Self-focused attention and safety behaviours maintain social anxiety in adolescents: An experimental study

Abstract

Background Self-focused attention and safety behaviours are both associated with adolescent social anxiety. In adults, experimental studies have indicated that the processes are causally implicated in social anxiety, but this hypothesis has not yet been tested in a youth sample. Methods This experiment explored this possibility by asking high and low socially anxious adolescents (N = 57) to undertake conversations under different conditions. During one conversation they were instructed to focus on themselves and use safety behaviours, and in the other they focused externally and did not use safety behaviours. Self-report, conversation partner report and independent assessor ratings were taken. Results Self-focus and safety behaviours increased feelings and appearance of anxiety and undermined performance for all participants, but only high socially anxious participants reported habitually using self-focus and safety behaviours. Conclusions The findings provide support for the causal role of self-focus and safety behaviours in adolescent social anxiety and point to the potential clinical value of techniques reversing them to treat the disorder.

Exploring the Cognitive Model of Social Anxiety in Autistic Young People—The Central Role of Bodily Symptoms

“…These findings are in contrast to the discrepancy between self and observer ratings that were found in neurotypical children aged 5–11 years with high levels of social anxiety (Cartwright‐Hatton et al, 2003 , 2005 ). They are however more consistent with the findings of a recent experimental study of neurotypical adolescents (Leigh et al, 2021 ) which reported that self, conversational partner and observer performance ratings were negatively impacted for all participants, i.e. both high and low socially anxious individuals when instructed to engage in self-focused attention and safety behaviours.…”

“…These contrasting findings might be accounted for by task differences with the filmed speech task used by Cartwright-Hatton et al ( 2005 ) provoking high levels of performance anxiety but not necessarily social anxiety as it was delivered in the presence of a researcher but not peers, did not require interaction and was of relatively short duration (2 min) which may not be long enough for social anxiety processes to influence observable social behaviours, particularly those elicited by social interaction. The conversational/discussion tasks used in the present study and that of Leigh et al ( 2021 ) involved social interaction with peers and were longer, thus potentially allowing social anxiety processes to impact objective social performance. The lack of self-observer discrepancy for those with high social anxiety in the present study also resonates with findings from a systematic review which highlighted that negative self-imagery, associated with SFA, can negatively impact upon both self- and observer- ratings of social performance in neurotypical individuals with social anxiety (Ng et al, 2014 ) Furthermore, the review (Ng et al, 2014 ) found that self-reported negative self-imagery was more related to how one may be perceived from an observer’s perspective, suggesting that fears of negative evaluation by others during this ongoing self-monitoring processing throughout social interactions, and is associated with heightened social anxiety.…”

Longitudinal effects of emotion regulation on social anxiety and affect among young adults

“…The central fear in social anxiety is that of public humiliation and rejection. To avoid such feared outcomes people with social anxiety often engage in safety behaviors like trying to avoid social interactions, close monitoring and subsequent suppression or concealment of thoughts and emotional reactions (Clark and Wells, 1995; Leigh et al , 2021). Repeated use of such strategies might divert away self-regulatory resources from other more meaningful and important tasks.…”

In the moment social experiences and perceptions of children with social anxiety disorder: A qualitative study

“…However, the review did not identify any studies that examined the other putative maintenance mechanisms: dysfunctional beliefs, negative distorted images and diffused body perception within the context of childhood SAD. Turning to studies examining social anxiety in adolescents, a recent review (Leigh & Clark, 2018) and emerging experimental studies (Leigh et al, 2020(Leigh et al, , 2021 have provided support for the application of Clark and (1995) model to this age group.…”