scholarly journals Excessive deliberation in social anxiety

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay E. Hunter ◽  
Elana A. Meer ◽  
Claire M. Gillan ◽  
Ming Hsu ◽  
Nathaniel D. Daw

AbstractA goal of computational psychiatry is to ground symptoms in more fundamental computational mechanisms. Theory suggests that rumination and other symptoms in mood disorders reflect dysregulated mental simulation, a process that normally serves to evaluate candidate actions. If so, these covert symptoms should have observable consequences: excessively deliberative choices, specifically about options related to the content of rumination. In two large general population samples, we examined how symptoms of social anxiety disorder (SAD) predict choices in a socially framed reinforcement learning task, the Patent Race game. Using a computational learning model to assess learning strategy, we found that self-reported social anxiety was indeed associated with an increase in deliberative evaluation. The effect was specific to learning from a particular (“upward counterfactual”) subset of feedback, broadly matching the biased content of rumination in SAD. It was also robust to controlling for other psychiatric symptoms. These results ground the symptoms of SAD, such as overthinking and paralysis in social interactions, in well characterized neuro-computational mechanisms and offer a rare example of enhanced function in disease

2002 ◽  
Vol 53 (6) ◽  
pp. 714-718 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi M. Simon ◽  
Michael W. Otto ◽  
Nicole B. Korbly ◽  
Patricia M. Peters ◽  
Despina C. Nicolaou ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Hazeem Abeljaleel Suleiman ◽  
Sara Ahmed Elamin ◽  
Abdalaziz Awad Alobeid ◽  
Wegdan Elshame Altaib

Background: Social anxiety disorder (social phobia) is a type of anxiety disorder which is characterized by significant anxiety and discomfort about being embarrassed, humiliated, rejected, or looked down on in social interactions. Although it affects about 30% of adults worldwide at some point in their lives, lifetime social anxiety disorder affects only about 4% of the world population. People with this disorder experience extreme fear of social interactions (e.g., public speaking and meeting new people). This anxiety affects daily functions and lasts at least six months. They may also experience strong physical symptoms like rapid heart rate, nausea, vomiting, and full-blown attacks. Social phobia can be treated by a combination of psychotherapy and medical treatment (e.g., anti-anxiety, antidepressants, and beta-blockers). Methods: This study was conducted using the Arabic SPIN and a group of questions to assess the associated factors, complications, and sociodemographic determinate of social anxiety disorder and included a total of 375 medical students from different universities and educational years. Results: The overall prevalence of social anxiety disorder among our participants was 61.3%, of which 19.2% had mild, 21.6% moderate, 10.9% severe, and 9.6% had very severe SAD. There was a significant difference regarding self-esteem, academic achievement, and drug addiction between students with social phobia and students with no social phobia. Conclusion: Social phobia is quite prevalent among Sudanese medical students, particularly the severe form of the disorder with no significant gender differences. It seems to affect self-esteem and academic achievement and can be associated with drug addiction.


2016 ◽  
Vol 77 ◽  
pp. 147-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel L. Kampmann ◽  
Paul M.G. Emmelkamp ◽  
Dwi Hartanto ◽  
Willem-Paul Brinkman ◽  
Bonne J.H. Zijlstra ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Pfaller ◽  
Leon O. H. Kroczek ◽  
Bastian Lange ◽  
Raymund Fülöp ◽  
Mathias Müller ◽  
...  

Background: Exposure therapy involves exposure to feared stimuli and is considered to be the gold-standard treatment for anxiety disorders. While its application in Virtual Reality (VR) has been very successful for phobic disorders, the effects of exposure to virtual social stimuli in Social Anxiety Disorder are heterogeneous. This difference has been linked to demands on realism and presence, particularly social presence, as a pre-requisite in evoking emotional experiences in virtual social interactions. So far, however, the influence of social presence on emotional experience in social interactions with virtual agents remains unknown.Objective: We investigated the relationship between realism and social presence and the moderating effect of social presence on the relationship between agent behavior and experienced emotions in virtual social interaction.Methods: Healthy participants (N = 51) faced virtual agents showing supportive and dismissive behaviors in two virtual environments (short interactions and oral presentations). At first, participants performed five blocks of short one-on-one interactions with virtual agents (two male and two female agents per block). Secondly, participants gave five presentations in front of an audience of 16 agents. In each scenario, agent behavior was a within subjects factor, resulting in one block of neutral, two blocks of negative, and two blocks of positive agent behavior. Ratings of agent behavior (valence and realism), experience (valence and arousal), and presence (physical and social) were collected after every block. Moderator effects were investigated using mixed linear models with random intercepts. Correlations were analyzed via repeated measures correlations.Results: Ratings of valence of agent behaviors showed reliable relationships with experienced valence and less reliable relationships with experienced arousal. These relationships were moderated by social presence in the presentation scenario. Results for the interaction scenario were weaker but potentially promising for experimental studies. Variations in social presence and realism over time were correlated but social presence proved a more reliable moderator.Conclusion: Our findings emphasize the role of social presence for emotional experience in response to specific agent behaviors in virtual social interactions. While these findings should be replicated with experimental designs and in clinical samples, variability in social presence might account for heterogeneity in efficacy of virtual exposure to treat social anxiety disorder.


2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 545-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. Russell ◽  
D. S. Moskowitz ◽  
D. C. Zuroff ◽  
P. Bleau ◽  
G. Pinard ◽  
...  

BackgroundInterpersonal functioning is central to social anxiety disorder (SAD). Empirical examinations of interpersonal behaviors in individuals with SAD have frequently relied on analogue samples, global retrospective reports and laboratory observation. Moreover, research has focused on avoidance and safety behaviors, neglecting potential links between SAD and affiliative behaviors.MethodThe influence of situational anxiety and emotional security on interpersonal behaviors was examined for individuals with SAD (n=40) and matched normal controls (n=40). Participants monitored their behavior and affect in naturally occurring social interactions using an event-contingent recording procedure.ResultsIndividuals with SAD reported higher levels of submissive behavior and lower levels of dominant behavior relative to controls. Consistent with cognitive–behavioral and evolutionary theories, elevated anxiety in specific events predicted increased submissiveness among individuals with SAD. Consistent with attachment theory, elevations in event-level emotional security were associated with increased affiliative behaviors (increased agreeable behavior and decreased quarrelsome behavior) among members of the SAD group. Results were not accounted for by concurrent elevations in sadness or between-group differences in the distribution of social partners.ConclusionsThese findings are consistent with predictions based on several theoretical perspectives. Further, the present research documents naturally occurring interpersonal patterns of individuals with SAD and identifies conditions under which these individuals may view social interactions as opportunities for interpersonal connectedness.


2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia A. Saul ◽  
Xun He ◽  
Stuart Black ◽  
Fred Charles

Social anxiety disorder has been widely recognised as one of the most commonly diagnosed mental disorders. Individuals with social anxiety disorder experience difficulties during social interactions that are essential in the regular functioning of daily routines; perpetually motivating research into the aetiology, maintenance and treatment methods. Traditionally, social and clinical neuroscience studies incorporated protocols testing one participant at a time. However, it has been recently suggested that such protocols are unable to directly assess social interaction performance, which can be revealed by testing multiple individuals simultaneously. The principle of two-person neuroscience highlights the interpersonal aspect of social interactions that observes behaviour and brain activity from both (or all) constituents of the interaction, rather than analysing on an individual level or an individual observation of a social situation. Therefore, two-person neuroscience could be a promising direction for assessment and intervention of the social anxiety disorder. In this paper, we propose a novel paradigm which integrates two-person neuroscience in a neurofeedback protocol. Neurofeedback and interbrain synchrony, a branch of two-person neuroscience, are discussed in their own capacities for their relationship with social anxiety disorder and relevance to the paradigm. The newly proposed paradigm sets out to assess the social interaction performance using interbrain synchrony between interacting individuals, and to employ a multi-user neurofeedback protocol for intervention of the social anxiety.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Honami Arai ◽  
Sho Okawa ◽  
Yoichi Seki ◽  
Eiji Shimizu ◽  
Sho Takahashi ◽  
...  

Abstract Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is an excessive fear of social situations that can lead to serious functional impairment; it negatively affects a person’s self-esteem and social interactions. Its prevalence has increased over the past four decades, and SAD is one of the most prevalent psychiatric disorders in Japan. Therefore, more precise interventions are needed. This study administered false safety behavior elimination therapy (F-SET), which eliminates safety behavior (i.e., strategies that reduce anxiety), to six Japanese patients with SAD. This is the first adaptation of F-SET into Japanese. Seven patients were screened, 6 (mean age of 27.83, only males) were eligible for the study criteria. All patients received five weekly 60-minute F-SET sessions. At post-F-SET, the mean reduction in Liebowiz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) scores from baseline was -20.50 (95%CI: -30.65, -10.35, p = .003). After completing the treatment, all participants showed substantially decreased SAD symptoms, which indicates preliminary support for the adapted treatment’s efficacy.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document