Safety behaviors and judgmental biases in social anxiety disorder

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Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to examine the link between safety behaviors and social judgments in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Safety behaviors were manipulated in the context of a controlled laboratory-based social interaction, and subsequent effects of the manipulation on the social judgments of socially anxious participants (N = 50, Study 1) and individuals meeting diagnostic criteria for generalized SAD (N = 80, Study 2) were examined. Participants were randomly assigned to either a safety behavior reduction plus exposure condition (SB + EXP) or a graduated exposure (EXP) control condition, and then took part in a conversation with a trained experimental confederate. Results revealed across both studies that participants in the SB + EXP group were less negative and more accurate in judgments of their performance following safety behavior reduction relative to EXP participants. Study 2 also demonstrated that participants in the SB + EXP group displayed lower judgments about the likelihood of negative outcomes in a subsequent social event compared to controls. Moreover, reduction in safety behaviors mediated change in participant self-judgments and future social predictions. The current findings are consistent with cognitive theories of anxiety, and support the causal role of safety behaviors in the persistence of negative social judgments in SAD.

Section snippets

Overview of current research

Two studies were conducted to examine the effect of safety behaviors on the social judgments of socially anxious students (Study 1) and individuals meeting diagnostic criteria for generalized SAD (Study 2) during controlled laboratory-based social interactions. We focused our investigation on judgments of anxiety-related behavior, as this reflects a core concern of people with SAD (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Participants were randomly assigned to either a safety behavior reduction

Participants

Participants were 50 undergraduate psychology students (33 females, 17 males) selected on the basis of their scores on the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (FNE; Watson & Friend, 1969). The FNE is a commonly used 30-item true-false screening inventory that assesses apprehension about social-evaluative situations, a central feature of SAD. Previous work has established that the FNE displays excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's α = .94–.98), good one-month test–retest reliability (r

Study 2

The primary aim of Study 2 was to examine the effect of experimentally manipulating safety behaviors on the judgments of individuals diagnosed with generalized SAD. Moreover, the current study implemented a baseline social interaction prior to the experimental manipulation in order to permit a more precise in vivo assessment of safety behaviors and to control for pre-existing differences on the dependent measures. This experimental design afforded us the opportunity to conduct a mediational

General discussion

The goal of this research was to examine the causal role of safety behaviors in the maintenance of judgmental biases associated with SAD. As predicted, participants across both studies who were instructed to eliminate safety behaviors during a social conversation were less negative and more accurate in judgments of their own social performance. Study 2 also demonstrated that the safety behavior manipulation led to reductions in judgments about the probability of anticipated negative outcomes

Summary

All in all, the results of the present research are supportive of cognitive models of SAD, which argue that safety behaviors are causally involved in the maintenance of negative judgments in SAD. Considered together, the current findings imply that the pursuit of self-protection during feared social encounters serves to maintain, rather than reduce perceived social threat (e.g., Clark, 2001, Clark and Wells, 1995, Hofmann, 2007, Rapee and Heimberg, 1997). The results also contribute to a small

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada (SSHRC) awarded to the second author, and a SSHRC doctoral fellowship awarded to the first author. We would like to thank Kristin Buhr, Carola Munoz, Jordan Maile, Christian Maile, Krista Schultz, Leili Plasencia, Eleanor Donegan, and Tenzin Gonzar for their help with data collection and management.

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