Cognitive and Perceptual Selectivity and Target Regulation of Mental Activity in Personal Evaluation Situations of Social Anxiety Disorder
Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: This article outlines modern scientific-proved models of Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) (cognitive, metacognitive, experimental and pathopsychological). Key mechanisms of SAD occurrence and maintenance are specific biases in target regulation, as well as cognitive and perceptual selectivity biases of mental activity in personal evaluation situations. The sufferers experience such cognitive and perceptual selectivity bias as self-focused attention concerns (self-perception in a situation Me as viewed by others), selective monitoring of the stimuli which threaten their social status, as well as fixing on negative aspects of a situation, and negative prediction. SAD is characterized by metacognitive attributes to anxiety as dangerous and subjectively unacceptable event which displays are evaluated by others as a sign of incompetence or inconsistency, and form the basis for rejection. For sufferers to find themselves in an awkward situation, to be mocked and humiliated are the most significant fears in the situations of personal evaluation which are trigged without their objective analysis. For sufferers participation in the evaluation situations provokes excessive focus on minor operational and technical aspects of activity. SAD is characterized by shift of attention to performance and secondary aspects of self-presentation as related to target priority: shift of motive to target and shift of target to means (What's about my voice? Are my hands shivering? Someone has smiled; Everyone sees that I've blushed). Multitasking of cognitive and perceptual activity for SAD sufferers in the evaluation situations results into fast exhaustion of voluntary attention and disorders in implementation of activity, collapse of anxiety mediation and disorganization of behaviour. Account of the given mechanisms by SAD therapy leads to most effective and consistent therapeutic outcome.
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2185324126