Skip to main content
Log in

Do Socially Anxious Children Show Deficits in Classifying Facial Expressions of Emotions?

  • Published:
Journal of Nonverbal Behavior Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Studies with socially anxious adults suggest that social anxiety is associated with problems in decoding other persons' facial expressions of emotions. Corresponding studies with socially anxious children are lacking. The aim of the present study was to test whether socially phobic children show deficits in classifying facial expressions of emotions or show a response bias for negative facial expressions. Fifty socially anxious and 25 socially non-anxious children (age 8 to 12) participated in the study. Pictures of faces with either neutral, positive (joyful) or negative (angry, disgusted, sad) facial expressions (24 per category) were presented for 60 ms on a monitor screen in random order. The children were asked to indicate by pressing a key whether the facial expression was neutral, positive, or negative, and to rate how confident they were about their classification. With regard to frequency of errors the socially anxious children reported significantly more often that they saw emotions when neutral faces were presented. Moreover, reaction times were longer. However, they did not feel less certain about their performance. There is neither an indication of an enhanced ability to decode negative facial expressions in socially anxious children, nor was there a specific tendency to interpret neutral or positive faces as negative.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Asmundson, G. J. G. & Stein, M. B. (1994). Selective attention for social threat in patients with generalized social phobia: Evaluation using a dot-probe paradigm. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 8, 107–117.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barrett, P. M., Rapee, R. M., Dadds, M. M. & Ryan, S. M. (1996). Family enhancement of the cognitive style in anxious and aggressive children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 24, 187–203.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beidel, D. C. & Morris, T. L. (1995). Social Phobia. In J. S. March (Ed.), Anxiety disorders in children and adolescents (pp. 181–211). New York: The Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beidel, D. C., Turner, S. M. & Morris, T. L. (1995). A new inventory to assess childhood social anxiety and phobia: The social phobia and anxiety inventory for children. Psychological Assessment, 7, 73–79.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bell-Dolan, D. J. (1995). Social cue interpretation of anxious children. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 24, 1–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Camras, L. A. (unpublished). Pictures of facial expressions of emotion and neutral faces from children. Department of Psychology, DePaul University, Chicago, IL.

  • Clark, B. M., Siddle, D. A. T. & Bond, N. W. (1992). Effects of social anxiety and facial expression on habituation of the electrodermal orienting response. Biological Psychology, 33, 211–223.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, D. M. (1998). Social anxiety: Cognitive Processes and treatment. Paper presented on the 28th Congress of the European Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, Cork.

  • Clark, D. M. & Wells, A. (1995). A cognitive model of social phobia. In R. G. Heimberg, M. R. Liebowitz, D. A. Hope & F. R. Schneier (Eds.), Social phobia: Diagnosis, assessment, and treatment (pp. 69–93). New York: The Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dimberg, U. (1997). Social fear and expressive reactions to social stimuli. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 38, 171–174.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dimberg, U. & Christmanson, L. (1991). Facial reactions to facial expressions in subjects high and low in public speaking fear. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 32, 246–253.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dimberg, U., Frederikson, M & Lundquist, O. (1986). Autonomic reactions to social and neutral stimuli in subjects high and low in public speaking fear. Biological Psychology, 23, 223–233.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P. & Friesen, W. V. (1978). The facial action code: A manual for the measurement of facial movement. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P. & Friesen, W. V. (1984). Unmasking the face. Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P. & Friesen, W. V. (1986). A new pan-cultural facial expression of emotion. Motivation and Emotion, 10, 159–168.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P., Roper, G. & Hager, J. C. (1980). Deliberate facial movement. Child Development, 51, 886–891.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hope, D. A., Rapee, R. M., Heimberg, R. G. & Dombeck, M. J. (1990). Representations of the self in social phobia: Vulnerability to social threat. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 14, 117–189.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kendall, P. C. & Chansky, T. E. (1991). Considering cognition in anxiety-disordered children. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 5, 167–185.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kendall, P. C. & Ronan, K. R. (1990). Assessment of children's anxieties, fears and phobias. Cognitive-behavioral models and methods. In C. R. Reynolds & K. W. Kamphaus (Eds.), Handbook of psychological and educational assessment of children (pp. 223–244). New York: Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • LaGreca, A. M., Dandes, S. K., Wick, P., Shaw, K. & Stone, W. L. (1988). Development of the social anxiety scale for children: Reliability and concurrent validity. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 17, 84–91.

    Google Scholar 

  • LaGreca, A. M. & Stone, W. L. (1993). Social anxiety scale for children-revised: Factor structure and concurrent validity. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 22, 17–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lavy, E. & van den Hout, M. (1993). Selective attention evidenced by pictorial and linguistic stroop tasks. Behavior Therapy, 24, 645–657.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leary, M. R. (1986). Affective and behavioral components of shyness. In W. H. Jones, J. M. Cheeks & S. R. Briggs (Eds.), Shyness: Perspectives on research and treatment (pp. 27–38). New York: Plenum.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacLeod, C. & Mathews, A. (1988). Anxiety and allocation of attention to threat. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 40, 653–670.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacLeod, C., Mathews, A., & Tata, P. (1986). Attentional bias in emotional disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95, 15.20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, M., Horder, P. & Jones, G. V. (1992). Integral bias in naming of phobia-related words. Cognition and Emotion, 6, 479–486.

    Google Scholar 

  • Matsumoto, D. & Ekman, P. (1988). Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion (JACFEE) and Japanese and Caucasian Neutral Faces (JACNeuF). Intercultural and Emotion Research Laboratory, Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132.

    Google Scholar 

  • Melfsen, S. (1998). Die deutsche Fassung der Social Anxiety Scale Revised (SASC-R-D): Psychometrische Eigenschaften und Normierung. Diagnostica, 44, 1–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Melfsen, S. & Florin, I. (1997). Die Social Anxiety Scale for Children Revised. Deutschsprachige Version (SASC-R-D). Ein Fragebogen zur Erfassung sozialer Angst bei Kindern. Kindheit und Entwicklung, 6, 224–229.

    Google Scholar 

  • Melfsen, S., Florin, I. & Warnke, A. (2001). SPAIK-Sozialphobie und-angstinventar für Kinder. Göttingen: Hogrefe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merckelbach, H., van Hout, W., van den Hout, M. A. & Mersch, P. P. (1989). Psychophysiological and subjective reactions of social phobics and normals to facial stimuli. Behavior Research and Therapy, 27, 289–294.

    Google Scholar 

  • Messer, S. (1970). The effect of anxiety over intellectual performance on reflection-impulsivity. Child Development, 41, 723–735.

    Google Scholar 

  • Öhman, A. (1986). Face the beast and fear the face: Animal and social fears as prototypes for evolutionary analyses of emotion. Psychophysiology, 23, 123–145.

    Google Scholar 

  • Öhman, A., Dimberg, U. & Öst, L.-G. (1985). Animal and social phobics: Biological constraints to learned fear responses. In S. Reiss & R. R. Bootzin (Eds.), Theoretical issues in behavior therapy (pp. 123–175). New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pozo, C., Carver, C. S., Wellens, A. R. & Scheier, M. F. (1991). Social anxiety and social perception: Construing others' reactions to the self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 355–362.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubin, K. H. (1985). Socially withdrawn children: An at-risk population? In B. Schneider, K. H. Rubin & J. Ledingham (Eds.), Children's peer relations: Issues in assessment and intervention (pp. 125–139). New York: Springer Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell, J. A., & Fernandez-Dols, J. M. (1997). The psychology of facial expression. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silverman, W. K. & Nelles, W. B. (1988). The Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 27, 772–778.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stopa, L. & Clark, D. M. (1993). Cognitive processes in social phobia. Behavior Research and Therapy, 31, 255–267.

    Google Scholar 

  • Unnewehr, S., Schneider, S. & Margraf, J. (1995). Diagnostisches Interview Psychischer Störungen im Kindes-und Jugendalter. Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vasey, M. W. (1993). Development and cognition in childhood anxiety: The example of worry. In T. Ollendick & R. Prinz (Eds.), Advances in clinical child psychology (Vol. 15, pp. 1–39). New York: Plenum Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vasey, M. W. & Daleiden, E. L. (1996). Information-processing pathways to cognitive interference in childhood. In I. G. Sarason, G. R. Pierce, B. R. Sarason (Eds.), Cognitive interference: Theories, methods, and findings (pp. 117–138). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vasey, M. W., Daleiden, E. L., Williams, L. L. & Brown, L. (1995). Biased attention in childhood anxiety disorders: A preliminary study. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 23, 267–279.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vasey, M. W., El-Hag, N. & Daleiden, E. L. (1996). Anxiety and the processing of emotionally threatening stimuli: Distinctive patterns of selective attention among high-and low-testanxious children. Child Development, 67, 1173–1185.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winton, E. C., Clark, D. M. & Edelmann, R. J. (1995). Social anxiety, fear of negative evaluation and the detection of negative emotion in others. Behavior Research and Therapy, 33, 193–196.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yuen, P. K. (1994). Social anxiety and the allocation of attention: Evaluation using facial stimuli in a dot-probe paradigm. Unpublished research project, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK. From D. M. Clark & A. Wells (1995). A cognitive model of social phobia. In R. G. Heimberg, M. R. Liebowitz, D. A. Hope & F. R. Schneier (Eds.), Social phobia: Diagnosis, assessment, and treatment (pp. 69–93). New York: The Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Siebke Melfsen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Melfsen, S., Florin, I. Do Socially Anxious Children Show Deficits in Classifying Facial Expressions of Emotions?. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 26, 109–126 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015665521371

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015665521371

Navigation