Generalisation of the Clark and Wells cognitive model of social anxiety to children's athletic and sporting situations

Post-event rumination and social anxiety: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Post-event rumination, the extent to which one engages in persistent, detailed, and negative thinking following social situations, serves as a risk process in the pathophysiology of social anxiety. Although a substantial body of research has assessed post-event rumination and social anxiety, this literature has produced inconsistent results. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine whether the magnitude of the association between post-event rumination and social anxiety varied as a function of questionnaire and/or task utilized. We included all studies reporting a correlation between post-event rumination and social anxiety symptomatology. Fisher's z correlation coefficients were calculated through random-effect meta-analyses. Results indicated a moderate association between post-event rumination and social anxiety symptomatology (r = 0.45, p < 0.001, 95%CI [0.40-0.50]). Subgroup meta-analyses indicated that the type of questionnaire used to assess post-event rumination (Q = 44.36, df = 3, p < 0.001) and social anxiety (Q = 26.44, df = 8, p < 0.001), as well as the task conducted prior to assessing post-event rumination (Q = 14.31, df = 2, p < 0.001), influenced the effect size. This study demonstrates a moderate relation between post-event rumination and social anxiety across the anxiety spectrum, illustrating the importance of treatments specifically targeting post-event rumination. Moreover, we highlight the importance of taking care when designing studies to explore relations between post-event rumination and social anxiety.

Association between bullying victimization and post-traumatic stress disorders among Chinese adolescents: a multiple mediation model

BACKGROUND

Research that focused on the mechanisms underlying the relation between school bullying victimization and PTSD ignored the simultaneous effect of emotional and cognitive factors, which may limit our comprehensive understanding of their roles. Besides, most researchers included non-bullying victims in data analysis, and this may mask the true effect among bullying victims. The present study aimed to explore the relation between bullying victimization and PTSD, and the mediating roles of social anxiety, loneliness, and rumination, after filtering out non-bullying victims.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In April 2019, we used convenience sampling to recruit 5013 students from Grade 10 and 11 in two high schools in Anhui Province, China. The mean age of these students was 16.77 (SD = 0.92) years. They completed five self-report questionnaires including the Delaware Bullying Victimization Scale-Student Chinese Revision (DBVS-S), the modified PTSD Checklist, the Social Anxiety Scale, the Adolescent Loneliness Scale, and the Rumination Scale. Further, a total of 443 bullying victims were screened out for this study according to the critical score of the DBVS-S.

RESULTS

The results showed that bullying victimization had a direct and positive association with PTSD among adolescents (β = 0.16, 95%CI: 0.046-0.252). Bullying victimization was positively associated with PTSD through increasing adolescents' social anxiety (β = 0.06, 95%CI: 0.017-0.105), as well as through increasing their loneliness (β = 0.16, 95%CI: 0.109-0.215). In addition, bullying victimization was positively associated with PTSD through social anxiety via loneliness (β = 0.04, 95%CI: 0.013-0.067), as well as through loneliness via rumination (β = 0.02, 95%CI: 0.003-0.033). Bullying victimization was also positively associated with PTSD through a three-step path from social anxiety to rumination via loneliness (β = 0.004, 95%CI: 0.001-0.009).

CONCLUSIONS

Social anxiety, loneliness, and rumination have important mediating effects in the relation between bullying victimization and adolescents' PTSD, in which emotional factors (e.g., social anxiety, loneliness) are more crucial than cognitive factors (e.g., rumination). Intervention should pay more attention to timely alleviate victims' emotional problems to reduce the risk of developing PTSD.

Development of social anxiety cognition scale for college students: Basing on Hofmann's model of social anxiety disorder

Introduction

To develop the Chinese version of the Social Anxiety Cognition Scale for College Students (SACS-CS) based on Hofmann's model of social anxiety disorder and examine its reliability and validity.

Methods

Based on literature analysis and structured interviews, a theoretical model was constructed and behavioral examples were collected. According to the results of participants' and experts' evaluations, the initial SACS-CS was developed. The study data were collected from a total of 500 valid participants, randomly divided into two samples. Sample 1 (n = 200) and sample 2 (n = 300) were considered for exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), respectively. Internal reliability and validity were examined using all 500 participants, and temporal reliability was established using sample 3 (n = 70), who completed the scale again after 4 weeks.

Results

The SACS-CS consists of 21 items, grouped under four factors: self-perception, social skills, emotional control, and cost estimation. The four-factor model fits well. The internal consistency coefficient of the scale and the four factors ranged from 0.87 to 0.96, and the test-retest reliability ranged from 0.76 to 0.84. The scores of the scale and the four factors were significantly correlated with the score of the Interaction Anxiousness Scale (r = 0.54-0.64).

Discussion

The SACS-CS possesses good reliability and validity and can be applied in the cognitive assessment of college students' social anxiety. The scale could help people with different social anxiety disorder conditions receive more personalized interventions.

Social anxiety disorder in children: investigating the relative contribution of automatic thoughts, repetitive negative thinking and metacognitions

BACKGROUND

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is common in youths. However, our understanding of SAD in children is inferior to that of SAD in adolescents or adults, and it is unclear if known adult SAD maintenance mechanisms may also operate in children with SAD.

AIM

The paper sets out to investigate the specificity of positive automatic thoughts, social threat negative automatic thoughts, repetitive negative thinking, positive and negative metacognitions in predicting SAD symptoms and diagnoses in clinically anxious children.

METHOD

We enrolled 122 clinically anxious children aged 7-13 years; of these, 33 had an SAD diagnosis.

RESULTS

SAD symptoms correlated positively with social threat negative automatic thoughts, repetitive negative thinking, and negative metacognitions, and negatively with positive automatic thoughts. Linear regression indicated that, of these variables, only social threat negative automatic thoughts predicted social anxiety symptoms. Logistic regression indicated that social threat negative automatic thoughts, a higher number of diagnoses and negative metacognitive beliefs specifically predicted the presence of SAD diagnosis.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that content-specific social threat negative automatic thoughts was the only variable that specifically distinguished both higher levels of social anxiety symptoms and diagnoses.

Utilizing storytelling to promote emotional well-being of children with a distinct physical appearance: The case of children who wear eyeglasses

This study explored the effectiveness of storytelling in supporting children with unusual physical traits. Participants were forty-eight children, aged 9 – 12 who, due to various eye diseases, wear eyeglasses. They completed various standardized self-report measures, both before and after participation, in one of the six intervention groups. The measures assessed shyness and social anxiety symptoms, loneliness and social dissatisfaction, perception of negative evaluation, satisfaction with one’s appearance, and anxiety regarding physical appearance. The intervention consisted of six 90-min group sessions and included both individual and group activities. The results lend support to the hypothesis that storytelling can significantly contribute to the emotional well-being of children, with a distinct physical appearance.