A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Social Phobia Symptoms

This study examined two forms of social anxiety or phobia, social phobia as defined by DSM-IV and Taijin Kyofusho (TKS, a Japanese form of social anxiety), in relation to their respective culturally prescribed self-construals as independent and interdependent. Japanese university students (N = 124) and U.S. university students (N = 123) were administered the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale, the Social Phobia Scale, the TKS Scale, and the Self-Construal Scale. From the results of a hierarchical regression analysis, TKS symptoms are more likely to be expressed by individuals who are Japanese and individuals who construe themselves low on independence but high on interdependence. In addition, social phobia symptoms are more likely to be expressed by individuals who construe themselves low on independence but high on interdependence irrespective of culture. Implications for therapists from each culture who have clients who present social anxiety or phobia symptoms are discussed.     

Family Dynamics and AIDS Phobia: A Case Study

The author introduces and defines AIDS phobia. He illustrates the hypochondria type of AIDS phobia from a combined individual, couple, and family treatment perspective. He describes the treatment process and outcome after an effective countertransference-based intervention, connects the individual manifestations of the index patient's illness to the family dynamics, and concludes with an analysis of the multigenerational contributions to the individual's psychopathology.     

Validation of the Multidimensional Blood/Injury Phobia Inventory: Evidence for a Unitary Construct

The Multidimensional Blood/Injury Phobia Inventory (MBPI) was developed from a theoretical framework to characterize a broad range of feared stimuli and phobic reactions associated with this pathology. The MBPI consists of 40 items that cross 4 types of stimulus content (injections, hospitals, blood, injury), 5 types of phobic responses (fear, avoidance, worry, fainting, disgust), and a self versus other focus. This study reports on administration of the MBPI to 558 undergraduates, 9 of whom had blood/injury phobia. The instrument had a Cronbach's alpha of .91 and demonstrated good concurrent validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. One large factor emerged in an unrotated principal components analysis, suggesting that blood/injury phobia is a unitary psychometric construct. Exploratory factor analyses revealed a 6-factor solution defined by stimulus content domains and fainting, each of which may be important to consider clinically when assessing the unique concerns of treatment-seeking individuals.     

Modification of Cognitive-Behavioral Techniques in the Treatment of a Five Year-Old Girl with Social Phobia

Social phobia is a debilitating anxiety disorder that often goes undetected in young children, but can be effectively treated with cognitive-behavioral interventions. For children and adolescents, treatment usually includes education, social skills training, cognitive restructuring, relaxation training, and exposure. However, for very young children who present with social phobia, it is necessary to adapt treatment to the developmental level of the child. A case illustration demonstrates the way in which cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) was modified for the treatment of a five year-old girl with social phobia. Several modifications were made, including utilizing novel exposure techniques and emphasizing parent management training in order to promote generalization of treatment gains outside of session.     

Stability of Cognitive Bias for Threat Cues in Phobia

The present study examined whether the cognitive bias for threat is a stable phenomenon in spider phobics and not in nonphobic controls. The rationale of this study was that the use of emotional bias for individual assessment in clinical practice requires stability of this phenomenon. In order to assess the stability of the emotional bias, the spider Stroop task was administered twice to spider phobics and controls, with a time lag of 3 weeks. In two experiments, spider phobics (n_{exp. 1} = 20; n_{exp. 2} = 33) and controls (n_{exp. 1} = 24; n_{exp. 2} = 25) were selected on basis of a structured interview. In the second experiment, subjects anticipated exposure to a real-life spider. Emotional bias was inferred from color-naming latencies on spider words versus control words. In line with our prediction, the bias for threat was stable in spider phobic individuals but not in controls. This stability could not be attributed to a general cognitive characteristic because a standard Stroop task did not differentiate between the spider phobics and the controls. The results support the view that cognitive processing of threat in anxiety is stable. It is proposed to use both the emotional bias and its stability as measures of the constraints on the flexibility of the cognitive fear-network.     

Attention to faces and gaze-following in social anxiety: preliminary evidence from a naturalistic eye-tracking investigation

Social attentional biases are a core component of social anxiety disorder, but research has not yet determined their direction due to methodological limitations. Here we present preliminary findings from a novel, dynamic eye-tracking paradigm allowing spatial–temporal measurement of attention and gaze-following, a mechanism previously unexplored in social anxiety. 105 participants took part, with those high (N?=?27) and low (N?=?25) in social anxiety traits (HSA and LSA respectively) entered into the analyses. Participants watched a video of an emotionally-neutral social scene, where two actors periodically shifted their gaze towards the periphery. HSA participants looked more at the actors’ faces during the initial 2s than the LSA group but there were no group differences in proportion of first fixations to the face or latency to first fixate the face, although HSA individuals’ first fixations to the face were shorter. No further differences in eye movements were found, nor in gaze-following behaviour, although these null effects could potentially result from the relatively small sample. Findings suggest attention is biased towards faces in HSA individuals during initial scene inspection, but that overt gaze-following may be impervious to individual differences in social anxiety. Future research should seek to replicate these effects.     

Free the animals? Investigating attitudes toward animal testing in Britain and the United States

In this study, 185 British and 143 American undergraduates completed a battery of tests that measured attitudes toward animal testing and various individual difference variables. Attitudes toward animal testing factored into two interpretable factors: general attitudes toward animal testing, and animal welfare and conditions of testing. Overall, there was support for animal testing under the right conditions, although there was also concern for the welfare of animals and the conditions under which testing takes place. There were small but significant national difference on both factors (with Americans more positive about testing and less positive about animal welfare), and a significant sex difference on the first factor (women were more negative about testing). Correlation and regression analyses showed that there were few significant individual difference predictors of both factors. These results are discussed in relation to past and future work on attitudes toward animal testing.     

“When Strangers Meet”: John Bowlby and Harry Harlow on Attachment Behavior

From 1957 through the mid-1970s, John Bowlby, one of the founders of attachment theory, was in close personal and scientific contact with Harry Harlow. In constructing his new theory on the nature of the bond between children and their caregivers, Bowlby profited highly from Harlow’s experimental work with rhesus monkeys. Harlow in his turn was influenced and inspired by Bowlby’s new thinking. On the basis of the correspondence between Harlow and Bowlby, their mutual participation in scientific meetings, archival materials, and an analysis of their scholarly writings, both the personal relationship between John Bowlby and Harry Harlow and the cross-fertilization of their work are described.