Higher Levels Of Social Anxiety Research Articles

The Role of Moral Disengagement, Self-Efficacy and Social-Anxiety in Secondary School Teachers’ Prejudice: A Person-Centered Approach

AbstractTeachers play a crucial role in fostering inclusive school environments for students from diverse backgrounds. However, harboring prejudiced attitudes towards minority students can have adverse social and psychological effects on these individuals. This study investigates the ethnic and homophobic prejudice profiles of Italian secondary school teachers (N = 552, Mage = 46.15, 76.4% females) using a person-centered approach. It explores how these prejudice profiles predict moral disengagement mechanisms, self-efficacy, and social anxiety among teachers. Participants completed assessments on subtle and blatant ethnic prejudice, attitudes toward the representation of homosexuality, moral disengagement, self-efficacy in teaching, and social anxiety. Latent profile analysis identified three prejudice profiles among teachers: low, moderate, and high prejudice. The results, based on a structural equation model, revealed that teachers with high prejudice profiles were more likely to employ moral disengagement mechanisms and reported higher levels of social anxiety. The study underscores the significance of interventions and monitoring efforts tailored to educators, encompassing their social, moral, and individual dimensions.

The effect of social anxiety on threat acquisition and extinction: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Although exposure-based therapy has been found to be effective at alleviating symptoms of social anxiety disorder, it often does not lead to full remission, and relapse after treatment is common. Exposure therapy is based on theoretical principles of extinction of conditioned fear responses. However, there are inconsistencies in findings across experiments that have investigated the effect of social anxiety on threat conditioning and extinction processes. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to examine whether elevated levels of social anxiety are associated with abnormalities in threat conditioning and extinction processes. A second aim was to examine the sensitivity of various study designs and characteristics to detect social anxiety-related differences in threat conditioning and extinction. A systematic search was conducted, which identified twenty-three experiments for inclusion in the review. The findings did not demonstrate compelling evidence that high levels of social anxiety are associated with atypical threat conditioning or extinction. Further, when systematically examining the data, there was no convincing support that the use of a particular psychophysiological measure, subjective rating, or experimental parameter yields more consistent associations between social anxiety and conditioning processes during threat acquisition or extinction. Meta-analyses demonstrated that during threat extinction, the use of anxiety ratings as a dependent variable, socially relevant unconditioned stimuli, and a higher reinforcement schedule produced more detectable effects of social anxiety on compromised extinction processes compared to any other dependent variable (subjective or physiological) or experimental parameter. Overall, the results of this study suggest that social anxiety is not reliably related to deficits in conditioning and extinction processes in the context of laboratory-based Pavlovian conditioning paradigms.

The Effects of Social Anxiety on Subjective Well-Being among Adolescents: The Mediating Roles of Mindfulness and Loneliness

Adolescence is an important period characterized by various transitions and changes. Experiencing social anxiety is a growing phenomenon among adolescents and affects their well-being and mental health. It is necessary to pay attention and understand the factors related to social anxiety to improve the subjective well-being of adolescents. The current study aimed to examine the mediating roles of mindfulness and loneliness in the association between social anxiety and subjective well-being among adolescents. Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents, Mindful Attention Awareness Scale Adolescent Form, UCLA Loneliness Scale Short Form, Adolescent Subjective Well Being Scale and General Information Form were used to collect data. 543 Turkish adolescents (53.6% female) participated in the study. The age range of the participants was 15 to 18 years, with a mean age of 16.45 years (SD=1.10). The results demonstrated that social anxiety was negatively associated with mindfulness and subjective well-being, and positively associated with loneliness. It has been determined that social anxiety had an indirect effect on subjective well-being through mindfulness and loneliness. Mindfulness mitigated the adverse impacts of social anxiety on subjective well-being whereas loneliness exacerbated this association. These results have shown that adolescents with high levels of social anxiety have lower mindfulness and higher loneliness, which in turn lead to less subjective well-being. The findings of the current study suggest that this situation may be ameliorable with mindfulness-based and loneliness-based interventions.

Peran adverse childhood experience terhadap kecemasan sosial pada remaja

Social anxiety phenomena can occur easily because each individual has a tendency to experience social anxieties with their individual's different levels of anguish. An adverse childhood experience (ACE) is a negative experience that a person experiences during childhood, such as physical violence, sexual violence, neglect, or emotional instability in the family. Some literature shows that person with more ACE experience tend to have a higher level of social anxiety compared to those who do not experience ACE. The aim of this survey is to find out the impact between adverse childhood experience and social anxiety in adolescents. This research used quantitative approach with a correlational design. The subjects were determined using random sampling techniques with samples of 282 students. As for the ACE variable, the World Health Organization Adverse Childhood Questionnaire (WHO ACE-IQ) scale and the social anxiety variable using the SAS-A scale (Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents). The analysis of the research data uses simple linear regression analysis. The results of this study show that there is no correlation between adverse childhood experience and social anxiety. Adverse childhood experience does not have significant influence with social anxiety in adolescents.

Attentional Bias of Individuals with Social Anxiety towards Facial and Somatic Emotional Cues in a Holistic Manner.

Attentional bias towards threatening information is a crucial factor contributing to the development and persistence of social anxiety. However, the attentional bias towards threat information and the preferential processing pattern of emotional cues in individuals with social anxiety disorder during integrated facial and physical stimuli processing remain unclear. In this study, we employed a dot-probe paradigm to investigate the attentional bias towards integrated emotions (facial-body) among students with high and low levels of social anxiety (Experiment 1). Experiments 2 and 3 examined the attentional bias of socially anxious individuals when faced with conflicting emotional cues from faces or bodies in relation to integrated emotions. The data revealed that participants both high and low levels of social anxiety participants exhibited accelerated orienting and biased attention towards facial-body emotional processing. When there was inconsistency between emotional cues from faces or bodies and integrated emotions, higher levels of social anxiety were associated with increased vigilance towards threatening faces or bodies. These findings underscore that individuals with social anxiety possess an ability to rapidly capture threatening cues during the processing of facial-body emotional stimuli while also demonstrating a tendency to avoid relying solely on facial cues by compensating through bodily cues for emotion perception.

Exploring the association between social camouflaging and self- versus caregiver-report discrepancies in anxiety and depressive symptoms in autistic and non-autistic socially anxious adolescents.

Social camouflaging or masking refers to strategies autistic individuals adopt to hide their autism persona when trying to fit in. It is unclear whether camouflaging is only applicable to social differences unique to autism, or more generally to any types of social difference, such as experiences of mental health difficulties. We asked 43 autistic and 39 non-autistic adolescents (aged 14-19 years, all of whom showed similarly high levels of social anxiety) and their primary caregivers to complete questionnaires about their mental health (anxiety and depression) and autistic traits, and adolescents self-reported camouflaging behaviours. We wondered if camouflaging may be used to hide mental health difficulties reported by young people and affect caregiver report on symptom severity. We found that adolescents who self-reported greater levels of autistic traits, anxiety and depression symptoms compared with their caregivers reported greater camouflaging. Adolescents who agreed on having high levels of autistic traits and anxiety symptoms with their caregivers reported greater camouflaging behaviours. We discuss how having high levels of autistic traits and anxiety may increase adolescents' camouflaging behaviours to hide social differences, which may contribute towards poor mental health outcomes. We think it is important to talk with adolescents about how camouflaging social and mental health difference can have negative impacts for mental health as well as possible positive social gains.

Tackling social anxiety with targeted brain stimulation: investigating the effects of transcranial static magnetic field stimulation on self-focused attention.

Previous studies suggested that self-focused attention (SFA), implicated in social anxiety disorder (SAD), correlates with heightened activity in the right frontopolar area (rFPA), which is the right prefrontal cortex just behind the forehead. Transcranial static magnetic field stimulation (tSMS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation method capable of temporarily suppressing brain function beneath the magnet. We explored whether tSMS on individuals with tendencies toward SAD elicited (1) suppressing rFPA activation during the resting-state and (2) reducing SFA during a subsequent speech task. Twenty-three university students with social anxiety performed two speech tasks. Between tasks, the tSMS group received neodymium magnet stimulation while the sham group received fake magnet stimulation on the rFPA for 20 min. Resting-state rFPA activities was measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), while SFA (body sensations and observer perspective), field perspective, and detached mindfulness (DM) perspective were assessed via questionnaires during both speech tasks. The observer perspective means SFA to self-imagery from others' viewpoint, while the field and DM perspectives mean appropriately focusing on the external environment. The results indicated that tSMS intervention decreased rFPA activity from pre- to post-intervention rest. Then, tSMS reduced SFA to bodily sensations and increased DM perspective from pre- to post-intervention speech, especially in those with high levels of social anxiety. Furthermore, tSMS enhanced the field perspective regardless of social anxiety tendency. The results suggest that tSMS may suppress overactivity in rFPA, reduce SFA to body sensation, and increase adaptive attention in highly socially anxious individuals. Our study suggests the possibility of the clinical application of tSMS for treating SAD.

Self-concept clarity in social anxiety: psychometric properties and factor structure of the Self-Concept Clarity Scale in a social anxiety disorder sample

ABSTRACT Background The Self-Concept Clarity Scale (SCCS) is a 12-item self-report measure that assesses self-concept clarity (SCC). Previous research has identified a relationship between lower SCC and higher levels of social anxiety. As a measure of positive psychological well-being, the SCCS can be used as a tool to examine and monitor SCC in populations with social anxiety disorder (SAD) who appear to be susceptible to inconsistent or unstable self-concept. However, the scale has yet to be validated with a SAD sample. Methods A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted on the SCCS data of sample of 87 individuals who met criteria for a diagnosis of SAD (M = 20.15, SD = 3.55; 83% female) and the reliability, convergent validity and norm scores of the SCCS with a SAD were also investigated. Results Results of the CFA supported a unidimensional factor structure. The SCCS was found to have good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .80) and SCCS scores were found to correlate with measures of psychological distress and social fears, however, no correlation was found with measures of social anxiety behaviours. Also, overall results found that the SAD sample scored lower on SCC than other clinical samples in previous literature. Conclusions These findings suggest that the SCCS is a psychometrically sound measure with unidimensional factor structure and demonstrated reliability and validity with a SAD sample, although additional research is warranted to replicate and extend the results of the current research.

Negative self‐reference as a component of subthreshold psychotic symptoms in clinical high‐risk youth

AbstractAimSchizophrenia is a leading cause of disability worldwide; early detection and intervention are critical. Early in their illness, individuals at clinical high‐risk (CHR) for psychosis have subthreshold psychotic symptoms that are often derogatory and self‐directed. We hypothesized that CHR participants with negative self‐reference (NSR) as a component of subthreshold psychosis would also have higher levels of social anxiety and depression, lower self‐esteem and lower social/role/global functioning as compared with CHR participants without NSR.MethodsOne hundred and sixty‐eight participants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) funded Regroup Cognitive Behavioural Social Skills Training (CBSST) study were included. Clinical vignettes that included the Scale of Psychosis‐Risk Symptoms were coded categorically to indicate whether NSR was present. t‐tests were used to determine the association between NSR, symptom, and functional measures.ResultsParticipants with NSR demonstrated significantly more social interaction anxiety (p < .001), negative beliefs about the self (p ≤ .001), defeatist beliefs (p < .05), depressive symptoms (p < .05) and positive symptoms (p < .005). There were no significant differences in social self‐efficacy, positive or negative beliefs about others, positive beliefs about the self or psychosocial functioning between the two groups.ConclusionsClinically significant differences were found between CHR participants with and without NSR, suggesting that this may be a useful factor to identify and address. Follow‐up studies are needed to determine whether NSR responds to CBSST and whether or not its resolution would be associated with improvement in other symptom domains.

Impact of Social Anxiety on Assertiveness: Role of Gender

The study was conducted to investigate the impact of social anxiety on assertiveness a role of gender. Social anxiety is a persistent fear of social interactions due to severe evaluation apprehension. Assertiveness is an important social skill which promotes personal well-being. Correlational research design was used. Survey was conducted as a method of data collection. Students were selected through convenient sampling technique. Sample size was 200 (n=100 male, n=100 female) college students. The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) by Prendergast (2021) and the Rathus Assertiveness Scale (RAS) by Spencer Rathus (1973) were used to measure social anxiety and assertiveness. Findings of the study reveal that there was significant negative correlation between social anxiety and assertiveness. Moreover, results suggest that social anxiety is a negative predictor of assertiveness among college students. Female college students report higher level of social anxiety as compared to male. In addition, male are more assertive in their college life than females. To overcome the social anxiety education department gave the exposure of coping strategies.

Subjective pain and reward in a social judgment paradigm

Affective problems such as social anxiety and depression theoretically involve negative cognitive biases that trigger and maintain symptoms during everyday experiences. This study employed a social judgment paradigm to investigate possible biases in expectation of social acceptance, and subjective feelings of pain and reward. Healthy adult participants (N = 120) were told their image had been judged by others. In 120 trials, they were shown photos of the judges and asked to anticipate whether they were liked by them or not, before being shown the judgment. Participants rated their level of pain and reward in each trial. Results indicated that social acceptance was expected less often by participants with higher levels of social anxiety. Self-reported pain was greatest after unexpected rejection. A greater likelihood of the presence of pain and higher self-reported pain were associated with higher levels of social anxiety and depression respectively. Self-reported reward was greatest after expected acceptance, and was not associated with social anxiety or depression. This study provides subjective experience information that has been missing from existing social judgment research. Moreover, these findings suggest that in social situations, those with social anxiety and depression more often expect rejection and experience rejection as more painful, respectively. These biases are potential maintaining factors and may be targets for further research and future intervention development.

Nomophobia and Its Relationship with Social Anxiety and Procrastination in Nursing Students: An Observational Study.

An observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted in a sample of 308 nursing students. Data were collected using the Nomophobia Questionnaire, Academic Procrastination Scale-Short Form, and Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Adults. Additionally, sociodemographic variables related to academic performance and smartphone use were collected. We performed a descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate analysis of the Nomophobia Questionnaire score. 19.5% (n = 60) of the students presented with or were at high risk of nomophobic behaviour. Moreover, nomophobic behaviour was positively correlated with high levels of social anxiety (p < 0.001), longer daily smartphone usage time (p < 0.001), and a high frequency of smartphone checking in class (p < 0.001). The predictive variables for nomophobic behaviour included age, variables related to smartphone use, social anxiety levels, work, procrastination tendency, sex, and self-reported average grade. One out of five students in the sample studied presented with or were at high risk of nomophobic behaviour. Additionally, nomophobic behaviour was associated with social anxiety and variables related to smartphone use. This study was not registered.

Social anxiety, behavioural activation and depression risk in older men: protection through Men's Shed membership.

Reducing rates of depressive symptoms in older adults is a public health priority. Men's Sheds are a community organisation that may protect against depressive symptoms in older men. It is currently unclear how social anxiety and behavioural activation may relate to depressive symptoms for Men's Shed members. We employed a cross-sectional design to explore whether the relationships between social anxiety, behavioural activation and depressive symptoms were contingent upon Shed social network quality in a sample of 164 Men's Shed members. Conditional effects analysis found social anxiety (B = -0.08, p < 0.01) and behavioural activation's (B = 0.02, p < 0.001) relationships with depression to be contingent on Shed social network quality. Additionally, we found evidence for a conditional effect of social anxiety on the relationship between behavioural activation and depression (B = -0.03, p < 0.01) such that this relationship was stronger for those with higher levels of social anxiety. Our findings suggest that a strong social network within a Men's Shed weakens the association between social anxiety and depression, that the relationship between behavioural activation and depression is stronger in those with poorer Shed social networks, and that the relationship between behavioural activation and depression may be stronger for those with higher levels of social anxiety. We suggest that our findings contribute to increasing quantitative support for the mental health benefits of Men's Shed membership, highlight the potential importance of Shed social network quality and explore how social anxiety may affect the mental health outcomes for members.

An ACT self-help intervention for adults with a visible difference in appearance: A pilot feasibility and acceptability randomized controlled study

Individuals living with a visible difference in appearance experience high levels of social anxiety, yet self-help interventions for this heterogeneous population are not available. We conducted a pilot trial of a novel Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) based self-help intervention.Individuals with anxiety about having a visible difference in appearance (n = 284) were randomized to an ACT-based four-week intervention (n = 145) or a waitlist control condition (n = 139). We collected pre and follow-up (four-weeks after the completion of the intervention) data. Primary outcomes included social anxiety and impairments in functioning. Psychological flexibility (PF) was also examined. ANCOVAs, controlling for pre scores, indicated significant improvements in functioning by the intervention group. No significant differences were observed for anxiety and PF between conditions at follow-up. Drop out was 68% for the intervention and 41% for the control group, with no differences in the groups in age, origin, gender, or type of visible difference. Participants in the intervention group found the intervention almost equally, useful (77%) and helpful (73%). An ACT-based self-help intervention can alleviate distress related to visible difference in appearance. More sophisticated designs are needed now, to collect idiographic and longitudinal data and examine personalized changes across time in this population.

Differences in perceived online communication and disclosing e-motions among adolescents and young adults: The role of specific social media features and social anxiety.

Social media are widely used by adolescents and young adults as a mean to maintain interpersonal relationships. Recent studies have found that young individuals with high levels of social anxiety feel more confident in communicating online. However, little is known about the role of perceived social media characteristics that could minimize the distress they experienced in face-to-face interactions. In this study, we rely on the tenets of the Transformation Framework, according to which social media, with its own features, may transform social relationships, including disclosing emotions and communicating with others online, in ways that may differ across individuals with or without specific vulnerability (e.g., social anxiety). Therefore, this cross-sectional study aims at examining the contribution of three specific social media features (i.e., asynchronicity, cue absence, and visualness) in explaining perceived breadth and depth of online communication, both directly and via e-motional processes (i.e., expression and facilitating use of e-motions), across groups of individuals with high versus low levels of social anxiety. Participants were 1046 Italian adolescents and young adults (61.4% females; Mage = 17.9, SD = 3.23) who completed an anonymous self-report questionnaire between 2021 and 2022. Participants with very high scores on social anxiety (above the 90th percentile; socially anxious), were distinguished from all others (socially nonanxious) and a multigroup analysis (MGA) was run to compare the pattern of associations across the two different groups. Results from the MGA showed significant differences between the two groups, partially confirming our hypotheses. Specifically, among socially anxious individuals, perceived cue absence was found to benefit perceived breadth and depth of online communication, and asynchronicity to enhance online emotional processes; conversely, these associations were negative in the group of socially nonanxious. Thus, these findings underly the contribution of social media in explaining youngsters' online experiences and support the potential beneficial role of some social media features for those more socially vulnerable.

Social Anxiety, Social Support, and Quality of Life in Patients With Epilepsy at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Saudi Arabia.

Objectives The objectives of this study were to measure the prevalence of social anxiety disorder and its association with quality of life (QoL) in patients with epilepsy (PWE) in King Khalid University Hospital, Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia. Methodology A self-administrated, online, questionnaire-based, cross-sectional study was conducted at King Khalid University Hospital, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on PWE 18 years of age and above from February 2021 to January 2022. Social anxiety and the five domains of QoL were measured using the validated Arabic versions of the Liebowitz social anxiety scale and European quality-of-life 5-dimensions 3-levels (EQ-5D-3L), respectively. Information was collected on sociodemographic characteristics, social support, and adverse life events. Results This study included 246 patients, of which approximately 25% and 15% had mild/moderate and severe/very severe levels of social anxiety, respectively. Severe social anxiety was significantly associated with poor QoL domains, namely, restricted mobility (2.65 [1.00, 6.99]), inability to perform usual activities (3.88 [1.61, 9.36]), pain or discomfort (3.21 [1.38, 7.48]), and anxiety and depression (5.77 [2.45, 13.61]). Similarly, the lack of social support was also significantly associated with poor QoL, such as restricted mobility (2.42 [1.12, 5.22]), restricted self-care (3.64 [1.18, 11.17]), inability to perform usual activities (2.86 [1.42, 5.75]), pain/discomfort (2.53 [1.38, 4.66]), and anxiety and depression (1.93 [1.04, 3.57]). Females showed higher odds for restricted mobility (2.79 [1.29, 6.03]) and low education with limited self-care (7.38 [1.49, 36.71]). Conclusion Patients with epilepsy reported high levels of social anxiety that have a negative effect on their QoL. Healthcare providers should be able to provide counseling to the patient and their family members. In addition, social support is important to improve their mobility and socialization with friends and neighbors.

The effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for social anxiety symptoms in people living with alopecia areata: a single-group case-series design.

Alopecia areata (AA) is an immunological disorder characterised by hair loss. Individuals with AA report high levels of social anxiety. One intervention that holds potential for reducing social anxiety in individuals with AA is mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). Our key aim was to investigate whether MBCT reduces social anxiety in individuals with AA. The study also investigated whether MBCT reduces depression, general anxiety, and increases quality of life and increases trait mindfulness in individuals with AA. Five participants with AA took part in an 8-session in-person MBCT intervention. A multiple-baseline single-group case series design was adopted. Idiographic measures of social anxiety were measured each day from baseline, through intervention, to follow-up. Standardised questionnaires of trait mindfulness, social anxiety, depression, anxiety, and quality of life were completed at baseline, post-intervention, and at 4-week follow-up. All participants completed the MBCT course, but one participant was excluded from the idiographic analysis due to a high amount of missing data. The remaining four participants demonstrated reductions in idiographic measures of social anxiety from baseline to follow-up. These effects were larger between baseline and follow-up, than between baseline and post-intervention. Two participants demonstrated significant improvement in standardised measures of wellbeing from baseline to follow-up - they also practised mindfulness most regularly at home between sessions. MBCT may be effective in reducing social anxiety and improving wellbeing in individuals with AA, although this might be dependent on the extent to which participants regularly practise mindfulness exercises.

The interplay between cognitive biases, attention control, and social anxiety symptoms: A network and cluster approach.

Cognitive models of social anxiety highlight the importance of different cognitive biases (e.g., attention bias, interpretation bias) and executive dysfunctions, which have, however, mostly been investigated in isolation. The present study explored their interplay using two statistical approaches: (1) network analysis to identify the unique associations between cognitive functions, and (2) cluster analysis to reveal how these associations (or combinations) are manifested in a population. Participants from the general population (N = 147) completed measures of attention control, attention bias, interpretation bias, and social anxiety symptoms. Network analysis showed an association between social anxiety symptoms and interpretation bias, although no other significant associations emerged. Cluster analysis identified a group of participants characterized by an adaptive cognitive pattern (i.e., low cognitive biases, good executive function); and a group exhibiting a more maladaptive pattern (i.e., high interpretation bias, good alerting but poor executive function). The maladaptive group showed higher levels of social anxiety than the adaptive group. Results highlight the strong association between social anxiety symptoms and interpretation bias, while challenging the putative role of attention bias. Attention control, particularly executive function, may limit the impact of cognitive bias on anxiety symptoms.

The Relationship between Knowing Sign Language and Quality of Life among Italian People Who Are Deaf: A Cross-Sectional Study

Deafness is a medical condition with important relational implications. This condition could affect well-being and self-esteem and cause social anxiety. Sign language is not only a simple mimic but can be considered as a different kind of communication that could be protective for those who have learned it. However, some people do not use sign language because they think it can be marginalizing. The present study aimed to compare the quality of life (QoL) between people who learned Italian sign language as their first language with those who had never learned it or learned it later. This cross-sectional study involved 182 deaf Italian adults (70.3% females) who were recruited from Ente Nazionale Sordi (ENS) and by the main online deafness groups. The present results suggest that the deaf condition does not seem to significantly affect the dimensions of QoL pertaining to satisfaction and self-esteem, while it could have an effect on preventing high levels of social anxiety and in particular, the group who learned Italian sign language showed significantly less social anxiety than those who had never learned it.

Resisting Ableism in School-Based Speech-Language Therapy: An Invitation to Change.

Resisting Ableism in School-Based Speech-Language Therapy: An Invitation to Change.