates social interactions. High socially anxious volunteers participated in two conversations with another volunteer (conversational partner). During one conversation, the socially anxious volunteers held in mind a negative self-image, and during the other they held in mind a less negative (control) self-image. As predicted, when holding the negative image the socially anxious volunteers felt more anxious, reported using more safety behaviours, believed that they performed more poorly, and showed greater overestimation of how poorly they came across (relative to ratings by the conversational partner). Conversational partners rated the socially anxious volunteers' performance as poorer in the negative image condition. Furthermore, the conversation was contaminated since both groups of participants rated its quality as poorer in the negative image condition.     

Post-event processing in social anxiety

A psychometric study was conducted in order to collect basic information about post-event processing in social anxiety. It was found that such processing occurs commonly after an anxiety-evoking or embarrassing social event and post-event processing scores were significantly correlated (r = 0.40) with social anxiety. The recollections of the social event tended to be recurrent and intrusive, interfering with concentration. Post-event processing was associated with the avoidance of similar social situations. The results are discussed in terms of the Clark and Wells model of social phobia.     

Post-event processing in social anxiety

Clark and Wells’ [1995. A cognitive model of social phobia. In: R. Heimberg, M. Liebowitz, D.A. Hope, & F.R. Schneier (Eds.) Social phobia: Diagnosis, assessment and treatment (pp. 69-93). New York: Guildford Press.] cognitive model of social phobia proposes that following a social event, individuals with social phobia will engage in post-event processing, during which they conduct a detailed review of the event. This study investigated the relationship between self-appraisals of performance and post-event processing in individuals high and low in social anxiety. Participants appraised their performance immediately after a conversation with an unknown individual and prior to an anticipated second conversation task 1 week later. The frequency and valence of post-event processing during the week following the conversation was also assessed. The study also explored differences in the metacognitive processes of high and low socially anxious participants. The high socially anxious group experienced more anxiety, predicted worse performance, underestimated their actual performance, and engaged in more post-event processing than low socially anxious participants. The degree of negative post-event processing was linked to the extent of social anxiety and negative appraisals of performance, both immediately after the conversation task and 1 week later. Differences were also observed in some metacognitive processes. The results are discussed in relation to current theory and previous research.     

The effect of attentional focus on social anxiety

The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of attentional focus on social anxiety in a group of high and low blushing-anxious subjects. One hundred and fourteen psychology undergraduate students were screened using the Fear of Blushing subscale of the Blushing Questionnaire [B?gels, S. M., & Reith, W. (1999). Validity of two questionnaires to assess social fears: The Dutch social phobia and anxiety questionnaire and the blushing, trembling and sweating questionnaire. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 21, 51-66]. Those with the most extreme scores in the top and bottom 20% of the distribution were selected to form a high (n=22) and a low (n=22) blushing-anxious group. Subjects were randomly allocated to either a self-focused attention (SFA) condition or a task-focused attention (TFA) condition. They were asked to engage in a 5 min conversation with the first author, and were instructed to either self-focus (SFA condition) or task-focus (TFA condition). Levels of social anxiety and self-awareness were measured using visual analogue scales. Results suggest that the there was a significant condition by group interaction, with high blushing individuals showing considerably higher levels of social anxiety in the SFA condition compared to the TFA condition while low blushing individuals showed no significant difference across the two conditions.     

Stuttering and social anxiety

The aim of the present study was to investigate the presence of social anxiety in adults who stutter. This was done by administering the Inventory of Interpersonal Situations (IIS) (Van Dam-Baggen & Kraaimaat, 1999), a social anxiety inventory, to a group of 89 people who stuttered and 131 people who did not stutter. Two components of social anxiety were measured by the ISS, the extent to which emotional tension or discomfort is perceived in social situations and the frequency with which social responses are executed. The people who stuttered displayed significantly higher levels of emotional tension or discomfort in social situations. They also reported a significantly lower frequency of social responses compared to their nonstuttering peers. In addition, about 50% of the scores of the people who stuttered fell within the range of a group of highly socially anxious psychiatric patients. The results of the study suggest that the measurement of social anxiety is an important element in the assessment of adults who stutter. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will learn about and be able to describe (1) the IIS as an assessment procedure for evaluating social anxiety, (2) the level of discomfort expressed by adult stutterers in social situations, and (3) the effect of social anxiety on stutterers' responsiveness in social situations.     

Cultural differences in perceived social norms and social anxiety

Cultural considerations in social anxiety are a rarely investigated topic although it seems likely that differences between countries in social norms may relate to the extent of social anxiety. The present study investigated individuals' personal and perceived cultural norms and their relation to social anxiety and fear of blushing. A total of 909 participants from eight countries completed vignettes describing social situations and evaluated the social acceptability of the behavior of the main actor both from their own, personal perspective as well as from a cultural viewpoint. Personal and cultural norms showed somewhat different patterns in comparison between types of countries (individualistic/collectivistic). According to reported cultural norms, collectivistic countries were more accepting toward socially reticent and withdrawn behaviors than was the case in individualistic countries. In contrast, there was no difference between individualistic and collectivistic countries on individuals' personal perspectives regarding socially withdrawn behavior. Collectivistic countries also reported greater levels of social anxiety and more fear of blushing than individualistic countries. Significant positive relations occurred between the extent to which attention-avoiding behaviors are accepted in a culture and the level of social anxiety or fear of blushing symptoms. These results provide initial evidence that social anxiety may be related to different cultural norms across countries.     

Impact of rumination versus distraction on anxiety and maladaptive self-beliefs in socially anxious individuals

A large body of experimental evidence has demonstrated the adverse effects of rumination on depressive mood and cognitions. In contrast, while prominent models of social phobia (Clark & Wells, 1995; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997) have proposed rumination as a key maintaining factor, the effects of rumination in social anxiety have not been extensively explored. In a sample of (N = 93) undergraduates, this study investigated the impact of rumination versus distraction following a social-evaluative task on anxiety and another key component of social phobia: maladaptive self-beliefs. Relative to distraction, rumination maintained anxiety in both high and low socially anxious individuals, and maintained unconditional beliefs in high socially anxious individuals. The results support models of social phobia and also suggest important theoretical extensions. Implications for the treatment of social anxiety are discussed.     

Social anxiety and self-protective communication style in close relationships

People with higher social anxiety tend to reveal less information about themselves in interactions with strangers, and this appears to be part of a self-protective strategy adopted in situations in which the risk of negative evaluation is judged to be particularly high. This research examined whether a similar style of communication may be adopted by people with higher social anxiety in their close relationships, and whether it may be associated with decrements in the quality (support, depth, conflict) of these relationships. Over 300 people from the community completed a series of online questionnaires measuring social anxiety and depression, and disclosure in and quality of their close friendships and romantic relationships. After controlling for levels of depression, social anxiety was associated with a paucity of disclosure in both romantic relationships and close friendships in females, but not males. There was an indirect association between higher social anxiety and lower relationship quality (lower support, with a trend towards greater conflict) via lower self-disclosure in women's romantic relationships, but not their close friendships. Addressing disclosure in the context of close relationships may assist socially anxious women to develop more fulfilling and harmonious close relationships.     

Self-perception and rumination in social anxiety

The present study examined the relationship between perceptions of performance and post-event processing (PEP) following task feedback in individuals with social phobia and matched control participants. Groups of high and low socially anxious participants engaged in a structured 5-min conversation in groups of four people. Following the conversation, false feedback (given in the form of either high scores or moderate scores) was given and self-appraisals of performance, levels of positive and negative mood, and levels of PEP were assessed. Results showed that participants' perceptions of their own performance and levels of positive affect significantly predicted the degree to which they engaged in negative rumination about the task. The moderate score condition was found to be detrimental for socially anxious individuals' self-appraisals and PEP, whereas controls showed no significant difference in self-appraisal and PEP, regardless of feedback. The results are discussed in relation to current cognitive models of social phobia and both treatment implications and directions for future research are explored.