Self-evaluations in social anxiety: The combined role of explicit and implicit social-rank

Mutual eye gaze and vocal pitch in relation to social anxiety and depression: A virtual interaction task

BACKGROUND

Individuals with high social interaction anxiety (SIA) and depression often behave submissively in social settings. Few studies have simultaneously examined the associations between objectively assessed submissive behaviors and SIA or depression, despite their high comorbidity and unknown mechanisms regarding submissiveness.

METHODS

A sample of 45 young adults self-reported trait SIA and depression, state positive/negative affect (PA/NA) before and after a virtual social interaction. Participants engaged in a four-minute conversation with a confederate who was trained to behave neutrally. Mutual eye gaze, via eye-tracking, and vocal pitch were assessed throughout the interaction.

RESULTS

Depression and SIA were positively correlated with NA, poorer self-rated performance, and vocal pitch. Highly socially anxious women engaged in less mutual eye gaze than highly socially anxious men. Also, vocal pitch was inversely associated with mutual eye gaze and positively related to NA and (nonsignificantly) to self-ratings of poor performance. Finally, our data partially replicated past research on the use of vocal pitch during social stress to detect social anxiety disorder.

LIMITATIONS

The current sample is relatively homogenous in educational attainment, age, and race. All research confederates were women. Future research should examine whether these archival data replicate with the latest telecommunication technologies.

CONCLUSION

Our findings highlight nuanced relationships among SIA, depression, emotions, self-perceptions, and biobehavioral indicators of submissive behavior-in response to an ambiguously negative/positive social interaction. Sex/gender may interact with these effects, emphasizing considerations for research method designs.

Vulnerabilities in social anxiety: Integrating intra- and interpersonal perspectives

What are the major vulnerabilities in people with social anxiety? What are the most promising directions for translational research pertaining to this condition? The present paper provides an integrative summary of basic and applied translational research on social anxiety, emphasizing vulnerability factors. It is divided into two subsections: intrapersonal and interpersonal. The intrapersonal section synthesizes research relating to (a) self-representations and self-referential processes; (b) emotions and their regulation; and (c) cognitive biases: attention, interpretation and judgment, and memory. The interpersonal section summarizes findings regarding the systems of (a) approach and avoidance, (b) affiliation and social rank, and their implications for interpersonal impairments. Our review suggests that the science of social anxiety and, more generally, psychopathology may be advanced by examining processes and their underlying content within broad psychological systems. Increased interaction between basic and applied researchers to diversify and elaborate different perspectives on social anxiety is necessary for progress.

Can an Universal School-Based Social Emotional Learning Program Reduce Adolescents' Social Withdrawal and Social Anxiety?

There is a lack of studies analyzing if universal school-based Social and Emotional Learning programs can reduce social withdrawal and social anxiety. This study analyzed the effectiveness of one such program on those variables, and the role of individual school climate perceptions. In this nationwide study, 704 seventh to eighth-grade Portuguese students (Mage = 12.96, SD = 1.09, 48% girls), of which 215 (30.6%) in the comparison group, were assessed at pretest, post-test, and follow-up seven months later. Analyses showed positive intervention results in self- and teacher-reported social withdrawal and social anxiety. Regarding school climate, intervention group students with more positive teacher-student relationships benefitted more from program participation in social anxiety. These results support the program's effectiveness for addressing social withdrawal and social anxiety.

Self-evaluation of social-rank in socially anxious individuals associates with enhanced striatal reward function

BACKGROUND

Negative self-views, especially in the domain of power (i.e. social-rank), characterize social anxiety (SA). Neuroimaging studies on self-evaluations in SA have mainly focused on subcortical threat processing systems. Yet, self-evaluation may concurrently invoke diverse affective processing, as motivational systems related to desired self-views may also be activated. To investigate the conflictual nature that may accompany self-evaluation of certain social domains in SA, we examined brain activity related to both threat and reward processing.

METHODS

Participants (N = 74) differing in self-reported SA-severity underwent fMRI while completing a self-evaluation task, wherein they judged the self-descriptiveness of high- v. low-intensity traits in the domains of power and affiliation (i.e. social connectedness). Participants also completed two auxiliary fMRI tasks designated to evoke reward- and threat-related activations in the ventral striatum (VS) and amygdala, respectively. We hypothesized that self-evaluations in SA, particularly in the domain of power, involve aberrant brain activity related to both threat and reward processing.

RESULTS

SA-severity was more negatively associated with power than with affiliation self-evaluations. During self-evaluative judgment of high-power (e.g. dominant), SA-severity associated with increased activity in the VS and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Moreover, SA-severity correlated with higher similarity between brain activity patterns activated by high-power traits and patterns activated by incentive salience (i.e. reward anticipation) in the VS during the reward task.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings indicate that self-evaluation of high-power in SA involves excessive striatal reward-related activation, and pinpoint the downregulation of VS-VMPFC activity within such self-evaluative context as a potential neural outcome for therapeutic interventions.

Trait Depression and Subjective Well-Being: The Chain Mediating Role of Community Feeling and Self-Compassion

Although subjective well-being has been widely discussed as being one of the important indicators of clinical depression, few studies have explored how it relates to trait depression. In particular, increasing the number of positive experiences has long been a potential goal for depression-related clinical interventions, but the mechanisms by which such interventions work in countering depression have been poorly studied. Grounded in the cognitive theory of depression, the current study aimed to address this specific gap by testing the mediating effects of community feeling and self-compassion between trait depression and subjective well-being. A survey of 783 college students found that trait depression was not only able to directly and negatively predict individual subjective well-being but also indirectly predict individual subjective well-being through the mediating role of community feeling and self-compassion alone and through the chain mediating role of self-compassion from community feeling. These findings reveal the internal mechanisms of trait depression that, to some extent, impede subjective well-being and offer certain guiding significance for the self-regulation of interventions for clinical and non-clinical individuals with trait depression.

Peer attachment and self-esteem mediate the relationship between family function and social anxiety in migrant children in China

BACKGROUND

Social anxiety is a frequently reported symptom in children and adolescents. The literature suggests that family function is related to symptoms of social anxiety in children. However, relatively little is known about the potential mechanisms underlying the relationship between family function and social anxiety. Thus, the purpose of the present study is to examine the roles of peer attachment and self-esteem in the relationship between family function and social anxiety in a sample of migrant children in China.

METHODS

A total of 437 participants (54.9% male; meanage  = 10.87 years) were selected from two public schools of migrant children in two areas of Hangzhou and Jiaxing, the major labor-importing cities in China, in May 2016. All participants completed four questionnaires assessing family function, peer attachment, self-esteem, and social anxiety.

RESULTS

The results showed that family function was bivariately and significantly related to symptoms of social anxiety. Additionally, self-esteem fully mediated the relationship between family function and social anxiety peer attachment. Moreover, the relationship between family function and social anxiety was fully mediated by peer attachment and self-esteem (in that order).

CONCLUSIONS

Peer attachment and self-esteem serve as critical pathways linking family function and social anxiety. Thus, tailored interventions should consider the roles of peer attachment and self-esteem to alleviate symptoms of social anxiety in migrant children.

Make “Incongruent” to Be “Excellent”: Fluid Compensation in Extremely Incongruent New Products

Under fierce market competition, firms are accelerating the pace of product innovation, which may bring extremely incongruent new products. Generally, consumers are unfamiliar with extreme incongruence, resulting in passive product evaluation and a low success rate. This study draws on the meaning maintenance model of fluid compensation theory to examine how extremely incongruent new products influence product evaluation. Three experiments indicate that consumers’ product evaluation of extremely incongruent new products is significantly lower than that of congruent products, and it can be notably improved by three ways of fluid compensation. The findings revealed that anxiety moderates the relationship between extremely incongruent new products and product evaluations, and further self-esteem moderates the relationship on the main effects. Overall, our research reconciles divergent findings on the effect of extremely incongruent new products on the effects of product evaluation and further provides rich managerial implications for product innovation management.

Exploring the perceived negative and positive long-term impact of adolescent bullying victimization: A cross-national investigation

Adolescent bullying victimization can have long‐term mental health and well‐being outcomes. This study focused on the potential mediating role of the perceived long‐term negative and positive impact of adolescent bullying victimization to understand its relations with mental health and well‐being problems during emerging adulthood. A retrospective study consisting of closed and open‐ended questions was conducted among 1010 Flemish and 650 Dutch emerging adults aged 18–26. Path analyses among early victims (N_Flemish = 644; N_Dutch = 217) demonstrated that the relations between bullying victimization intensity and current self‐esteem, social interaction anxiety, and life satisfaction were all mediated by the perceived negative long‐term impact of adolescent bullying victimization. Additionally, the open‐ended questions provided a better understanding of the perceived negative and positive impact of adolescent bullying victimization. The present study offers insights into the importance of considering subjective perceptions of the overall impact of being bullied to understand long‐term bullying victimization outcomes. Implications and limitations are discussed, including the need for longitudinal data—for instance, a three‐wave panel study—to establish the temporal order of effects.

Not intended, still embarrassed: Social anxiety is related to increased levels of embarrassment in response to unintentional social norm violations

Background:

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is associated with altered social norm (SN) processing: SAD-patients rate stories on SN violations as more inappropriate and more embarrassing than healthy participants, with the most prominent effect for stories on unintentional SN violations (i.e. committing a blunder). Until now it’s unknown how levels of social anxiety (SA) are related to ratings of SN violations in the general population, in which SA-symptoms are present at a continuum. More insight in this relationship could improve our understanding of the symptom profile of SAD. Therefore, we investigated the relation between ratings of SN violations and SA-levels in the general population.

Methods:

Adults and adolescents (n = 87) performed the revised Social Norm Processing Task (SNPT-R) and completed self-report questionnaires on social anxiety. Repeated-measures ANCOVAs were used to investigate the effect of SA on the ratings of inappropriateness and embarrassment.

Results:

As hypothesized, participants with higher SA-levels rated SN violations as more inappropriate and more embarrassing. Whereas participants with low-to-intermediate SA-levels rated unintentional SN violations as less embarrassing than intentional SN violations, participants with high SA-levels (z-score SA ≥ 1.6) rated unintentional SN violations as equally embarrassing as intentional SN violations.

Conclusion:

These findings indicate that increased embarrassment for unintentional SN violations is an important characteristic of social anxiety. These high levels of embarrassment are likely related to the debilitating concern of socially-anxious people that their skills and behavior do not meet expectations of others, and to their fear of blundering. This concern might be an important target for future therapeutic interventions.

The Focality of Sexual Trauma and Its Effects on Women’s Symptoms and Self-Perceptions

Sexual trauma is associated with particularly harmful consequences in comparison to other types of trauma. Studies investigating differences between trauma-types usually focus on the most distressing (i.e., main) trauma of each participant and do not consider the cumulative effects of multiple traumas, which many individuals experience. We sought to fill this gap by examining the effects of trauma-type (sexual vs. nonsexual), as well as the focality assigned to the sexual trauma (whether it was perceived as a main vs. background trauma), on symptoms and self-perceptions. Our sample comprised 231 Jewish-Israeli women: 96 with a single trauma-type and 135 with multiple (two to three) trauma-types. Women completed online measures of trauma history, symptoms, and self-perceptions. Women who were exposed to sexual trauma reported greater symptom severity and self-perception impairments than women with a history of nonsexual trauma-type(s). Among women with multiple trauma-types, those with a main sexual trauma reported greater symptom severity and self-perception impairments than women with a background sexual trauma. When controlling for levels of posttraumatic symptoms, differences in self-perceptions ceased to be significant. Our findings highlight the importance of collecting a detailed trauma history, with attention to trauma-centrality, and of addressing various symptoms and self-perceptions among sexual trauma survivors.

Social anxiety and sensitivity to social-rank features in male faces

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Evolutionary theories propose that socially anxious individuals are especially sensitive to social-rank signals, presumably at the expense of the attunement to signals of affiliation. Despite this theoretical claim, few empirical attempts examined the association between social anxiety (SA) and sensitivity to specific features of social-rank and affiliation. This study aims to fill this gap.

METHOD

Participants (N = 67) completed two tasks in which two emotionally neutral computer-generated male faces of the same character were presented side-by-side. In the Social-Rank-Sensitivity Task, the faces within each pair differed in their level of dominance and, in the Affiliation-Sensitivity Task, the faces differed in their level of trustworthiness. The participants' task was to decide which of the two faces looked more dominant or friendly.

RESULTS

There were no differences in accuracy between high- and low-SA participants in the Affiliation-Sensitivity Task. In contrast, high-SA participants were more accurate than low-SA participants in the Social-Rank-Sensitivity Task. No group differences were found in decision latencies in either task.

LIMITATIONS

Limitations of the study are that a non-clinical sample was used and that only computer-generated male faces were considered.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that SA is related to an enhanced ability to discriminate faces based on social-rank features. Examining sensitivity to facial cues signaling social-rank and affiliation may help to specify the nature of social threat sensitivity in SA.

Social Anxiety, Depression and Close Relationship: Intra and Inter-Personal Perceptions of Social-Rank and Affiliation

The present study investigated the associations between social anxiety (SA) and depression on the one hand, and intra- and interpersonal perceptions within a friendship relationship on the other. Evolutionary theories suggest that SA is associated with impairment in the social-rank system. Recent studies suggest that depression is associated with impairment in the affiliation system. We examined whether these impairments are manifested in the positivity and accuracy of (a) self-perception; (b) meta-perception (beliefs about how the other perceives the self); and (c) other-perception (evaluations of the friend). Pairs of same-sex friends (n = 50) completed rankings pertaining to these perceptions on general, social-rank, and affiliation traits. Higher levels of SA were associated with lower self-perception positivity, lower meta-perception positivity, and lower accuracy in the social-rank domain. Moreover, higher levels of SA were associated with perceiving the friend as higher on social-rank, regardless of the friend's self-rated traits. Higher levels of depression were associated with lower affiliation and social-rank self-perception positivity, and with lower accuracy in the domain of affiliation. Our findings broaden current conceptualizations of SA and depression and highlight the importance of understanding these disorders through the lens of interpersonal relationships.