Unique and Shared Cognitive Factors in Social Anxiety and Depression: Automatic Thinking and Self-Appraisal

Abstract

Previous social-cognitive studies of social anxiety and depression have typically not separated these two states from each other. The current study compared “purely” depressed subjects to “purely” socially anxious subjects on two cognitive variables: automatic thinking and accurate self-appraisal. Results suggested that while negative automatic thinking is relatively specific to depressive affect, positive automatic thinking was impaired across both affective states. The accuracy of both negative and positive self-appraisals appeared to depend more on depressive than socially anxious affect. These results suggest both methodological as well as theoretical implications for future social-cognitive studies of depression and social anxiety.