Attentional and interpretation biases in social phobia
Year: 2006
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Recent cognitive theories of social phobia suggest that the enduring nature of the disorder may result from the biased processing of information within feared social situations. It is important for health care professionals involved in treatment of social phobia to understand the information processing biases which maintain this disorder, in order to guide interventions. This thesis critically reviews models of threat processing in anxiety (e.g., Mogg & Bradley, 1998), cognitive models of social phobia (Clark & McManus, 2002); Rapee & Heimberg, 1997) and empirical evidence of information processing biases in anxiety disorders. Specific predictions regarding selective attention to stimuli of varying emotional intensity and interpretation of ambiguity in social phobia are examined. In the present study individuals with a diagnosis of generalised social phobia, and non-socially phobic controls completed a modified visual probe task that measured attention allocation to angry, happy and fearful expressions of varying emotion intensities (25%, 50%, 75% 100%). Participants subsequently classified ambiguous emotional faces blended from two component prototype emotional expressions: angry-happy, happy-fear and fear-angry. Measures of emotion recognition accuracy and response bias were computed for each of the three emotion-combinations. Individuals with social phobia demonstrated a significant attentional bias towards expressions of strong (100%) emotional content, irrespective of type of emotion, relative to controls. However, the social phobia and control groups did not differ in their sensitivity to correctly classify ambiguous expressions, or in their tendency to classify a presented face as angry, happy or fearful. Findings are considered in light of evidence from other studies of attention and interpretive bias, and possible implications for models of threat processing are discussed.
Author: Littler, Sophie
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7026699218