Inferring other people's states of mind: Comparison across social anxiety, body dysmorphic, and obsessive–compulsive disorders

Abstract

BackgroundSocial anxiety disorder (SAD) and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) are characterized by fears of negative evaluation by others (related to one's own incompetence or flawed appearance, respectively). Previous research has shown that individuals with SAD and BDD exhibit difficulty identifying facial expressions and interpretive biases for threat in social situations. The current study aimed at further investigating social cognition in SAD, BDD, and mentally healthy controls (35 individuals per group, respectively). Further, 35 individuals with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) as a clinical control group not characterized by evaluation fears were included. MethodsThe Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC) was applied. It consists of 45 video sequences depicting interactions among four people at a dinner party. Participants are instructed to evaluate each scenario with respect to the characters' emotions, thoughts, and intentions from a bystander perspective (i.e. other-referent context). ResultsOnly the socially anxious groups (SAD and BDD) were overall less accurate than the other groups in correctly interpreting the social situations, whereas no difference was obtained between the OCD and the control group. Further analyses indicated that the SAD and BDD groups were less accurate in identifying other people's thoughts and intentions, whereas, again, no difference was observed between the OCD and control groups. In addition, the SAD group was less accurate in inferring thoughts and intentions than the OCD group. Interestingly, the groups did not differ with respect to identifying other people's emotions. ConclusionsThese results mostly confirm existing cognitive-behavioral models of SAD and BDD emphasizing that biased interpretation of what others think or intend is one of the key factors maintaining social anxiety and appearance-related concerns. Our study shows that this bias generalizes to social situations in which individuals take a third-person observer perspective.