The enhancement of video feedback by cognitive preparation in the treatment of social anxiety. A single-session experiment

Abstract

The present study replicates and extends Harvey, Clark, Ehlers and Rapee's (Behav. Res. Therapy 38 (2000) 1183–1192) single-session experiment of video feedback with cognitive preparation in individuals with high social anxiety. Forty participants high on social anxiety were asked to present a speech before a video camera and then received video feedback of their speech. Half of the participants received cognitive preparation prior to the video feedback, whereas the other half only received video feedback. The cognitive preparation procedure asked the participants to (1) predict in detail what they would see in the video, (b) form an image of themselves giving the speech, and (3) watch the video as though they were watching a stranger. All the participants were asked to present a second speech 30 min after the first speech to index generalisation effects. Cognitive preparation enhanced the therapeutic effect of video feedback after the first speech, and also showed a robust generalisation effect on the evaluation of the second speech. Before the second speech, the participants underwent an emotional Stroop task with masked and unmasked words; the results showed that Stroop interference for both masked and unmasked social threat words correlated consistently with measures of social anxiety, but not with the preceding or ensuing speech evaluations.