Interpretive and Memory Biases in Social Phobia

1
Interpretive and Memory Biases in Social
Phobia Faith Brozovich1, Jutta Joormann1, Michael
Hipolito1, Paula T. Hertel2, and Ian H.
Gotlib1 1Stanford University 2 Trinity University
Procedure

• INTRODUCTION
• Social Phobia is characterized by a fear of
  performance situations, such as speaking, eating,
  writing or socializing with others. The
  individual often feels embarrassed and/or
  experiences physical symptoms in the situations
  and consequently adapts a series of avoidance
  behaviors.
• Clark and Wells model (1995) proposes
• - Social Phobics (SPs) perceive social
  situations in a threatening manner
• - SPs begin forming interpretive biases about
  future social situations
• - SPs interpretive memory biases lead to
  greater anticipatory anxiety
• - When faced with a social situation, SPs
  anxiety increases biases are
• activated
• The literature on memory biases in SP has
  demonstrated mixed results, most likely

RESULTS cont. Hypothesis 3 Social anxiety
interpretations are related to remembering more
detail for those ambiguous social
scenarios. Correlation Average of idea units
for social scenarios / average of social
anxiety ratings.
r .248(), p .048

• DISCUSSION
• Hypothesis 1
• The present results indicate that socially
  anxious individuals tend to interpret social
  situations in a socially anxious or negative
  manner, compared to nonsocial situations. In
  contrast, CTLs tend to interpret both nonsocial
  and social situations in neutral manner.
• Hypothesis 2
• Socially anxious individuals remembered more
  detail about the social scenarios than about the
  nonsocial scenarios. The control participants
  showed the opposite pattern.
• Hypothesis 3
• A socially anxious interpretation of an
  ambiguous social scenario is directly related to
  remembering more detail about that scenario.

RESULTS Note 3 independent raters coded the the
participants responses. Raters coded
interpretations as either socially anxious,
anxious, other negative, neutral or positive.
Number of idea units was defined as the number of
independent ideas presented in the last 2
sentences of the scenario. Each scenario
consisted of 5 idea units total.

Hypothesis 1 Individuals
diagnosed with Social Phobia (SP) interpret
social scenarios as more threatening than do
non-anxious control (CTL) participants.


Type X Group X Interpretation
p
a more socially anxious manner, p
less neutral manner, p
social nonsocial scenarios in a more neutral
manner, p
2 SPs have better recall for social than for
nonsocial scenarios, compared to CTLs.



Type X Group,
p.016



SPs have more
detailed memory for social scenarios.

• CONCLUSIONS
• The present study supports Clark Wells model
  SPs have an interpretive bias for ambiguous
  social scenarios.
• It also goes one step further highlighting that
  there is a direct relationship between the
  socially anxious interpretation and the detail of
  the memory.

• PRIMARY HYPOTHESES TESTED IN THIS STUDY
• Hypothesis 1
• Individuals diagnosed with Social Phobia (SP)
  interpret social scenarios as more threatening
  than do non-anxious control (CTL) participants.
• Hypothesis 2
• SPs have better recall for social than for
  nonsocial scenarios, compared to CTLs.
• Hypothesis 3
• Social anxiety interpretations are related to
  remembering more detail for those social
  scenarios.

REFERENCES Clark, D. M. Wells, A. (1995). A
cognitive model of social phobia. In Heimberg R.,
Liebowitz M., Hope D.A., Schneider F. R.,
editors. Social Phobia Diagnosis, Assessment and
Treatment. New York. Guildford Press,
69-93. Matthews, A. Mackintosh, B. (2000).
Induced emotional interpretation bias and
anxiety. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 109((4),
602-615.
METHOD  Participants 32 SPs Diagnosed with the
SCID Mean SPAI133.4 Mean Age 31.4 years 20
F, 12 M 59 college grad 32 CTLs Diagnosed with
the SCID Mean SPAI 45.2 Mean Age 34.9
years 20 F, 12 M 75 college grad
This research was supported by National Institute
of Mental Health grant MH59259 awarded to Ian H.
Gotlib.