Interpretation biases in social anxiety: response generation, response selection, and self-appraisals.
Cognitive theories propose that the resolution of ambiguity is related to the maintenance of social anxiety. A sentence completion task was used to examine how individuals high (n=26) and low (n=23) in social anxiety resolve ambiguous social sentences. Individuals were asked to generate as many responses as came to mind for each sentence, and then to endorse the response that best completes the sentence. Total responses, first responses, and endorsed responses were examined separately. Results indicated that high anxious individuals had more negative and anxious responses and fewer positive and neutral responses than low anxious individuals on all sentence completion measures. In contrast, a self-report measure of interpretation bias indicated that more of negative and anxious appraisals were related to social anxiety, while positive and neutral appraisals were not. Results are discussed in terms of a multi-stage processing model of interpretation biases.
Huppert
Jonathan D
JD
Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 3535 Market St, Suite 600N, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. huppert@mail.med.upenn.edu
Pasupuleti
Radhika V
RV
Foa
Edna B
EB
Mathews
Andrew
A
D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D003071:Cognition; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012649:Self Concept; D012647:Self-Assessment; D012919:Social Behavior; D012938:Social Perception