Targeting schema change in social anxiety via autobiographical memory reconstruction.

Negative self-schemas are fundamental to social anxiety disorder and contribute to its persistence, thus understanding how to change schemas is of critical importance. Memory-based interventions and associated theories propose that reconstructing autobiographical memories tethered to schemas with conceptual details that challenge the associated expectations will lead to schema change. Here, we test this proposal in a between-subjects behavioural experiment with undergraduate participants with social anxiety.

Hooking the Self Onto the Past: How Positive Autobiographical Memory Retrieval Benefits People With Social Anxiety.

Do people with social anxiety (SA) benefit from positive memory retrieval that heightens self-relevant meaning? In this preregistered study, an analog sample of 255 participants with self-reported clinically significant symptoms of SA were randomly assigned to retrieve and process a positive social-autobiographical memory by focusing on either its self-relevant meaning (deep processing) or its perceptual features (superficial processing). Participants were then socially excluded and instructed to reimagine their positive memory. Analyses revealed that participants assigned to the deep processing condition experienced significantly greater improvements than participants in the superficial processing condition in positive affect, social safeness, and positive beliefs about others during initial memory retrieval and in negative and positive beliefs about the self following memory reactivation during recovery from exclusion.

Effects of social anxiety and self-schemas on the impact and meaningfulness of positive versus negative social autobiographical memories.

Objective: Social anxiety is characterized by maladaptive self-schemas about being socially undesirable. Self-schemas are deeply held beliefs which are derived from negative autobiographical memories of painful social experiences. In contrast to the plethora of past research on negative memories in social anxiety, almost no research has investigated objectively positive social autobiographical memories.

Identifying analogue samples of individuals with clinically significant social anxiety: Updating and combining cutoff scores on the Social Phobia Inventory and Sheehan Disability Scale.

The use of analogue samples, as opposed to clinical groups, is common in mental health research, including research on social anxiety disorder (SAD). Recent observational and statistical evidence has raised doubts about the validity of current methods for establishing analogue samples of individuals with clinically significant social anxiety. Here, we used data from large community samples of clinical and nonclinical participants to determine new cutoff scores on self-report measures of social anxiety symptoms and symptom-related impairment.

Just do something: An experimental investigation of brief interventions for reducing the negative impact of post-event processing in social anxiety disorder.

Post-Event Processing (PEP) is prevalent and problematic in Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) but is typically not a direct target in evidence-based treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for SAD. The primary aim of the current study was to examine the impact of several theoretically and empirically derived interventions for PEP in SAD, including concrete thinking, abstract thinking, and distraction in comparison to a control (i.e.

Neurocognitive Model of Schema-Congruent and -Incongruent Learning in Clinical Disorders: Application to Social Anxiety and Beyond.

Negative schemas lie at the core of many common and debilitating mental disorders. Thus, intervention scientists and clinicians have long recognized the importance of designing effective interventions that target schema change. Here, we suggest that the optimal development and administration of such interventions can benefit from a framework outlining how schema change occurs in the brain.

Concurrent and prospective associations between negative social-evaluative beliefs, safety behaviours, and symptoms during and following cognitive behavioural group therapy for social anxiety disorder.

Background: Improving the delivery of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for social anxiety disorder (SAD) requires an in-depth understanding of which cognitive and behavioural mechanisms drive change in social anxiety symptoms (i.e., social interaction anxiety) during and after treatment.

The impact of particular safety behaviours on perceived likeability and authenticity during interpersonal interactions in social anxiety disorder.

Background: Safety behaviours are hypothesized to play a vital role in maintaining social anxiety disorder (SAD), in part by orienting socially anxious individuals to adopt an avoidance-based mindset focused on self-protection and self-concealment. Evidence suggests an association between safety behaviour use and negative social outcomes for individuals with SAD. However, research has largely focused on the broad group of safety behaviours, whereas specific subtypes have received less attention.

Positive emotional reactivity to pleasant social and nonsocial stimuli in social anxiety disorder.

Prior research has shown that Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is associated with significantly diminished positive affect (PA). Few studies have examined PA reactivity to pleasant experimental stimuli in individuals with SAD and whether emotional responses might be moderated by social context. Here, we investigated repeated measures of PA reactivity among individuals with SAD ( = 46) and healthy controls (HC; = 39) in response to standardized neutral images, pleasant music, and social versus nonsocial guided imagery.

Reconnecting in the Face of Exclusion: Individuals with High Social Anxiety May Feel the Push of Social Pain, but not the Pull of Social Rewards.

Background: Previous research has shown that high levels of trait social anxiety (SA) disrupt the social repair processes following a painful social exclusion, but the cognitive mechanisms involved in these processes and how trait SA may disrupt them remain unknown.

Methods: We conducted a preregistered study on Prolific participants ( = 452) who were assigned to experience either social exclusion or inclusion and were then exposed to follow-up opportunities for social reconnection.

Results: Moderated mediation analyses revealed that irrespective of levels of SA, participants responded to social pain with heightened approach motivation and greater downstream positive affect.

The moderating effects of reported pre-pandemic social anxiety, symptom impairment, and current stressors on mental health and affiliative adjustment during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background And Objectives: Individuals with social anxiety (SA) have well-established fears of being negatively evaluated and exposing self-perceived flaws to others. However, the unique impacts of pre-existing SA on well-being and interpersonal outcomes within the stressful context of the pandemic are currently unknown.

Design: In a study that took place in May 2020, we surveyed 488 North American community participants online.

Effects of mask-wearing on social anxiety: an exploratory review.

Background: A unique feature of the global coronavirus pandemic has been the widespread adoption of mask-wearing as a public health measure to minimize the risk of contagion. Little is known about the effects of increased mask-wearing on social interactions, social anxiety, or overall mental health.

Objectives: Explore the potential effects of mask-wearing on social anxiety.

Fears of receiving compassion from others predict safety behaviour use in social anxiety disorder over and above fears of negative self-portrayal.

Why do people with social anxiety disorder (SAD) engage in the use of safety behaviours? While past research has established that fears of negative self-portrayal are strongly associated with safety behaviour use in SAD, no research to date has investigated the potential role of fears of receiving compassion. Both types of fears could motivate those with SAD to engage in safety behaviours in order to keep others at a distance. In the present study, 150 participants with a clinical diagnosis of SAD completed measures of fears of negative self-portrayal, fears of receiving compassion, and safety behaviour use.

Imagery-enhanced verbally-based group cognitive behavior therapy for social anxiety disorder: a randomized clinical trial.

Background: Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is effective for most patients with a social anxiety disorder (SAD) but a substantial proportion fails to remit. Experimental and clinical research suggests that enhancing CBT using imagery-based techniques could improve outcomes. It was hypothesized that imagery-enhanced CBT (IE-CBT) would be superior to verbally-based CBT (VB-CBT) on pre-registered outcomes.

The effects of positive interpretation bias on cognitive reappraisal and social performance: Implications for social anxiety disorder.

People with social anxiety disorder (SAD) lack non-socially anxious individuals' tendency to interpret ambiguous social information in a positively biased manner. To gain a better understanding of the specific in-vivo social consequences of positive interpretation bias, we recruited 38 individuals with SAD and 31 healthy controls (HC) to participate in an in-vivo social task. We tested whether a positive interpretation bias, measured using a sentence completion task, might confer benefits for the adaptive emotion regulation strategy of cognitive reappraisal, and whether such benefits depended on participants' emotional states.

Coping with social wounds: How social pain and social anxiety influence access to social rewards.

Background And Objectives: Prior studies have shown that people display signs of increased social approach motivation and affiliative behaviour in response to social exclusion. This response is considered an adaptive strategy that serves to repair damage to social networks and increase access to mood-enhancing social rewards. However, heightened trait social anxiety (SA) has been linked to decreased approach motivation and responsiveness to social rewards.

The effects of imagery rescripting on memory outcomes in social anxiety disorder.

Imagery rescripting (IR) is an effective intervention for social anxiety disorder (SAD) that targets negative autobiographical memories. IR has been theorized to work through various memory mechanisms, including modifying the content of negative memory representations, changing memory appraisals, and improving negative schema or core beliefs about self and others. However, no prior studies have investigated the unique effects of rescripting itself relative to other IR intervention components on these proposed mechanisms.

Autobiographical memory retrieval and appraisal in social anxiety disorder.

Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SADs; n = 41) and healthy controls (HCs; n = 40) were administered the Waterloo Images and Memories Interview, in which they described mental images that they tend to experience in both anxiety-provoking and non-anxiety-provoking social situations. Participants then recalled, in as much detail as possible, specific autobiographical memories of salient aversive and non-aversive social experiences that they believed led to the formation of these images. Audio-recorded memory narratives were transcribed and coded based on the procedure of the Autobiographical Interview, which provides a precise measure of the degree of episodic detail contained within each memory.

Theory of mind ability in high socially anxious individuals.

Background/objectives: Research has demonstrated an association between social anxiety and impaired Theory of Mind (ToM). We assess whether ToM deficits occur even at a subclinical level of social anxiety and whether group differences in ToM performance are consistent with interpretation bias. We also explore potential reasons as to why socially anxious individuals may perform differently on ToM tasks.