How am I going to tell you this? The relations between social anxiety and narrative coherence

Abstract

Recently, evidence has been increasing that individuals who are able to narrate coherently about their autobiographical memories, receive more positive social feedback, have higherquality social relationships and are overall less likely to suffer from internalising psychopathology, like depression and anxiety. However, the relation between narrative coherence and social anxiety, in particular, has not been topic of research until now. This is remarkable, since the concern about negative evaluations by others in social situations is at the core of social anxiety. In the present experimental study (N = 68), we investigated in a two-by-two design how trait and state social anxiety are related to narrative coherence, as well as possible underlying mechanisms. In our study, neither trait nor state social anxiety, nor their interaction had the expected detrimental effect on narrative coherence. However, trait differences in the proposed mechanisms of social anxiety were in line with the literature. Results showed that trait social anxiety and thematic narrative coherence were indirectly negatively related, via the intervening effects of an increased internal focus on anxiety cues, an excessive external focus on negative social evaluation, larger working memory load, more rumination and more depressive symptoms. Limitations and recommendations for future research are addressed.

An Investigation of the Coherence of Oral Narratives: Associations With Mental Health, Social Support and the Coherence of Written Narratives

“…The data in this manuscript stem from two separate studies, that were executed with 4 months in between, in the same sample of participants (Vanaken and Hermans, 2020b;Vanaken et al, unpublished) Whilst the two studies were set up independently and with separate pre-registered research aims, the combination of both allowed us to test the aforementioned hypotheses. One study measured coherence in written narratives (Vanaken et al, unpublished) 1 , and one measured coherence in oral narratives in the same sample of participants 4 months later (Vanaken and Hermans, 2020b) 2 . The comparison of results from both studies, allowed us to investigate if the coherence of oral narratives is related to mental health and social support, as well as to the coherence of written narratives.…”

Perceived Autobiographical Coherence Predicts Depressive Symptoms Over Time Through Positive Self–Concept

“…Further, some forms of meaning making may be related to poorer well-being and may be more similar to rumination than to an adaptive resolution (Sales et al, 2013). On rumination, there have been mixed findings in research, with some cross-sectional (Vanaken and Hermans, 2020;Vanderveren et al, 2020a) and prospective studies (Vanderveren et al, 2020b) indicating the association between coherence and well-being might be dependent on rumination, but other findings indicating it is not (Vanderveren et al, 2019). Overall, it can be surmised that having coherent autobiographical memories might not always inherently be adaptive, and there is a need to focus on variables that might help explain the link between coherence and well-being.…”