Implicit views of the self in social anxiety

Tanner, Rachael J., Stopa, Lusia and De Houwer, Jan (2006) Implicit views of the self in social anxiety. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44 (10), 1397-1409. (doi:10.1016/j.brat.2005.10.007).

Abstract

We investigated dysfunctional attitudes in high (N=29) and low (N=28) socially anxious participants following a social-threat activation task (being told to give a speech) using the implicit association task (IAT: [Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association task. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464–1480]) and the Social Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ: [Clark, D. M. (2001). Social Attitudes Questionnaire, revised. Unpublished manuscript, University of Oxford]). The study also looked at anticipatory thoughts about the speech using questionnaire (Social Cognitions Questionnaire (SCQ): [Wells, Stopa, & Clark (1993). The social cognitions questionnaire. Unpublished]) and think aloud methods. High socially anxious participants endorsed more negative attitudes on the SAQ. In the IAT both groups showed a bias towards associating positive words with self and negative words with other but this was weaker in the high socially anxious group than in the low. The high socially anxious group endorsed more negative thoughts about the speech on the SCQ, believed these thoughts more, and had more thoughts overall on the think-aloud task. There were no differences between the groups on the think-aloud task, but there was an interaction between level of depressive symptoms and thought valence. The results are considered in relation to other studies that have used an IAT to measure associations in social anxiety and in relation to Clark and Wells’ [(1995). A cognitive model of social phobia. In R. G. Heimberg, M. Liebowitz, D. A. Hope, & F. Schneier (Eds.), Social phobia: Diagnosis, assessment and treatment. New York: Guilford] model of social phobia.

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