Autism, early psychosis, and social anxiety disorder: understanding the role of social cognition and its relationship to disability in young adults with disorders characterized by social impairments

Objectives: The purpose of the current study was to examine the effectiveness of ACT on symptom severity, fear about negative evaluation, quality of life and mediation role of acceptance, cognitive fusion and value among patients with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). Methods: Thirty patients diagnosed with SAD were randomized in the intervention (n=15) or waiting list groups (n=15). The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI), Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (BFNE), WHO Quality of Life (WHOQOL), Social Anxiety - Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (SA-AAQ), Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire (CFQ) and Valued Living Questionnaire (VLQ) were administered before, immediately after, and at one month follow up. Repeated measurement design was used in the intervention group to investigate the changes of mediation and outcomes variables in the pretest, during, and post- therapy. Twenty-four patients completed the study. One-way analysis of covariance, Multivariate analysis of covariance and repeated measures was used for analysis. Results: Results showed that there were differences between the intervention and waiting list groups on the severity of symptoms (p=0.001), fear of negative evaluation (p=0.002), and quality of life (p=0.03), as well as in terms of specific measures of SA-AAQ(p=0.001), cognitive fusion (p=0.001), and important section of VLQ(p=0.001). Repeated measurement result showed that acceptance and action of social anxiety and cognitive fusion had a mediating role in the severity of anxiety, fear about negative evaluation, and quality of life. Discussion: Results of the study indicate the effectiveness of ACT for SAD and highlighted mediator contribution acceptance and action and cognitive fusion in severity of social anxiety.

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The mediating role of self-efficacy in the relationship between risk perception and psychological vulnerability in Students with social anxiety disorder

Iranian Journal of Educational Sociology ◽

10.29252/ijes.2.3.138 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2 (3) ◽

pp. 138-148

Author(s):

Maryam Darzi Azadboni ◽

Mohammadkazem Fakhri ◽

Bahram Mirzaian ◽

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...

Keyword(s):

Anxiety Disorder ◽

Risk Perception ◽

Social Anxiety ◽

Social Anxiety Disorder ◽

Self Efficacy ◽

Mediating Role ◽

Psychological Vulnerability ◽

The Relationship

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Abnormal visual representations associated with confusion of perceived facial expression in schizophrenia with social anxiety disorder

npj Schizophrenia ◽

10.1038/s41537-020-00116-1 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Simon Faghel-Soubeyrand ◽

Tania Lecomte ◽

M. Archibaldo Bravo ◽

Martin Lepage ◽

Stéphane Potvin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Anxiety Disorder ◽

Social Anxiety ◽

Facial Expression ◽

Facial Expressions ◽

Social Anxiety Disorder ◽

Visual Representations ◽

Facial Cues ◽

Spatial Frequencies ◽

Coarse Information

Abstract Deficits in social functioning are especially severe amongst schizophrenia individuals with the prevalent comorbidity of social anxiety disorder (SZ&SAD). Yet, the mechanisms underlying the recognition of facial expression of emotions—a hallmark of social cognition—are practically unexplored in SZ&SAD. Here, we aim to reveal the visual representations SZ&SAD (n = 16) and controls (n = 14) rely on for facial expression recognition. We ran a total of 30,000 trials of a facial expression categorization task with Bubbles, a data-driven technique. Results showed that SZ&SAD’s ability to categorize facial expression was impared compared to controls. More severe negative symptoms (flat affect, apathy, reduced social drive) was associated with more impaired emotion recognition ability, and with more biases in attributing neutral affect to faces. Higher social anxiety symptoms, on the other hand, was found to enhance the reaction speed to neutral and angry faces. Most importantly, Bubbles showed that these abnormalities could be explained by inefficient visual representations of emotions: compared to controls, SZ&SAD subjects relied less on fine facial cues (high spatial frequencies) and more on coarse facial cues (low spatial frequencies). SZ&SAD participants also never relied on the eye regions (only on the mouth) to categorize facial expressions. We discuss how possible interactions between early (low sensitivity to coarse information) and late stages of the visual system (overreliance on these coarse features) might disrupt SZ&SAD’s recognition of facial expressions. Our findings offer perceptual mechanisms through which comorbid SZ&SAD impairs crucial aspects of social cognition, as well as functional psychopathology.

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