The effects of social anxiety and depression on the evaluation of facial crowds
Introduction
Cognitive theories have emphasized the role that cognitive biases in general, and evaluation biases in particular play in the maintenance of anxiety (e.g., Beck & Emery, 1985; Williams, Watts, MacLeod, & Mathews, 1997). It is hypothesized that evaluation and interpretation biases are central to the maintenance of anxiety in general, and of social anxiety in particular (Foa & Kozak, 1985). Indeed, multiple studies have examined the role of evaluation biases in social anxiety and social phobia (see Heindrich & Hofmann, 2001). Most of this literature has focused on the evaluation of the probability and cost of social events for socially anxious individuals (e.g., Amir, Foa, & Coles, 1998; Gilboa-Schechtman, Franklin, & Foa, 2000). Results have indicated that highly socially anxious individuals (HSAs) tend to interpret mildly negative social scenarios as more likely and more “costly” than low socially anxious individuals (LSAs).
Only a few studies investigated whether social anxiety is associated with a negative bias in the evaluation of non-verbal information. So far, research has focused on the examination of individually presented emotional expressions (e.g., Lundh & Ost, 1996; Winton, Clark, & Edelmann, 1995). In fact, we are not aware of any studies to date examining the evaluation of multi-facial displays (i.e., facial crowds) by clinical populations. Like individual facial expression, multi-facial displays are ubiquitous in social interaction and thus represent ecologically valid stimuli. In fact, performing in front of an audience is frequently rated as the most challenging, most anxiety provoking, and most avoided of all social interactions. Thus, multi-facial displays of emotion, connoting approval or criticism are likely to be linked to the fears and anxieties of most socially anxious individuals. Second, multi-facial displays are likely to contain mixed messages—some members of the audience may seem pleased, others—bored, and still others may display signs of contempt or disapproval. Mixed displays require individuals to integrate information of conflicting valence, whereas the evaluation of facial expressions used in previous research did not require such integration, since they were constructed to be restricted to connote a single affective signal. The examination of the interpretation of mixed multi-facial displays was the first goal of the present study.
Another unresolved issue stemming from the existing literature on the evaluation biases in SPs is the evaluation of positive information. Several studies have found that in addition to biased interpretation of negative events, SAs are also characterized by a failure to positively interpret ambiguous events or by a tendency to see the negative implications of positive events (e.g., Gilboa-Schechtman et al., 2000; Wallace & Alden, 1997). Of relevance to the question of positive bias in interpretation is the comorbidity between social phobia and depression (e.g., Lecrubier & Weiller, 1997). Indeed, diminished emotional responding to pleasant stimuli is frequently found in depression (e.g., Clark & Watson, 1991; Sloan, Strauss, & Wisner, 2001). However, the examination of the contributions of social anxiety and depression to the evaluation of positive non-verbal displays has not yet been undertaken. Such an examination was the second goal of the present study.
Two main hypotheses were examined. First, consistent with previous findings, we postulated that all SPs would be negatively biased in their evaluation of ambiguous multi-facial displays (the negative bias hypothesis). Moreover, following Mogg and Bradley’s (1998) cognitive-motivational account of anxiety, we expected the relationship between SA and ratings of disapproval of the crowd to follow a quadratic function. The cognitive-motivational account posits that anxiety is associated with a lower threshold of threat appraisal. Following this logic, fewer threat elements need to be identified before a “threat” decision is reached, thus, speeding the decision process. Consequently, we expected the decision latencies of GSPs regarding facial displays to be inversely related to the crowd’s level of disapproval.
Second, based on the hypothesis of diminished sensitivity to pleasant stimuli in depression, we expected depression, but not SA, to be associated with diminished positive evaluation of audiences containing predominantly happy expressions (the impaired positivity hypothesis). We also anticipated that depression, but not SA, will be related to a higher threshold for positivity judgments, and thus to a slower processing of positive cues.
Section snippets
Participants
The clinical participants were individuals who sought treatment in a university-affiliated outpatient mental health center in the greater Tel-Aviv area. Diagnostic interviews of patients and control participants were conducted by graduate students trained in the administration of the Structured Clinical Diagnostic Interview (SCID-IV, First, Spitzer, Gibbon, & Williams, 1995). A pilot study (), examined the interviewers’ diagnostic reliability by comparing their diagnoses to those of the
Group differences
In all of the reported analyses, significance is indicated when . There were no differences in terms of gender distribution (, n.s.) or age (mean age 30.28, 26.83, 26.95, , ) among the participants. COMs were significantly more depressed than GSPs; those were significantly more depressed than CONs (mean BDI scores were 3.61, 6.61, and 16.17, respectively, ). COMs were also more socially anxious than GSPs and those were significantly more socially
Discussion
Our results suggest that social anxiety was associated with more negative evaluation of facial displays containing predominantly negative facial expression, and with faster processing of such stimuli. Consistent with the previous findings, differences between the clinical groups and the control group emerged most clearly in the evaluations of stimuli of intermediate level of threat—in our case, audiences where the predominant reaction was not immediately obvious (e.g., Wison & MacLeod, 2003).
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the Israeli Science Foundation Grant No. 866-99. We thank Raya Mansour for her help in the data collection and coordination process. The first author thanks the Department of Psychology at Yale University for its hospitality.
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