Processing of facial affect under social threat in socially anxious adults: mood matters

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Leber ◽  
Thomas Heidenreich ◽  
Ulrich Stangier ◽  
Stefan G. Hofmann
Keyword(s):  
Facial Affect ◽  
Social Threat ◽  
Socially Anxious

SOCIAL ANXIETY, SELF-FOCUSED ATTENTION, AND THE DISCRIMINATION OF NEGATIVE, NEUTRAL AND POSITIVE AUDIENCE MEMBERS BY THEIR NON-VERBAL BEHAVIOURS

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Perowne ◽  
Warren Mansell
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Focused Attention ◽  
Social Threat ◽  
Apparent Paradox ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Anxiety Group ◽  
Threat Cues ◽  
High Social Anxiety

Recent research indicates the apparent paradox that social anxiety may be associated with both self-focused attention and selective attention to external social threat cues. A naturalistic paradigm was designed to explore both processes. High and low socially anxious individuals were asked to make a speech to a monitor displaying six people whom they believed to be watching them live. Two audience members exhibited only positive behaviours, two only neutral ones and two only negative behaviours. In contrast to the low social anxiety group who selectively discriminated positive audience members, the high social anxiety group selectively discriminated the negative individuals, yet they were no more accurate at discriminating the negative behaviours the audience members had performed and they reported more self-focused attention than the low social anxiety group. The effects remained while covarying for differences in dysphoria. The results indicate that socially anxious individuals base their judgements of being disapproved by others on limited processing of their social environment.

scholarly journals Sustained Preferential Processing of Social Threat Cues: Bias without Competition?

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (8) ◽  
pp. 1973-1986 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias J. Wieser ◽  
Lisa M. McTeague ◽  
Andreas Keil
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Attentional Resource ◽  
Continuous Measure ◽  
Social Threat ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Personal Significance ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
Threat Cues

Stimuli of high emotional significance such as social threat cues are preferentially processed in the human brain. However, there is an ongoing debate whether or not these stimuli capture attention automatically and weaken the processing of concurrent stimuli in the visual field. This study examined continuous fluctuations of electrocortical facilitation during competition of two spatially separated facial expressions in high and low socially anxious individuals. Two facial expressions were flickered for 3000 msec at different frequencies (14 and 17.5 Hz) to separate the electrocortical signals evoked by the competing stimuli (“frequency tagging”). Angry faces compared to happy and neutral expressions were associated with greater electrocortical facilitation over visual areas only in the high socially anxious individuals. This finding was independent of the respective competing stimulus. Heightened electrocortical engagement in socially anxious participants was present in the first second of stimulus viewing and was sustained for the entire presentation period. These results, based on a continuous measure of attentional resource allocation, support the view that stimuli of high personal significance are associated with early and sustained prioritized sensory processing. These cues, however, do not interfere with the electrocortical processing of a spatially separated concurrent face, suggesting that they are effective at capturing attention, but are weak competitors for resources.

scholarly journals Does social anxiety increase with age?

1996 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-52
Author(s):  
Marilyn Anne Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Research Evidence ◽  
Social Outcomes ◽  
Social Threat ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Preadolescent Children ◽  
Children’S Social Anxiety

One of the impressions in the literature on children's social anxiety is that young (preadolescent) children are not socially anxious and that social anxiety begins to manifest itself at adolescence and then increases with age. However there seems to be little direct research evidence to substantiate this claim. A questionnaire to assess feared outcomes in children and adolescents was therefore administered to 1415 children between the ages of 6 and 16 years. The results showed that worry about social threat did not increase with age and the content of the feared social outcomes also remained relatively constant over the age span.

scholarly journals Reactions to Prospective Positive vs. Negative Evaluation in the Laboratory: A Comparison of High and Low Socially Anxious Participants

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 619-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin C. Barber ◽  
David A. Moscovitch
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Negative Evaluation ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
Social Threat ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Fear Of Positive Evaluation ◽  
Positive Evaluation

We present a study designed to investigate fear of positive vs. negative evaluation within the context of a laboratory-based paradigm designed to evoke social threat. Eighty-nine undergraduates with high (n = 43) or low (n = 46) levels of trait social anxiety took part in a “getting acquainted” task. Participants rated their anxiety about receiving prospective positive vs. negative evaluation in anticipation of receiving public feedback on a filmed introduction of themselves that they had made for an unknown social partner whom they expected they would later meet. Results demonstrated, in contrast to extant theories of fear of positive evaluation in social anxiety, that all participants, including those with high levels of social anxiety, rated the prospect of positive evaluation as anxiety reducing. This finding raises important questions about the construct of fear of positive evaluation and how to measure it “in vivo” in an ecologically valid manner.

Cognitive Features of Social Phobia

CNS Spectrums ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (11) ◽  
pp. 30-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Rowa ◽  
Martin M. Antony ◽  
Richard P. Swinson
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Social Phobia ◽  
Cognitive Models ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Social Threat ◽  
Process Information ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Attention Memory

AbstractNew cognitive models of social phobia have been developed based, in part, on a growing number of studies suggesting that people with social phobia process information related to social threat differently than people who are not socially anxious and, in some cases, differently than individuals with other anxiety disorders. In addition to providing an overview of recent models of social phobia, this paper reviews the research literature to date on the following aspects of cognition in social phobia: attention, memory, attributions and appraisals, imagery and perspective, and perfectionism.

Positivity Deficits in Romantic Relationships Among Socially Anxious Individuals

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. B. Kashdan ◽  
P. Ferssizidis ◽  
A. S. Farmer ◽  
L. M. Adams ◽  
P. E. McKnight
Keyword(s):  
Romantic Relationships ◽  
Socially Anxious

Socially Anxious and Depressed Adolescents' Peer Victimization and Relationship Qualities

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Breanne A. Danzi ◽  
Annette M. La Greca ◽  
Sherilynn F. Chan ◽  
Ryan R. Landoll ◽  
Whitney M. Herge
Keyword(s):  
Peer Victimization ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Relationship Qualities

The persistence of regulatory impairment in ostracized socially anxious people

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Oaten ◽  
Kip Williams ◽  
Andrew Jones ◽  
Lisa Zadro
Keyword(s):  
Socially Anxious

Effortful attentional control and ERP responses to facial affect

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Kondiuch ◽  
M. Fajkowska ◽  
A. Zagorska ◽  
P. Jaskowski
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Control ◽  
Facial Affect
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