Post-event processing : its role in social phobia and social anxiety

Abstract

Clark and Wells (1995) suggest that following a social situation, individuals with social phobia engage in PEP, a ‘post-mortem’ where they review the event in detail. The individual’s negative self perception influences his or her review of the social encounter and consequently performance is viewed as worse than it actually was. This results in increased feelings of anxiety and shame. The literature review examines the developing evidence base on PEP and as such research is currently limited, the review also draws on relevant evidence from other areas. Theoretical perspectives to PEP include self-focussed attention and attentional bias, imagery and the observer-perspective, interpretation bias, memory bias, rumination in depression and emotional processing. The empirical study manipulated PEP by asking participants to focus on either the positive or the negative aspects of a social situation and examined the effect on imagery, thinking, performance, appraisals, and mood in high and low socially anxious individuals. Consistent with Clark and Wells’ model, high socially anxious individuals rated their performance as worse, predicted worse performance, had more negatively valanced images, thought more about negative aspects of their performance in PEP and reported higher levels of anxiety and shame in a social situation compared to low socially anxious individuals. This study also provides a preliminary evidence to suggest that engaging in positive PEP may have beneficial effects on ratings of performance, future performance, image and impression valence and thoughts during PEP in high socially anxious participants.

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