title: In the absence of rose-colored glasses: ratings of self-attributes and their differential certainty and importance across multiple dimensions in social phobia.
abstract: Sixty-seven individuals with social phobia (social anxiety disorder) and 60 healthy controls rated their perceived standing relative to others on 13 self-attribute dimensions, their level of certainty concerning those standings, and the importance of each dimension. As expected, individuals with social phobia provided self-ratings that were significantly more negative than controls across all dimensions. In addition, positive self-views were equated with higher levels of certainty and importance for controls, but not for individuals with social phobia. Thus, whereas reports of control participants reflected a healthy, positive framing of self-views, the ratings of clinical participants demonstrated an orientation toward self-framing that was neither positive nor negative. Together, these novel findings shed light on the nature of self-appraisals in social anxiety. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of contemporary cognitive-behavioral models of social phobia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. dmosco@uwaterloo.ca
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Moscovitch
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Orr
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rowa
authors.forename: Susanna Gehring
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Reimer
authors.forename: Martin M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Antony
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012649:Self Concept; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D055815:Young Adult