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Social phobia and interpretation of social events

Social phobia and interpretation of social events
Social phobia and interpretation of social events
It has been suggested that social phobia may be characterized by two interpretation biases. First, a tendency to interpret ambiguous social events in a negative fashion. Second, a tendency to interpret unambiguous but mildly negative social events in a catastrophic fashion. To assess this possibility, patients with generalized social phobia, equally anxious patients with another anxiety disorder, and non-patient controls were presented with ambiguous scenarios depicting social and non-social events, and with unambiguous scenarios depicting mildly negative social events. Interpretations were assessed by participants' answers to open-ended questions and by their rankings and belief ratings for experimenter-provided, alternative explanations. Compared to both control groups, patients with generalized social phobia were more likely to interpret ambiguous social events in a negative fashion and to catastrophize in response to unambiguous, mildly negative social events.
social phobia, anxiety, phobia, interpretation
0005-7967
273-283
Stopa, Lusia
b52f29fc-d1c2-450d-b321-68f95fa22c40
Clark, David M.
d5fe9320-6905-4beb-a968-4443257819e4
Stopa, Lusia
b52f29fc-d1c2-450d-b321-68f95fa22c40
Clark, David M.
d5fe9320-6905-4beb-a968-4443257819e4

Stopa, Lusia and Clark, David M. (2000) Social phobia and interpretation of social events. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 38 (3), 273-283. (doi:10.1016/S0005-7967(99)00043-1).

Record type: Article

Abstract

It has been suggested that social phobia may be characterized by two interpretation biases. First, a tendency to interpret ambiguous social events in a negative fashion. Second, a tendency to interpret unambiguous but mildly negative social events in a catastrophic fashion. To assess this possibility, patients with generalized social phobia, equally anxious patients with another anxiety disorder, and non-patient controls were presented with ambiguous scenarios depicting social and non-social events, and with unambiguous scenarios depicting mildly negative social events. Interpretations were assessed by participants' answers to open-ended questions and by their rankings and belief ratings for experimenter-provided, alternative explanations. Compared to both control groups, patients with generalized social phobia were more likely to interpret ambiguous social events in a negative fashion and to catastrophize in response to unambiguous, mildly negative social events.

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More information

Published date: 2000
Keywords: social phobia, anxiety, phobia, interpretation

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 40248
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/40248
ISSN: 0005-7967
PURE UUID: 2934a78e-8622-4e65-ba0f-270df1c06446

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Date deposited: 18 Jul 2006
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 08:18

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Contributors

Author: Lusia Stopa
Author: David M. Clark

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