title: Young people with higher social anxiety are less likely to adopt the perspective of another: Data from the Director task.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Young people with social anxiety display poor social functioning but it is unclear whether this is underscored by difficulties in key social cognitive abilities, such as perspective taking. Here, we examined whether increased social anxiety is associated with reduced accuracy on a perspective taking task and whether this relationship is stronger at particular periods within adolescence.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fifty-nine adolescents aged 11-19 years completed the computerised Director Task (DT) and the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescence. In the DT, participants virtually move objects by following either instructions given by the 'Director' (who can see only some objects), or a simple rule to ignore certain objects.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Participants who scored above the clinical cut-off for social anxiety (n = 17) were less accurate when they had to take the perspective of the Director into account than those scoring below cut-off, yet performed similarly on control trials. Preliminary analysis indicated that poorer performance was most strongly associated with social anxiety in mid-adolescence (14-16.5 years).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The DT has been used previously to measure online perspective taking but the underlying cognitive mechanisms have not been fully elucidated. Extending these findings using additional measures of perspective taking would be valuable.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Adolescents with higher social anxiety were less accurate at taking the perspective of a computerised character, with some suggestion that this relationship is strongest during mid-adolescence. If replicated, these findings highlight the importance of addressing specific social cognitive abilities in the assessment and treatment of adolescent social anxiety.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Victoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Pile
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: Simone P W
authors.initials: SPW
authors.lastname: Haller
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: Chii Fen
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Hiu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK. Electronic address: jennifer.lau@kcl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Jennifer Y F
authors.initials: JYF
authors.lastname: Lau
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D000072861:Phobia, Social / Q000523:psychology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012917:Social Adjustment; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adolescent; Cognition; Mental health; Social anxiety; Social perception; Social skills