Abstract
This study examines whether combined cognitive bias modification for interpretative biases (CBM-I) and computerised cognitive behaviour therapy (C-CBT) can produce enhanced positive effects on interpretation biases and social anxiety. Forty socially anxious students were randomly assigned into two conditions, an intervention group (positive CBM-I + C-CBT) or an active control (neutral CBM-I + C-CBT). At pre-test, participants completed measures of social anxiety, interpretative bias, cognitive distortions, and social and work adjustment. They were exposed to 6 × 30 min sessions of web-based interventions including three sessions of either positive or neutral CBM-I and three sessions of C-CBT, one session per day. At post-test and two-week follow-up, participants completed the baseline measures. A combined positive CBM-I + C-CBT produced less negative interpretations of ambiguous situations than neutral CBM-I + C-CBT. The results also showed that both positive CBM-I + C-CBT and neutral CBM-I + C-CBT reduced social anxiety and cognitive distortions as well as improving work and social adjustment. However, greater effect sizes were observed in the positive CBM-I + C-CBT condition than the control. This indicates that adding positive CBM-I to C-CBT enhanced the training effects on social anxiety, cognitive distortions, and social and work adjustment compared to the neutral CBM-I + C-CBT condition.
Highlights
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is one of the most common anxiety disorders (Kessler, Berglund, Demler, Jin, & Merikangas, 2005) and it is associated with negative outcomes in social functioning, family life, close relationships, occupational and educational domains (Fehm, Pelissolo, Furmark, & Wittchen, 2005; Stein & Kean, 2000)
The one sample t-test showed a significant decrease for the active control group from pre-test to follow-up, t(19) = 4.63, p
A one sample t-test showed a significant decrease for the active control group from pre-test to follow-up, t(19) = 2.06, p < .05, d = .52, no such difference was observed from pre-test to post-test, t(19) = 1.66, p = .11. These results indicated that participants in the positive CBM-I + C-CBT condition showed reduction in cognitive distortions scores at both post-test and two-week follow-up with a moderate to larger effect size, respectively
Summary
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is one of the most common anxiety disorders (Kessler, Berglund, Demler, Jin, & Merikangas, 2005) and it is associated with negative outcomes in social functioning, family life, close relationships, occupational and educational domains (Fehm, Pelissolo, Furmark, & Wittchen, 2005; Stein & Kean, 2000). Cognitive models of social anxiety (Beck, Emery, & Greenberg, 1985; Clark & Wells, 1995; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997) place emphasis on the idea that dysfunctional social anxiety is initiated and sustained by particular types of negative thought content, usually involving the perception of social risks. This has led to the growth of the intervention approach known as cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). Research suggests that C-CBT is effective in reducing social anxiety (e.g. Berger, Hohl, & Caspar, 2009; Carlbring, Nordgren, Furmark, & Andersson, 2009)
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