In the absence of rose-colored glasses: ratings of self-attributes and their differential certainty and importance across multiple dimensions in social phobia.
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.
Moscovitch
David A
DA
Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. dmosco@uwaterloo.ca
Orr
Elizabeth
E
Rowa
Karen
K
Reimer
Susanna Gehring
SG
Antony
Martin M
MM
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