An effort-based social feedback paradigm reveals aversion to popularity in socially anxious participants and increased motivation in adolescents

Adults titrate the degree of physical effort they are willing to expend according to the magnitude of reward they expect to obtain, a process guided by incentive motivation. However, it remains unclear whether adolescents, who are undergoing normative developmental changes in cognitive and reward processing, translate incentive motivation into action in a way that is similarly tuned to reward value and economical in effort utilization. The present study adapted a classic physical effort paradigm to quantify age-related changes in motivation-based and strategic markers of effort exertion for monetary rewards from adolescence to early adulthood. One hundred and three participants aged 12-23 years completed a task that involved exerting low or high amounts of physical effort, in the form of a hand grip, to earn low or high amounts of money. Adolescents and young adults exhibited highly similar incentive-modulated effort for reward according to measures of peak grip force and speed, suggesting that motivation for monetary reward is consistent across age. However, young adults expended energy more economically and strategically: whereas adolescents were prone to exert excess physical effort beyond what was required to earn reward, young adults were more likely to strategically prepare before each grip phase and conserve energy by opting out of low reward trials. This work extends theoretical models of development of incentive-driven behavior by demonstrating that layered on similarity in motivational value for monetary reward, there are important differences in the way behavior is flexibly adjusted in the presence of reward from adolescence to young adulthood.

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Modified CBT for social anxiety and social functioning in young adults with autism spectrum disorder

Molecular Autism ◽

10.1186/s13229-021-00418-w ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Emily R. Bemmer ◽

Kelsie A. Boulton ◽

Emma E. Thomas ◽

Ben Larke ◽

Suncica Lah ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Young Adults ◽

Social Anxiety ◽

Social Functioning ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Self Report ◽

Post Intervention ◽

Adults With Autism ◽

Adolescents And Adults ◽

Adults With Asd ◽

Young Adults With Asd

Abstract Background There is a strong research imperative to investigate effective treatment options for adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Elevated social anxiety, difficulties with social functioning and poor mental health have all been identified as core treatment targets for this group. While theoretical models posit a strong bidirectionality between social anxiety and ASD social functioning deficits, few interventions have targeted both domains concurrently. Of the two group interventions previously conducted with adolescents and adults with ASD, significant results have only been observed in either social anxiety or social functioning, and have not generalised to changes in overall mood. The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential benefit, tolerability and acceptability of a group cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT) intervention in young adults with ASD. Primary treatment outcomes were social anxiety symptoms and social functioning difficulties; secondary outcomes were self-reported mood and overall distress. Method Ten groups of participants completed an eight-week, modified group CBT intervention targeting both social anxiety and social functioning, that included social skills training, exposure tasks and behavioural experiment components. Seventy-eight adolescents and young adults with ASD, without intellectual impairment, aged between 16 and 38 (M = 22.77; SD = 5.31), were recruited from the community, Headspace centres and the Autism Clinic for Translational Research at the Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney. Outcomes (social anxiety, social functioning and mood) were measured pre- and post-intervention via self-report questionnaires (administered either online or through the return of hard-copy booklets), and participants were invited to provide anonymous feedback on the intervention (at the mid-point and end of the intervention). Results Participants demonstrated statistically significant improvements on all outcome measures in response to the intervention. Specifically, social anxiety symptoms decreased (p < .001), and specific subdomains of social functioning improved post-intervention, particularly in social motivation (p = .032) and restricted interests and repetitive behaviours (p = .025). Self-reported symptom improvements also generalised to mood (depression, anxiety and stress; p < .05). All improvements demonstrated small effect sizes. Participant feedback was positive and indicated strong satisfaction with the program. Limitations The absence of a control group and follow-up measures, reliance on self-report instruments as outcome measures and the exclusion of those with intellectual disability represent significant limitations to this study. Conclusions These findings indicate that a group CBT intervention appears to be a beneficial intervention for self-reported social anxiety, social functioning and overall mental health in adolescents and young adults with ASD. The stand-alone nature of the intervention combined with positive participant feedback indicates it was well tolerated, has potential clinical utility and warrants further study in a randomised-controlled, follow-up design.

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The Effects of Video and Nonnegative Social Feedback on Distorted Appraisals of Bodily Sensations and Social Anxiety

Psychological Reports ◽

10.2466/02.07.09.pr0.109.5.411-427 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 109 (2) ◽

pp. 411-427 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Yoshihiro Kanai ◽

Junwen Chen ◽

Satoko Sasagawa ◽

Yuji Sakano

Keyword(s):

Social Anxiety ◽

Video Feedback ◽

Control Group ◽

Positive Outcomes ◽

Social Feedback ◽

Anticipatory Anxiety ◽

Socially Anxious ◽

Differential Effects ◽

Bodily Sensations ◽

Experimental Group

The effects of video feedback and nonnegative feedback from other people were examined as possibly ameliorating distorted appraisals of bodily sensations, as well as subjective and physiological anxiety in socially anxious individuals. Nonnegative feedback from a confederate emphasized the absence of negative outcomes (e.g., did not seem to tremble) rather than the presence of positive outcomes (e.g., looked calm). Socially anxious students were randomly assigned to either the experimental group, which received video and social feedback ( n = 12), or the control group ( n = 13). Participants were asked to give a videotaped speech twice. After the first speech, the experimental group watched the videotape of their speech and received feedback from a confederate, whereas the control group watched the video of another person's speech. The intervention improved distorted appraisal of bodily sensations and anticipatory anxiety for the experimental group. However, there were no differential effects on anxiety between the groups during speeches.

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Examining self-verification processes in social anxiety

The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist ◽

10.1017/s1754470x15000070 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

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.

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Detecting Subclinical Social Anxiety Using Physiological Data from a Wrist-worn Wearable: A Small-Scale Feasibility Study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.23383 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Ruksana Shaukat Jali ◽

Nejra Van Zalk ◽

David Boyle

Keyword(s):

Young Adults ◽

Social Anxiety ◽

Skin Temperature ◽

Wearable Sensors ◽

Supervised Machine Learning ◽

Physiological Data ◽

Support Vector ◽

Socially Anxious ◽

Anxiety States ◽

Reactive Anxiety

BACKGROUND Subclinical (i.e., threshold) social anxiety can greatly affect young people’s lives, but existing solutions appear inadequate considering its rising prevalence. Wearable sensors may provide a novel way to detect social anxiety and result in new opportunities for monitoring and treatment that would be greatly beneficial for sufferers, society and healthcare services. Nevertheless, indicators such as skin temperature from wrist-worn sensors have not been used in prior work on physiological social anxiety detection. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate whether subclinical social anxiety in young adults can be detected using physiological data obtained from wearable sensors, including Heart Rate (HR), Skin Temperature (ST) and Electrodermal Activity (EDA). METHODS Young adults (N = 12) with self-reported subclinical social anxiety (measured by the widely used self-reported version of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, LSAS-SR) participated in an impromptu speech task. Physiological data was collected using an E4 Empatica wearable device. Using the pre-processed data and following a supervised machine learning approach, various classification algorithms such as Support Vector Machine (SVM), Decision Tree, Random Forest and K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN) were used to develop models for three different contexts. Models were trained to (1) classify between baseline and socially anxious states, (2) differentiate between baseline, anticipation anxiety and reactive anxiety states, and (3) classify between social anxiety experienced by individuals with differing social anxiety severity. The predictive capability of the singular modalities was also explored in each of the three supervised learning experiments. The generalisability of the developed models was evaluated using 10-fold cross validation as a performance index. RESULTS With modalities combined, the developed models yielded accuracies between 97.54% and 99.48% when detecting between baseline and socially anxious states. Models trained to differentiate between baseline, anticipation anxiety and reactive anxiety states yielded accuracies between 95.18% and 98.10%. Alongside this, the models developed to detect between social anxiety experienced by individuals with differing anxiety severity scores successfully classified with accuracies between 98.86% and 99.52%. Surprisingly, EDA was identified as the most effective singular modality when differentiating between baseline and social anxiety states, whereas ST was the most effective modality when differentiating between anxiety experienced by individuals with differing social anxiety severity. CONCLUSIONS The results indicate that it is possible to accurately detect social anxiety as well as distinguish between levels of severity in young adults by leveraging physiological data collected from wearable sensors.

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Detecting Subclinical Social Anxiety Using Physiological Data From a Wrist-Worn Wearable: Small-Scale Feasibility Study

JMIR Formative Research ◽

10.2196/32656 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 (10) ◽

pp. e32656

Author(s):

Ruksana Shaukat-Jali ◽

Nejra van Zalk ◽

David Edward Boyle

Keyword(s):

Young Adults ◽

Social Anxiety ◽

Skin Temperature ◽

Wearable Sensors ◽

Supervised Machine Learning ◽

Physiological Data ◽

Support Vector ◽

Socially Anxious ◽

Anxiety States ◽

Reactive Anxiety

Background Subclinical (ie, threshold) social anxiety can greatly affect young people’s lives, but existing solutions appear inadequate considering its rising prevalence. Wearable sensors may provide a novel way to detect social anxiety and result in new opportunities for monitoring and treatment, which would be greatly beneficial for persons with social anxiety, society, and health care services. Nevertheless, indicators such as skin temperature measured by wrist-worn sensors have not been used in prior work on physiological social anxiety detection. Objective This study aimed to investigate whether subclinical social anxiety in young adults can be detected using physiological data obtained from wearable sensors, including heart rate, skin temperature, and electrodermal activity (EDA). Methods Young adults (N=12) with self-reported subclinical social anxiety (measured using the widely used self-reported version of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale) participated in an impromptu speech task. Physiological data were collected using an E4 Empatica wearable device. Using the preprocessed data and following a supervised machine learning approach, various classification algorithms such as Support Vector Machine, Decision Tree, Random Forest, and K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN) were used to develop models for 3 different contexts. Models were trained to differentiate (1) between baseline and socially anxious states, (2) among baseline, anticipation anxiety, and reactive anxiety states, and (3) social anxiety among individuals with social anxiety of differing severity. The predictive capability of the singular modalities was also explored in each of the 3 supervised learning experiments. The generalizability of the developed models was evaluated using 10-fold cross-validation as a performance index. Results With modalities combined, the developed models yielded accuracies between 97.54% and 99.48% when differentiating between baseline and socially anxious states. Models trained to differentiate among baseline, anticipation anxiety, and reactive anxiety states yielded accuracies between 95.18% and 98.10%. Furthermore, the models developed to differentiate between social anxiety experienced by individuals with anxiety of differing severity scores successfully classified with accuracies between 98.86% and 99.52%. Surprisingly, EDA was identified as the most effective singular modality when differentiating between baseline and social anxiety states, whereas ST was the most effective modality when differentiating anxiety among individuals with social anxiety of differing severity. Conclusions The results indicate that it is possible to accurately detect social anxiety as well as distinguish between levels of severity in young adults by leveraging physiological data collected from wearable sensors.

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Detecting Subclinical Social Anxiety Using Physiological Data from a Wrist-worn Wearable: A Small-Scale Feasibility Study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.32656 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ruksana Shaukat-Jali ◽

Nejra van Zalk ◽

David Edward Boyle

Keyword(s):

Young Adults ◽

Social Anxiety ◽

Skin Temperature ◽

Wearable Sensors ◽

Supervised Machine Learning ◽

Physiological Data ◽

Support Vector ◽

Socially Anxious ◽

Anxiety States ◽

Reactive Anxiety

BACKGROUND Subclinical (i.e., threshold) social anxiety can greatly affect young people’s lives, but existing solutions appear inadequate considering its rising prevalence. Wearable sensors may provide a novel way to detect social anxiety and result in new opportunities for monitoring and treatment that would be greatly beneficial for sufferers, society and healthcare services. Nevertheless, indicators such as skin temperature from wrist-worn sensors have not been used in prior work on physiological social anxiety detection. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate whether subclinical social anxiety in young adults can be detected using physiological data obtained from wearable sensors, including Heart Rate (HR), Skin Temperature (ST) and Electrodermal Activity (EDA). METHODS Young adults (N = 12) with self-reported subclinical social anxiety (measured by the widely used self-reported version of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, LSAS-SR) participated in an impromptu speech task. Physiological data was collected using an E4 Empatica wearable device. Using the pre-processed data and following a supervised machine learning approach, various classification algorithms such as Support Vector Machine (SVM), Decision Tree, Random Forest and K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN) were used to develop models for three different contexts. Models were trained to (1) classify between baseline and socially anxious states, (2) differentiate between baseline, anticipation anxiety and reactive anxiety states, and (3) classify between social anxiety experienced by individuals with differing social anxiety severity. The predictive capability of the singular modalities was also explored in each of the three supervised learning experiments. The generalisability of the developed models was evaluated using 10-fold cross validation as a performance index. RESULTS With modalities combined, the developed models yielded accuracies between 97.54% and 99.48% when detecting between baseline and socially anxious states. Models trained to differentiate between baseline, anticipation anxiety and reactive anxiety states yielded accuracies between 95.18% and 98.10%. Alongside this, the models developed to detect between social anxiety experienced by individuals with differing anxiety severity scores successfully classified with accuracies between 98.86% and 99.52%. Surprisingly, EDA was identified as the most effective singular modality when differentiating between baseline and social anxiety states, whereas ST was the most effective modality when differentiating between anxiety experienced by individuals with differing social anxiety severity. CONCLUSIONS The results indicate that it is possible to accurately detect social anxiety as well as distinguish between levels of severity in young adults by leveraging physiological data collected from wearable sensors.

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Social context and the real-world consequences of social anxiety

10.31234/osf.io/ghysp ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Juyoen Hur ◽

Kathryn A. DeYoung ◽

Samiha Islam ◽

Allegra S. Anderson ◽

Matthew Barstead ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Young Adults ◽

Social Anxiety ◽

Real World ◽

Emotional Experience ◽

Romantic Partners ◽

Social Contexts ◽

Socially Anxious ◽

Daily Lives ◽

Ecological Momentary

Social anxiety lies on a continuum, and young adults with elevated symptoms are at risk for developing a range of debilitating psychiatric disorders. Yet, relatively little is known about the factors that govern the hour-by-hour experience and expression of social anxiety in daily life. Here, we used smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to intensively sample emotional experience across different social contexts in the daily lives of 228 young adults selectively recruited to represent a broad spectrum of social anxiety symptoms. Leveraging data from over 11,000 real-world assessments, results highlight the central role of close friends, family members, and romantic partners. The presence of close companions is associated with enhanced mood, yet socially anxious individuals have smaller confidant networks and spend less time with their close companions. Although higher levels of social anxiety are associated with a general worsening of mood, socially anxious individuals appear to derive larger benefits—lower levels of negative affect, anxiety, and depression—from the presence of their closest companions. In contrast, variation in social anxiety was unrelated to the amount of time spent with strangers, co-workers, and acquaintances; and we uncovered no evidence of emotional hypersensitivity to less-familiar individuals. Collectively, these findings provide a framework for understanding the deleterious consequences of social anxiety in emerging adulthood and set the stage for developing improved intervention strategies.

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Social context and the real-world consequences of social anxiety

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291719002022 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 50 (12) ◽

pp. 1989-2000 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Juyoen Hur ◽

Kathryn A. DeYoung ◽

Samiha Islam ◽

Allegra S. Anderson ◽

Matthew G. Barstead ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Young Adults ◽

Social Anxiety ◽

Real World ◽

Emotional Experience ◽

Romantic Partners ◽

Social Contexts ◽

Socially Anxious ◽

Daily Lives ◽

The Real ◽

Ecological Momentary

AbstractBackgroundSocial anxiety lies on a continuum, and young adults with elevated symptoms are at risk for developing a range of psychiatric disorders. Yet relatively little is known about the factors that govern the hour-by-hour experience and expression of social anxiety in the real world.MethodsHere we used smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to intensively sample emotional experience across different social contexts in the daily lives of 228 young adults selectively recruited to represent a broad spectrum of social anxiety symptoms.ResultsLeveraging data from over 11 000 real-world assessments, our results highlight the central role of close friends, family members, and romantic partners. The presence of such close companions was associated with enhanced mood, yet socially anxious individuals had fewer confidants and spent less time with the close companions that they do have. Although higher levels of social anxiety were associated with a general worsening of mood, socially anxious individuals appear to derive larger benefits – lower levels of negative affect, anxiety, and depression – from their close companions. In contrast, variation in social anxiety was unrelated to the amount of time spent with strangers, co-workers, and acquaintances; and we uncovered no evidence of emotional hypersensitivity to these less-familiar individuals.ConclusionsThese findings provide a framework for understanding the deleterious consequences of social anxiety in emerging adulthood and set the stage for developing improved intervention strategies.

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Social anxiety disorder and memory for positive feedback.

Journal of Abnormal Psychology ◽

10.1037/abn0000407 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 128 (3) ◽

pp. 228-233 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Brianne L. Glazier ◽

Lynn E. Alden

Keyword(s):

Anxiety Disorder ◽

Social Anxiety ◽

Social Anxiety Disorder ◽

Positive Feedback

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