Covariation bias for social events and signs of (dis)approval in high and low socially anxious individuals

Jong, Peter J. de; Graaf-Peters, Victorine de; Hout, W.J.P.J. Van; Wees, Rineke van

doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2009.02.001

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 31 publications

(54 reference statements)

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“…Similarly, Tomarken et al (1995) demonstrated a covariation bias in the first, but not in their second experiment with spider fearfuls. Four studies found no evidence for a covariation bias (de Jong et al, 2009; de Jong & Peters, 2007b; Kopp et al, 2003) and in one of these studies the authors found covariation bias in disgust but not in fear (Olatunji et al, 2008).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 89%

Match or mismatch? The impact of expected fear on experienced fear during exposure.

Hilleke¹,

Lang²,

Helbig-Lang³

2021

Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice

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Expectancies are assumed to play an essential role in the maintenance and treatment of anxiety disorders. The present review aimed to systematically summarize studies examining the effects of expectancies as suggested by the match-mismatch model of fear (Rachman, 1994). A total of 50 articles were included. The findings largely supported core assumptions of the match-mismatch theory. The majority of studies verified the existence of an overprediction bias in anxiety disorders and a reduction of both expected and actually experienced level of fear with repeated exposures. There was some evidence, that an increasingly accurate prediction of fear was associated with reductions in real fear. New research directions and clinical implications are proposed to further develop treatment strategies for anxiety disorders. Public Health Significance StatementExposure therapy is highly effective as a treatment of anxiety disorders. However, mechanisms of change remain unclear. Cognitive processes, such as expectancies, might be one important factor for treatment success. The manuscript summarizes findings on fear-related expectancies and their violation within the context of exposure therapy. Patients with anxiety disorders tend to overpredict fear in situations, and this overprediction subsides with repeated exposure. There is a possible connection between a more accurate prediction of fear and exposure therapy outcome. This manuscript underlines the importance of incorporating expectancies in the evaluation of the therapy process.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 89%

Match or mismatch? The impact of expected fear on experienced fear during exposure.

Hilleke¹,

Lang²,

Helbig-Lang³

2021

Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice

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show abstract

“…In contrast, implicit processing in social anxiety tends to be associated with a loss of the positive expectancy bias observed in non-anxious controls (de Jong, de Graaf-Peters, van Hout, & van Wees, 2009;Garner, Mogg, & Bradley, 2006;Hermann, Ofer, & Flor, 2004;Hirsch & Mathews, 1997. For example, results from illusory correlation tasks indicate that non-anxious controls continually over-associate positive social cues with positive social outcomes (Garner et al, 2006), and underestimate the occurrence of negative outcomes following social cues (Hermann et al, 2004), while socially anxious individuals show no bias.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Social inference and social anxiety: Evidence of a fear-congruent self-referential learning bias

Button

Browning

Munafò

2012

Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry

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“…Research into simple associative processes suggests social anxiety is associated with a loss of the positive associative bias observed in non-anxious controls [ 5 – 9 ]. However, none of these studies has examined instrumental learning as it might occur during a social interaction where the individual is inferring how the other social agent evaluates them using feedback.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fear of Negative Evaluation Biases Social Evaluation Inference: Evidence from a Probabilistic Learning Task

et al. 2015

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BackgroundFear of negative evaluation (FNE) defines social anxiety yet the process of inferring social evaluation, and its potential role in maintaining social anxiety, is poorly understood. We developed an instrumental learning task to model social evaluation learning, predicting that FNE would specifically bias learning about the self but not others.MethodsDuring six test blocks (3 self-referential, 3 other-referential), participants (n = 100) met six personas and selected a word from a positive/negative pair to finish their social evaluation sentences “I think [you are / George is]…”. Feedback contingencies corresponded to 3 rules, liked, neutral and disliked, with P[positive word correct] = 0.8, 0.5 and 0.2, respectively.ResultsAs FNE increased participants selected fewer positive words (β = −0.4, 95% CI −0.7, −0.2, p = 0.001), which was strongest in the self-referential condition (FNE × condition 0.28, 95% CI 0.01, 0.54, p = 0.04), and the neutral and dislike rules (FNE × condition × rule, p = 0.07). At low FNE the proportion of positive words selected for self-neutral and self-disliked greatly exceeded the feedback contingency, indicating poor learning, which improved as FNE increased.ConclusionsFNE is associated with differences in processing social-evaluative information specifically about the self. At low FNE this manifests as insensitivity to learning negative self-referential evaluation. High FNE individuals are equally sensitive to learning positive or negative evaluation, which although objectively more accurate, may have detrimental effects on mental health.

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Covariation bias for social events and signs of (dis)approval in high and low socially anxious individuals

Cited by 11 publications

References 31 publications

Match or mismatch? The impact of expected fear on experienced fear during exposure.

Match or mismatch? The impact of expected fear on experienced fear during exposure.

Social inference and social anxiety: Evidence of a fear-congruent self-referential learning bias

Fear of Negative Evaluation Biases Social Evaluation Inference: Evidence from a Probabilistic Learning Task

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