Social phobia in children and adolescents : the role of interpretative biases in maintaining social anxiety

Abstract

The literature review provides an introduction into social phobia in children and adolescents.  Whilst are understanding of social phobia in adults is becoming increasingly complex, research into the disorder and how it presents in childhood is far less developed.  The review starts with a description of the disorder and its clinical presentation.  In the absence of a specific model to explain the maintenance of the disorder in childhood the review then investigates whether adult models can be usefully applied to children and adolescents.  Based upon the empirical literature suggestions for how the models may be adapted for a younger population are made.

Cognitive models of social anxiety propose that two situation-specific interpretative biases play a pivotal role in maintaining social anxiety (Clark and Well, 1995;  Rapee and Heimberg, 1997).  Namely, individuals with social anxiety are more likely than non-socially anxious individuals to interpret ambiguous social situations negatively and to interpret mildly negative social events in a catastrophe fashion (Beck, Emery and Greenberg, 1985).  Within the adult literature these biases are supported (Stopa and Clark, 2000), however, the operation of these interpretative biases are yet to be confirmed in children and adolescents.  The empirical paper reports the findings of a study conducted to determine whether social anxiety in adolescents is associated with the interpretative biases outlined above.  The results suggest that similar cognitive processes underlie the disorder in adolescents and in adults and help to justify the downward extension of cognitive models to a younger population.

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