Does Self-focused Attention in Social Anxiety Depend on Self-construal? Evidence from a Probe Detection Paradigm

The authors propose that consumers’ increased self-focused attention promotes their relative reliance on affective feelings when they make decisions. The authors test this hypothesis in a variety of consumption domains and decision tasks, including real-life, consequential charitable donations. Consistent support from five experiments with more than 1,770 participants shows that (1) valuations of the decision outcome increase when consumers with high (low) self-focus adopt a feeling-based (reason-based) strategy. The hypothesized effect of self-focus on relative reliance on feelings in decision making is (2) moderated by self-construal. Furthermore, greater attention to the self (3) increases evaluations of products that are affectively superior but (4) decreases evaluations of products that are affectively inferior and (5) exerts little influence on evaluations of products that are less affective in nature (i.e., utilitarian products). Finally, self-focused attention (6) amplifies a decision bias typically attributed to feeling-based judgments, known as scope-insensitivity bias, in a hypothetical laboratory study and in a real-life, consequential charitable donation. Theoretical and marketing implications are discussed.

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SOCIAL ANXIETY, SELF-FOCUSED ATTENTION, AND THE DISCRIMINATION OF NEGATIVE, NEUTRAL AND POSITIVE AUDIENCE MEMBERS BY THEIR NON-VERBAL BEHAVIOURS

Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy ◽

10.1017/s1352465802001030 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 30 (1) ◽

pp. 11-23 ◽

Cited By ~ 44

Author(s):

Stuart Perowne ◽

Warren Mansell

Keyword(s):

Social Anxiety ◽

Selective Attention ◽

Social Environment ◽

Focused Attention ◽

Social Threat ◽

Apparent Paradox ◽

Socially Anxious ◽

Anxiety Group ◽

Threat Cues ◽

High Social Anxiety

Recent research indicates the apparent paradox that social anxiety may be associated with both self-focused attention and selective attention to external social threat cues. A naturalistic paradigm was designed to explore both processes. High and low socially anxious individuals were asked to make a speech to a monitor displaying six people whom they believed to be watching them live. Two audience members exhibited only positive behaviours, two only neutral ones and two only negative behaviours. In contrast to the low social anxiety group who selectively discriminated positive audience members, the high social anxiety group selectively discriminated the negative individuals, yet they were no more accurate at discriminating the negative behaviours the audience members had performed and they reported more self-focused attention than the low social anxiety group. The effects remained while covarying for differences in dysphoria. The results indicate that socially anxious individuals base their judgements of being disapproved by others on limited processing of their social environment.

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Can Clark and Wells' (1995) Cognitive Model of Social Phobia be Applied to Young People?

Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy ◽

10.1017/s1352465808004487 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 36 (4) ◽

pp. 449-461 ◽

Cited By ~ 72

Author(s):

Kate J. Hodson ◽

Freda V. McManus ◽

David M. Clark ◽

Helen Doll

Keyword(s):

Social Anxiety ◽

Young People ◽

Social Phobia ◽

Cognitive Model ◽

Treatment Protocol ◽

Social Cognitions ◽

Focused Attention ◽

Event Processing ◽

Socially Anxious ◽

Anxiety Depression

AbstractSocial phobia is a common and disabling condition for both children and adults. In recent years Clark and Wells' (1995) cognitive model of social phobia has given rise to an effective treatment protocol for the condition in adults (e.g. Clark et al., 2003, 2006). The current study investigates the applicability of this model to younger people. One hundred and seventy-one 11–14 year-old participants completed questionnaires measuring social anxiety, depression, and the variables hypothesized to maintain social phobia in Clark and Wells' (1995) cognitive model: negative social cognitions, safety behaviours, self-focused attention, and pre- and post-event processing. High socially anxious children scored significantly higher than low socially anxious children on all of the variables in Clark and Wells' model. Negative social cognitions, self-focused attention, safety behaviours, and pre- and post-event processing were all significant predictors of social anxiety, accounting for 48% of the variance in social anxiety. Furthermore, these variables showed specificity to social anxiety, predicting significantly more variance in social anxiety than in depression. Findings suggest that although Clark and Wells' (1995) model of social phobia was developed from research on adult populations, it may be equally applicable to younger people with social phobia.

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Safety behaviors, self-focused attention and negative thinking in children with social anxiety disorder, socially anxious and non-anxious children

Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry ◽

10.1016/j.jbtep.2011.07.008 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 43 (1) ◽

pp. 548-555 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

Hanna Kley ◽

Brunna Tuschen-Caffier ◽

Nina Heinrichs

Keyword(s):

Anxiety Disorder ◽

Social Anxiety ◽

Social Anxiety Disorder ◽

Focused Attention ◽

Safety Behaviors ◽

Socially Anxious ◽

Negative Thinking

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Self-Focused Attention and Post-Event Processing: Relevance to Social Performance Anxiety and Social Interaction Anxiety

Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy ◽

10.1891/0889-8391.28.1.72 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

pp. 72-82 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Jacob B. Holzman ◽

David P. Valentiner ◽

Kathleen S. McCraw

Keyword(s):

College Students ◽

Social Interaction ◽

Social Anxiety ◽

Social Performance ◽

Performance Anxiety ◽

Focused Attention ◽

Event Processing ◽

Social Interaction Anxiety ◽

High Standards ◽

Interaction Anxiety

This study examined the roles of self-focused attention and post-event processing in social performance anxiety and social interaction anxiety. College students (N = 101) completed measures of social performance anxiety, social interaction anxiety, self-focused attention, post-event processing, and beliefs related to social anxiety. Interoceptive self-focused attention and post-event processing predicted social performance anxiety after controlling for social interaction anxiety. The associations with social interaction anxiety were not significant after controlling for social performance anxiety. Associations of behavioral self-focused attention with social performance anxiety and social interaction anxiety were not significant after controlling for interoceptive self-focused attention. No evidence of an interaction between self-focused attention and post-event processing in the prediction of social anxiety was found. This study found no evidence that the associations of interoceptive self-focused attention and post-event processing with social performance anxiety were statistically mediated by high standards, conditional beliefs about self, and unconditional beliefs about self. These results and their theoretical implications are discussed.

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