Empirical validation and psychometric evaluation of the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale in patients with social anxiety disorder

The Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (BFNE; M. R. Leary, 1983a) is often used to assess fear of negative evaluation, the core feature of social anxiety disorder. However, few studies have examined its psychometric properties in large samples of socially anxious patients. Although the BFNE yields a single total score, confirmatory factor analysis indicated a 2-factor solution to be more appropriate, with the 1st factor consisting of all straightforwardly worded items (BFNE-S) and the 2nd of all reverse-scored items (BFNE-R). Support was obtained for the convergent and discriminant validity of the BFNE and BFNE-S, but not the BFNE-R. These results suggest that standard scoring of the BFNE may not be optimal for patients with social anxiety disorder.     

Confirmatory factor analysis using Microsoft Excel

This article presents a method for using Microsoft (MS) Excel for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). CFA is often seen as an impenetrable technique, and thus, when it is taught, there is frequently little explanation of the mechanisms or underlying calculations. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that this is not the case; it is relatively straightforward to produce a spreadsheet in MS Excel that can carry out simple CFA. It is possible, with few or no programming skills, to effectively program a CFA analysis and, thus, to gain insight into the workings of the procedure.     

Attention and language in fragile X

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is a well-recognized cause of mental retardation and developmental delay in males. Alongside the well-documented clinical characteristics of the condition, recent advances in technology and methodology have begun to define FXS at a number of different levels: genetic, brain structure and function, cognition, and behavior. This article suggests that the FXS phenotype is not merely a juxtaposition of spared and impaired functions but rather may be characterized by an inhibitory control deficit that interferes with the individual's ability to modulate output causing perseverative responding across various skill areas. It is further suggested that an inability to modulate arousal may be at least one cause for the inhibitory control deficit that typifies the FXS phenotype. The approach to understanding atypical development outlined here holds exciting promise for future research in FXS and other developmental disorders.     

Panoramic search: the interaction of memory and vision in search through a familiar scene

How do observers search through familiar scenes? A novel panoramic search method is used to study the interaction of memory and vision in natural search behavior. In panoramic search, observers see part of an unchanging scene larger than their current field of view. A target object can be visible, present in the display but hidden from view, or absent. Visual search efficiency does not change after hundreds of trials through an unchanging scene (Experiment 1). Memory search, in contrast, begins inefficiently but becomes efficient with practice. Given a choice between vision and memory, observers choose vision (Experiments 2 and 3). However, if forced to use their memory on some trials, they learn to use memory on all trials, even when reliable visual information remains available (Experiment 4). The results suggest that observers make a pragmatic choice between vision and memory, with a strong bias toward visual search even for memorized stimuli.     

High school drinking and its consequences

The present study surveyed 930 high school students regarding self-reported alcohol use, their perceptions of parents and peers, and the negative consequences of drinking. Two-fifths of males and one-fifth of females reported frequent problem (binge) drinking. Problem drinkers reported more negative consequences associated with drinking. In addition, problem drinkers reported greater susceptibility to peer pressure, perceived their peers as drinking more, and reported less parental monitoring and more use of alcohol by parents. The results demonstrate the importance of both parent and peer variables in adolescent substance use and highlight the negative consequences of drinking reported by high school students.     

Effects of varying levels of anxiety within social situations: relationship to memory perspective and attributions in social phobia

Cognitive-behavioral theorists (Clark & Wells, 1995: Clark, D. M. & Wells, A. (1995). A cognitive model of social phobia. In R. G. Heimberg, M. R. Liebowitz, D. A. Hope, & F. R. Schneier (Eds.), Social phobia: Diagnosis, assessment, and treatment (pp. 69-93). New York: Guilford Press; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997: Rapee, R. M., & Heimberg, R. G. (1997). A cognitive-behavioral model of anxiety in social phobia. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 35, 741-756.) propose that individuals with social phobia form mental images of themselves as if from an external point of view. Research by Wells and colleagues has shown that, when recalling anxiety-provoking social situations, individuals with social phobia are more likely to take an observer perspective (seeing oneself as if from an external point of view) whereas control subjects are more likely to take a field perspective (as if looking out through one's own eyes). Furthermore, this pattern is specific to social events, as both groups recall non-social events from a field perspective (see Wells, Clark & Ahmad, 1998: Wells, A., Clark, D. M., & Ahmad, S. (1998). How do I look with my minds eye: perspective taking in social phobic imagery. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 36, 631-634; Wells & Papageorigou, 1999: Wells, A. & Papageorgiou, C. (1999). The observer perspective: Biased imagery in social phobia, agoraphobia, and blood/injury phobia. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 37, 653-658). In the current study, individuals with social phobia took more of an observer perspective than non-anxious controls when recalling high anxiety social situations. However, both groups took a predominantly field perspective for memories of medium or low anxiety social situations. As memory perspective has also been shown to be related to causal attributions, we examined this relationship in our sample. Memories of low, medium, and high anxiety social situations were differentially related to attributions for each group. Patients' attributions for their performance became more internal, stable, and global as the anxiety level of the situation increased, while the attributions of control subjects showed the opposite pattern.     

When Interviewers Desire Accurate Impressions: The Effects of Notetaking on the Influence of Expectations1

The present study explored the possibility that notetaking would help accuracy-minded interviewers to avoid cognitive expectation biases. Interviewers in simulated employment interviews were given bogus pre-interview expectations about their applicants and were either encouraged or not encouraged to take extensive notes. Consistent with past research on accuracy-motivated interviewers, both notetaking and non-notetaking interviewers avoided creating self-fulfilling prophecies. Of central interest, notetaking reduced the cognitive biasing effect of negative expectations on interviewers' overall impressions of their applicants, but failed to reduce cognitive bias in interviewers' evaluations of expectation-specific applicant characteristics. In conjunction with the motivation to form accurate impressions, notetaking can help to reduce the impact of erroneous pre-interview expectations in interviewer final evaluations.     

Self-reflection and the temporal focus of the wandering mind

Current accounts suggest that self-referential thought serves a pivotal function in the human ability to simulate the future during mind-wandering. Using experience sampling, this hypothesis was tested in two studies that explored the extent to which self-reflection impacts both retrospection and prospection during mind-wandering. Study 1 demonstrated that a brief period of self-reflection yielded a prospective bias during mind-wandering such that participants’ engaged more frequently in spontaneous future than past thought. In Study 2, individual differences in the strength of self-referential thought — as indexed by the memorial advantage for self rather than other-encoded items — was shown to vary with future thinking during mind-wandering. Together these results confirm that self-reflection is a core component of future thinking during mind-wandering and provide novel evidence that a key function of the autobiographical memory system may be to mentally simulate events in the future.