Social phobia and interpretation of social events

• 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
• ISSN: 0005-7967; 1873-622X
• DOI: 10.1016/S0005-7967(99)00043-1

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.