scholarly journals The impact of social anxiety on feedback-based go and nogo learning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jutta Peterburs ◽  
Christine Albrecht ◽  
Christian Bellebaum
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Negative Feedback ◽  
Linear Mixed Effect Model ◽  
Mixed Effect ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Outcome Valence ◽  
Feedback Learning ◽  
The Individual ◽  
High Social Anxiety ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe term “Pavlovian” bias describes the phenomenon that learning to execute a response to obtain a reward or to inhibit a response to avoid punishment is much easier than learning the reverse. The present study investigated the interplay between this learning bias and individual levels of social anxiety. Since avoidance behavior is a hallmark feature of social anxiety and high levels of social anxiety have been associated with better learning from negative feedback, it is conceivable that the Pavlovian bias is altered in individuals with high social anxiety, with a strong tendency to avoid negative feedback, especially (but not only) in a nogo context. In addition, learning may be modulated by the individual propensity to learn from positive or negative feedback, which can be assessed as a trait-like feature. A sample of 84 healthy university students completed an orthogonalized go/nogo task that decoupled action type (go/nogo) and outcome valence (win/avoid) and a probabilistic selection task based upon which the individual propensity to learn from positive and negative feedback was determined. Self-reported social anxiety and learning propensity were used as predictors in linear mixed-effect model analysis of performance accuracy in the go/nogo task. Results revealed that high socially anxious subjects with a propensity to learn better from negative feedback showed particularly pronounced learning for nogo to avoid while lacking significant learning for nogo to win as well as go to avoid. This result pattern suggests that high levels of social anxiety in concert with negative learning propensity hamper the overcoming of Pavlovian bias in a win context while facilitating response inhibition in an avoidance context. The present data confirm the robust Pavlovian bias in feedback-based learning and add to a growing body of evidence for modulation of feedback learning by individual factors, such as personality traits. Specifically, results show that social anxiety is associated with altered Pavlovian bias, and might suggest that this effect could be driven by altered basal ganglia function primarily affecting the nogo pathway.

Examining self-verification processes in social anxiety

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell P. A. Howarth ◽  
Miriam Forbes
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Negative Feedback ◽  
Positive Feedback ◽  
Negative Evaluation ◽  
Fear Of Negative Evaluation ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Negative Beliefs ◽  
Positive And Negative Feedback

AbstractSocially anxious individuals hold negative beliefs about their appearance, abilities and personality. These negative self-conceptions increase expectations of negative evaluation from others and, consequently increase anxiety. Self-verification theory states that individuals seek, accept and prefer feedback that is congruent with their self-conceptions. This study explored the assumptions of self-verification theory in social anxiety. This was achieved by examining the type of feedback socially anxious individuals seek and how positive and negative feedback is processed. Results from an undergraduate sample (n = 84) indicate that socially anxious individuals were no more or less likely to seek negative feedback than individuals with low social anxiety. However, participants with greater social anxiety rated positive feedback as less accurate, rated negative feedback as more accurate, and were more comfortable with negative feedback, compared to participants with low social anxiety. Greater social anxiety was also found to predict increased discomfort with positive feedback, and fear of negative evaluation fully mediated this relationship. These findings suggest that self-verification processes operate in social anxiety and highlight the need for researchers to include measures of fears of evaluation when examining self-verification theory in samples of socially anxious individuals.

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 The Associations of Lymphocyte Ratio and Neutrophil Ratio on Liver Dysfunction in COVID-19 Patients

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fang Liu ◽  
Hong Liu ◽  
Wen-Yan Yu ◽  
Zhan Liu ◽  
Xia Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Liver Dysfunction ◽  
Piecewise Linear ◽  
Smooth Curve ◽  
Linear Mixed Effect Model ◽  
Severe Liver ◽  
Mixed Effect ◽  
Lymphocyte Ratio ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Severe Liver Dysfunction ◽  
The Impact

Data on the impact of lymphocytes and neutrophils on the incidence of liver dysfunction in COVID-19 patients are limited. This study aimed to investigate the lateral and longitudinal associations of lymphocyte ratio (LR) and neutrophil ratio (NR) on liver dysfunction in COVID-19 patients. We tested 1,409 blood samples from 245 COVID-19 patients in China between January 2020 and June 2021. The lateral U-shaped relationships, determined by smooth curve fitting and the piecewise-linear mixed-effect model, were observed between LR, NR, and AST and the incidence of AST-linked liver dysfunction, with the threshold cutoffs of 26.1 and 62.0, respectively. Over the 1,409 tests, the LR ≤ 26.1 and NR ≥ 62.0 related to the occurrence of mild liver dysfunction (HR: 1.36; 95% CI: 1.01, 1.82), moderate liver dysfunction (HR: 1.37; 95% CI: 1.01, 1.85), and severe liver dysfunction (HR: 1.72; 95% CI: 1.02, 2.90). For the patients with preexisting AST ≥ 35 U/L, the baseline LR ≤ 26.1 and NR ≥ 62.0 (b.LLCHN) groups had a fully adjusted 8.85-, 7.88-, and 5.97-fold increased risk of mild and moderate liver dysfunction after being hospitalized of 3, 6, and 9 days compared to the baseline LR > 26.1 and NR < 62.0 (b.normal) groups. Severe liver dysfunction only presents significant differences after being adjusted for age, sex, and BMI. Consistently, Kaplan–Meier analyses showed that b.LLCHN reflects a better predictive value for different subsequent magnitude liver dysfunctions after admission of 3 and 6 days. To improve liver function in patients with preexisting AST ≥35 U/L, future management strategies should pay more attention to baseline LR ≤ 26.1 and NR ≥ 62.0 patients.

Intrusive social images in individuals with high and low social anxiety: a multi-method analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 594-610
Author(s):  
Andrea R. Ashbaugh ◽  
Keera N. Fishman ◽  
Stephanie A. Houle-Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Social Image ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Cognitive Behavioural ◽  
Social Interaction Anxiety Scale ◽  
Social Images ◽  
High Social Anxiety ◽  
Interaction Anxiety ◽  
Emotion Memory

AbstractBackground:Models of social anxiety suggest that intrusive images/memories are common in social anxiety and contribute to the maintenance of social anxiety.Aims:We examined the context and phenomenological features of intrusive social images using quantitative and qualitative measures across various levels of social anxiety.Method:Undergraduate students (n = 191) completed measures of social anxiety (i.e. Social Interaction Anxiety Scale and Social Phobia Scale) and wrote a description of an intrusive social image. Individuals who reported an intrusive social image (n = 77) rated the frequency, interference and phenomenological (e.g. vividness, emotional intensity) characteristics of the image. A content analysis of the intrusive image narratives was completed by independent raters.Results:High social anxiety (HSA) increased the likelihood and frequency of experiencing intrusive images, and to some extent the interference caused by these images. However, the characteristics of these images with regard to their content and quality were similar across levels of social anxiety. Among participants who provided narratives, HSA individuals (n = 34) did not differ from low socially anxious (LSA) individuals (n = 28) in themes that reflect concerns about their own thoughts, actions and behaviours. However, HSA individuals reported greater concerns about how other individuals would react, and their intrusive images were often from an observer perspective when compared with LSA individuals.Conclusions:These results are interpreted in relation to cognitive models of emotion, memory and cognitive behavioural models of social anxiety.

The Role of Social Anxiety in Social Interaction Difficulties

1977 ◽  
Vol 131 (6) ◽  
pp. 610-615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roisin Hall ◽  
David Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Skills Training ◽  
Training Programme ◽  
Problem Behaviour ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Common Complaint ◽  
High Social Anxiety

Social anxiety was found to be the most common complaint in a sample of psychiatric patients reporting social interaction difficulties. High social anxiety was shown to be associated with impairments to social behaviour in socially anxious psychiatric patients and non-psychiatric volunteers. A comparison was made of systematic desensitization and a form of social skills training in the treatment of social interaction difficulties associated with high social anxiety. This indicated that while both therapies were effective in the reduction of social anxiety, the training programme was the more effective in reducing problem behaviour, but desensitization appeared to lead to a wider generalization of improvement as indicated by increases in social participation.

The impact of metacognitive beliefs and anticipatory processing on state anxiety in high socially anxious individuals in a speech task

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 588-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Styliani Gkika ◽  
Adrian Wells
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Emotional Disorders ◽  
State Anxiety ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Negative Beliefs ◽  
Anticipatory Processing ◽  
Metacognitive Beliefs ◽  
Perseverative Thinking ◽  
The Impact

The metacognitive model (Wells & Matthews, 1994) proposes that metacognitions (e.g., positive or negative beliefs about worry and thoughts) are involved in emotional disorders alongside perseverative thinking, such as worry. In social anxiety, worry about forthcoming social situations, termed anticipatory processing (AP), is considered an important maintaining factor (Clark & Wells, 1995), but a role of metacognition is less clear. This study investigated AP and metacognition in 80 high socially anxious individuals asked to engage in either AP or a filler task before delivering a speech. AP and higher uncontrollability/danger metacognitive beliefs were associated with greater state anxiety overall. Individuals with higher positive beliefs about worry experienced less of an increase in anxiety before the speech, but their anxiety persisted until after the speech, compared to individuals with lower beliefs. The results support an effect of metacognitions and are discussed in terms of the social anxiety model and its implications.

Eye-Tracking Evidence of a Maintenance Bias in Social Anxiety

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catarina Fernandes ◽  
Susana Silva ◽  
Joana Pires ◽  
Alexandra Reis ◽  
Antónia Jimenez Ros ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Dwell Time ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Personality Structure ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Dynamic Measures ◽  
High Social Anxiety ◽  
Depressive Personality

Background: The mechanisms and triggers of the attentional bias in social anxiety are not yet fully determined, and the modulating role of personality traits is being increasingly acknowledged. Aims: Our main purpose was to test whether social anxiety is associated with mechanisms of hypervigilance, avoidance (static biases), vigilance-avoidance or the maintenance of attention (dynamic biases). Our secondary goal was to explore the role of personality structure in shaping the attention bias. Method: Participants with high vs low social anxiety and different personality structures viewed pairs of faces (free-viewing eye-tracking task) representing different emotions (anger, happiness and neutrality). Their eye movements were registered and analysed for both whole-trial (static) and time-dependent (dynamic) measures. Results: Comparisons between participants with high and low social anxiety levels did not yield evidence of differences in eye-tracking measures for the whole trial (latency of first fixation, first fixation direction, total dwell time), but the two groups differed in the time course of overt attention during the trial (dwell time across three successive time segments): participants with high social anxiety were slower in disengaging their attention from happy faces. Similar results were obtained using a full-sample, regression-based analysis. Conclusion: Our results speak in favour of a maintenance bias in social anxiety. Preliminary results indicated that personality structure may not affect the maintenance (dynamic) bias of socially anxious individuals, although depressive personality structures may favour manifestations of a (static) hypervigilance bias.

scholarly journals Longitudinal evaluation of the psychological impact of the COVID-19 crisis in Spain

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Álvaro Planchuelo-Gómez ◽  
Paula Odriozola-González ◽  
María Jesús Irurtia-Muñiz ◽  
Rodrigo de Luis-García
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Psychological Impact ◽  
Longitudinal Change ◽  
Impact Of Event Scale ◽  
Event Scale ◽  
Symptoms Of Depression ◽  
Coping Scale ◽  
High Social Anxiety ◽  
Anxiety Depression ◽  
The Impact

The aim of this study was to assess the temporal evolution of the psychological impact of the COVID-19 crisis and lockdown from two surveys carried out in Spain with a time difference of about one month. Symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress, and the psychological impact of the situation were longitudinally analyzed using the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and the Impact of Event Scale (IES) respectively. The Brief Resilient Coping Scale (BRCS) and the Mini-Social Phobia Inventory (Mini-SPIN) were also employed to evaluate resilience and social anxiety. There was a total of 4,724 responses from both surveys. Symptomatic scores of anxiety, depression and stress were exhibited by 37.22%, 46.42% and 49.66% of the second survey respondents, showing a significant increase compared to the first survey (32.45%, 44.11% and 37.01%, respectively). There was no significant longitudinal change of the IES scores, with 48.30% of the second survey participants showing moderate to severe impact of the confinement. Low resilience was shown by 40.5% of the respondents, and high social anxiety by 34.8%. Constant news consumption about COVID-19 was found to be positively associated with symptomatic scores in the different scales. On the other hand, daily physical activity was found to be negatively associated with DASS-21 scores. Results indicate that people with social anxiety might be especially vulnerable to the development of other mental disorders after the relaxation of the confinement measures.

Social Perception of Self-Enhanced Photographs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keon M. Parsa ◽  
Karina Charipova ◽  
Eugenia Chu ◽  
Michael J. Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Social Perception ◽  
Linear Mixed Effect Model ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Mixed Effect ◽  
Age And Gender ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Survey Tool ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Age Range ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe use of appearance manipulating applications on our smartphones has increased in popularity. As the aim of this study is to determine the impact of self-directed appearance manipulation on perceptions of personality and examine the influence of respondent age and gender on the various personality domains. This cross-sectional cohort study included 20 subjects between the ages of 18 to 34 who had headshots taken and were provided an introduction on the use of the Facetune2 app. After 1 week of engaging in digital appearance manipulation, subjects submitted their self-determined most attractive edited photograph. Four surveys were constructed with 10 sets of photographs each. Each of these surveys were then sent to lay people via a web-based survey tool. Anonymous blinded respondents used a 7-point Likert scale to rate their perception of each patient's aggressiveness, likeability, sociability, trustworthiness, attractiveness, authenticity, and masculinity or femininity. A multivariate linear mixed effect model was applied to analyze the overall patient trait data as well as to assess the impact of rater age and gender. A total of 288 respondents (mean age range, 25–34 years [43%]; 202 [70%] female) completed a survey. Overall, digitally enhanced photographs were perceived as more attractive (0.22; 95% CI, 0.06–0.38). Analysis based on gender of the study subjects revealed increased attractiveness scores for men (0.19; 95% CI, 0.07–0.33). Females were also perceived as being more attractive (0.16; 95% CI, 0.03–0.40), but less authentic (−0.24; 95% CI, −0.36 to −0.12). Females rated enhanced photographs of men as less masculine (−0.23; 95% CI, −0.46 to −0.04). Raters aged 35 to 64 rated altered photos as less attractive (0.31; 95% CI, 0.09–0.52), authentic (0.20; 95% CI, 0.01–0.38), and gender enhancing (0.42; 95% CI, 0.24–0.61) compared with individuals aged 18 to 34. Patients and surgeons should be aware of the ways in which self-enhanced photographs may affect social perception.

The effect of executive control ability on the comprehension of second language metaphor

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-101
Author(s):  
Junmei Lü ◽  
Lijuan Liang ◽  
Baoguo Chen
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Linear Mixed Effect Model ◽  
Response Latencies ◽  
Mixed Effect ◽  
Metaphor Comprehension ◽  
Effect Model ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Stimulus Materials ◽  
The Impact

Aims: The present study examined the effect of language-related executive control ability on second language (L2) metaphor comprehension in L2 learners. Design: All participants were Chinese–English bilinguals. The Stroop task was used to measure language-related executive control ability. Three types of sentences were used as stimulus materials, including familiar metaphoric sentences, unfamiliar metaphoric sentences and literal sentences. Participants were asked to determine whether the sentence presented was metaphoric or not. Data and analysis: Both response latencies and accuracy scores were obtained. Linear mixed effect model was used for statistical analysis. Findings: The effect of executive control ability on L2 metaphor comprehension is modulated by the familiarity of the metaphor. Specifically, for familiar metaphor sentences, the response time of participants with higher executive control ability was significantly faster than those with lower executive control ability. However, for the unfamiliar metaphor sentences and literal sentences, the effect of executive control ability was not significant. Originality: This study directly explored the impact of language-related executive control on metaphor comprehension in L2 learners. Significance/Implications: Our results found that the Predication Model is also applicable to L2 learners.

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