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 possibilit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behaviour research and therapy 2000-03, Vol.38 (3), p.273-283
Main Authors: Stopa, Lusia, Clark, David M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Anxiety
Anxiety - diagnosis
Anxiety - psychology
Anxiety disorders. Neuroses
Attitude
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Fear & phobias
Female
Humans
Interpretation
Life Change Events
Male
Medical sciences
Phobia
Phobic Disorders - diagnosis
Phobic Disorders - psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Social phobia
Social psychology
Surveys and Questionnaires
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Summary: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.
ISSN:0005-7967
1873-622X
DOI:10.1016/S0005-7967(99)00043-1