Abstract
According to cognitive models, preferential attention to social threat contributes to maintenance of social anxiety. Socially anxious individuals are known to show attention biases to threatening stimuli, although there is inconsistency in the literature with regards to the type of attentional biases they present. This study examines the effect of attention bias modification (ABM) for social anxiety in non-treatment-seeking college students meeting social anxiety disorder criteria, taking into consideration previous mixed results regarding its effectiveness. Attention bias levels and types (i.e. vigilance vs avoidance) at baseline were examined and considered as potential moderators of ABM effects. Sixty-eight socially anxious individuals were randomly allocated to ABM vs placebo groups. A structured interview and self-report assessment were completed at pre-treatment and post-treatment. Results showed half of the participants presented few attention biases at baseline, and the rest presented either vigilance or avoidance. Participants with low attention biases scored higher in social anxiety than those showing avoidance and there was no difference between those showing vigilance vs avoidance. No significant effects from pre to post treatment were observed in attention biases, self-report or structured interview of anxiety in the ABM group. Baseline attention biases did not moderate these effects. Results are discussed with regards to implications for future research towards the creation of more effective protocols, based on the needs of heterogeneous social anxiety sub-groups.
Highlights
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is highly prevalent with rates estimated around 5% of the general population [1]
Participants who scored above the clinical cut-off of 28 on the Difference subscale of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory–23 (SPAI23), or scored one standard deviation above the mean on the social anxiety subscale (M = 21, SD = 12) [54] and agreed to participate in the study, were interviewed using the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule adult version (ADIS-IV) [54] to confirm that their anxiety was in the clinical range
Heterogeneity in the type of attention bias associated with SAD is still the subject of discussion, with some authors strongly suggesting that it may occur dynamically within individuals, over the duration of the task, rather than at an individual difference level [40,41], for the current study we focused on baseline attention bias as an individual difference between participants, in order to examine whether this moderates attention bias modification (ABM) effects, in an effort to be comparable with almost all the studies measuring ABM effectiveness [exemption is 27]
Summary
This study aims to examine the effects of ABM, in comparison to a placebo condition, on social anxiety symptoms and pre-intervention heterogeneity in attention biases, in non-treatment seeking students with high levels of social anxiety
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