title: Perception of control over anxiety mediates the relation between catastrophic thinking and social anxiety in social phobia.
abstract: Cognitive models of social phobia (social anxiety disorder) assume that individuals with social phobia experience anxiety in social situations in part because they overestimate the social cost associated with a potentially negative outcome of a social interaction. Some emotion theorists, on the other hand, point to the perception of control over anxiety-related symptoms as a determinant of social anxiety. In order to examine the relationship between perceived emotional control (PEC), estimated social cost (ESC), and subjective anxiety, we compared three alternative structural equation models: Model 1 assumes that PEC and ESC independently predict social anxiety; Model 2 assumes that ESC partially mediates the relationship between PEC and anxiety, and Model 3 assumes that PEC partially mediates the relationship between ESC and anxiety. We recruited 144 participants with social phobia and administered self-report measures of estimated social cost, perceived anxiety control, and social anxiety. The results support Model 3 and suggest that "costly" social situations are anxiety provoking in part because social phobic individuals perceive their anxiety symptoms as being out of control.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Boston University, 648 Beacon Street, 6th Floor, Boston, MA 02215-2002, USA. shofmann@bu.edu
authors.forename: Stefan G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Hofmann
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales