Elsevier

Computers in Human Behavior

Volume 54, January 2016, Pages 368-379
Computers in Human Behavior

Full length article
RU mad @ me? Social anxiety and interpretation of ambiguous text messages

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.08.032Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We examined young adults' interpretations of ambiguous text messages.

  • High social anxiety is associated with negative interpretations of ambiguous messages.

  • Interpretation of messages depends on the gender of both the sender and recipient.

  • Hypothetical messages from female senders were deemed more negative.

  • Messages from female senders may provoke anxiety among heterosexual men.

Abstract

Increasingly, young adults' social interactions are taking place via computer-mediated communication (CMC). Recent research suggests that socially anxious youth, in particular, may prefer interacting via CMC and show less inhibition and greater self-disclosure in such contexts. However, cognitive features of social anxiety, such as interpretation bias, have not been studied in this context. The goal of this research was to examine the phenomenon of interpretation bias (tendency to ascribe threatening interpretations to ambiguous social situations) in response to text messages. In Study 1, a new vignette measure of interpretation bias in the context of text messaging (IB-CMC) was developed and piloted with a sample of N = 215 undergraduates. This new measure displayed good psychometric properties and evidence of construct validity. For example, negative interpretation bias in CMC was associated with two established measures of interpretation bias in face-to-face situations and symptoms of social anxiety. In Study 2, the effects of sender characteristics (specifically, gender of sender) were examined in a sample of N = 353 undergraduates. Overall, participants interpreted ambiguous text messages from female senders as more negative and less benign than messages from male senders, and this effect was particularly pronounced among male participants.

Introduction

Social anxiety is characterized by distress and fear of negative evaluation in social situations (Kearney, 2005) and is associated with a host of functional impairments, including social skills deficits (Beidel and Turner, 2007, Kessler, 2003), disrupted peer relationships (Aderka et al., 2012, Biggs et al., 2011), and reduced quality of life across many domains (Wittchen, Fuetsch, Sonntag, Müler, & Liebowitz, 2000). Even at subclinical levels, social anxiety symptoms can cause significant disruptions in daily functioning (Fehm et al., 2008, Filho et al., 2010).

Biased cognitive processes are well-established factors in the development maintenance of social anxiety (e.g., Clark & Wells, 1995). The present research focused on interpretation bias, which refers to the tendency to ascribe negative interpretations to ambiguous social situations (Miers et al., 2008, Vassilopoulos and Banerjee, 2011). Such negative cognitions have been demonstrated at both clinical (Amir, Foa, & Coles, 1998) and subclinical (Huppert et al., 2003, Kanai et al., 2010, Miers et al., 2008) levels of social anxiety. The goal of the present research was to examine the phenomenon of interpretation bias in the context of computer-meditated communication (CMC) – more specifically in response to text messages.

There is some evidence to suggest that the pattern of cognitive distortions associated with anxiety may differ by gender. In a study of cognitive distortions in children and adolescents, Cannon and Weems (2010) reported that a measure of cognitive errors discriminated between anxious and nonanxious girls, but not boys. In a study of interpretation bias in Dutch adolescents, girls endorsed significantly less positive and more negative interpretations of ambiguous scenarios than did boys (Miers et al., 2008). However, results regarding gender differences in interpretation bias are inconsistent in the child and adolescent literature (Cannon & Weems, 2010), and studies of interpretation bias in adults have either neglected to examine gender differences (Amir et al., 2012, Beard and Amir, 2009, Beard and Amir, 2010, Huppert et al., 2003, Kanai et al., 2010, Stopa and Clark, 2000) or have not found significant effects of gender (Amir et al., 1998, Constans et al., 1999).

Historically, the study of cognitive bias among individuals with social anxiety has focused on face-to-face situations. However, over the last 25 years, the way that humans, and particularly young adults, interact with one another has undergone rapid and substantive change. Increasingly, young adults' social interactions are taking place in computer-mediated contexts, for example, via text messaging and online social media (Lenhart, Madden, Macgill, & Smith, 2007). Text messaging emerges as the most popular form of CMC among today's youth (Lenhart, 2012, Skierkowski and Wood, 2012). Teens and young adults report a strong preference for text messages over other forms of communication, including emails, voice calls, and even face-to-face communication (Lenhart, 2012).

Certain features of CMC may serve to alleviate feelings of social anxiety. For example, the absence of visual and auditory information may allow socially anxious youth to communicate with less self-consciousness and fewer inhibitions (Shepherd & Edelmann, 2005). The asynchronicity of CMC (i.e., the delay between message and reply) allows users more time to craft messages and may reduce the pressure to respond immediately (Chan, 2011). Indeed, recent research suggests that socially anxious youth prefer interacting via CMC, and show greater self-disclosure in such contexts (Brunet and Schmidt, 2007, Chan, 2011, High and Caplan, 2009, Shepherd and Edelmann, 2005, Stritzke et al., 2004, Valkenburg and Peter, 2011). On the other hand, the lack of nonverbal cues to emotion in CMC (e.g., facial expressions, tone of voice, body language; Riordan & Kreuz, 2010) may pose a challenge to socially anxious individuals. This feature of computer-mediated communication creates ambiguity, and has been shown to lead non-anxious people to misinterpret the tone of electronic messages (Kruger, Epley, Parker, & Ng, 2005).

However, the effect of social anxiety on ambiguous message interpretation has not yet been studied. Byron (2008) suggested that individuals higher in negative affectivity would be more likely to perceive messages as more negative than intended. Accordingly, it seems plausible that social anxiety may be associated with similar perception distortions. Just as in face-to-face communication, socially anxious individuals may be biased towards negative interpretations of ambiguous situations in CMC. Interestingly, some authors have postulated that the absence of visual and auditory cues in CMC may in fact reduce shy individuals' experience of detecting negative cues from conversation partners (Saunders and Chester, 2008, Stritzke et al., 2004). However, this proposition has received no empirical support to date. Moreover, this suggestion applies to the detection of negatively valenced nonverbal cues, and may not extend to the interpretation of ambiguous messages in a medium devoid of such cues.

The purpose of the present research was to investigate the phenomenon of interpretation bias in the novel context of CMC. Two studies were designed. The primary goal of Study 1 was to develop and validate a vignette protocol to measure interpretation bias in CMC. Items were created and refined in collaboration with two focus groups, and a pilot study was conducted to examine the factor structure, psychometric properties, and validity of the new measure. A preliminary analysis of gender differences in interpretation bias was also conducted in Study 1. Study 2 examined in more detail the effects of the gender of both the message recipient and sender on message interpretation, both in general and in interaction with social anxiety symptoms. This study tested the hypothesis that messages from opposite-gender peers would be more likely to elicit interpretation bias among heterosexual young adults.

Section snippets

Study 1: measuring interpretation bias in CMC

Interpretation bias is often measured using vignettes describing ambiguous social scenarios (e.g., “You see a group of friends having lunch, they stop talking when you approach”, Amir et al., 1998). After reading each vignette, participants are presented with two or more possible interpretations of the situation (e.g., “They are saying negative things about you”, “They just ended their conversation”), and asked either to choose one interpretation, or to rank the likelihood of each

Study 2: examining sender and recipient characteristics

Users' interpretation of an electronic message may depend on whom the message is from. For example, a message from a close friend may be interpreted very differently than one from a recent acquaintance (Byron, 2008, Kruger et al., 2005). Therefore, it is plausible that other characteristics of the sender may influence a recipient's interpretation of the same ambiguous message. Moreover, the visual anonymity inherent in CMC may lead users to rely heavily on information about group membership

Summary and concluding discussion

The goal of this research was to study the phenomenon of interpretation bias in the context of CMC. To achieve this goal, a new vignette measure of interpretation bias for text messages (IB-CMC) was first developed and piloted. Study 1 provided evidence for the factor structure, psychometric properties, and validity of the IB-CMC, and interpretation bias in CMC was shown to be related to symptoms of social anxiety. Study 2 examined sender effects on interpretation bias in CMC. Results suggested

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) scholarship and an Ontario Graduate Scholarship granted to author Kingsbury. These funding bodies had no role in study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, in the writing of the report, or in the decision to submit the article for publication.

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