Interpretation bias in social anxiety: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Chen, Junwen; Short, Michelle A.; Kemps, Eva

doi:10.1016/j.jad.2020.07.121

Cited by 111 publications

(96 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…Negative interpretation bias itself, like SRS, showed a moderate association with socioemotional disorder symptomatology, consistent with the work implicating interpretation bias as a risk and maintaining factor for emotional disorders (Chen et al, 2020;Everaert et al, 2017), especially in socially ambiguous situations (Downey & Feldman, 1996;Liu et al, 2014;Mor & Inbar, 2009). Indeed, Normansell & Wisco (Normansell & Wisco, 2017) found that negative interpretation bias fully mediated the relationship between SRS and depressive symptoms, suggesting that such a cognitive bias may play a mechanistic role in this relationship.…”

Section: Bias and Parenting In Young People's Symptoms Of Socio-emotional Disorderssupporting

confidence: 82%

“…Negative interpretation bias, the tendency to interpret ambiguous situations negatively, is a well-established common feature of socio-emotional disorders (Chen et al, 2020;Everaert et al, 2017) and a proposed cognitive correlate of SRS (Allen & Badcock, 2003;Badcock et al, 2017). Rejection sensitive individuals may be more prone to show such a bias, as a result of worrying about and anticipating rejection long before a social situation even begins (Normansell & Wisco, 2017).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social Rejection Sensitivity and its Role in Adolescent Emotional Disorder Symptomatology

Minihan¹,

Kwok²,

Schweizer³

2021

Preprint

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Many socio-emotional disorders first emerge during adolescence, a time characterized by development in social functioning. Social risk factors, such as social rejection sensitivity (SRS), then, may be promising targets for intervention. To explore this, 362 participants (M (SD) age=19.66 (4.8), 63% female) completed a novel social interpretation bias modification task, the ambiguous social scenarios task (ASST). Supporting the importance of SRS in the experience of socio-emotional disorders, SRS partially accounted for variance in the relationship between parental rejection and socio-emotional disorder symptomatology. Moreover, individual differences in SRS accounted for variance in negative interpretation bias change, from before to after the ASST. Individuals with greater SRS showed less change in interpretation bias. SRS appears strongly associated with socio-emotional disorder symptoms in young people. Importantly, SRS was associated with the malleability of negative interpretation bias, which may help account for the mixed findings on the effectiveness of interpretation-bias-modification paradigms in young people.

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Section: Bias and Parenting In Young People's Symptoms Of Socio-emotional Disorderssupporting

confidence: 82%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Rejection Sensitivity and its Role in Adolescent Emotional Disorder Symptomatology

Minihan¹,

Kwok²,

Schweizer³

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…When access to information indicative of one's social performance is diminished, discomfort may arise. Research indicates that individuals with SA are particularly susceptible to discomfort elicited by ambiguity (Kishimoto & Ding, 2019;Moscovitch & Hofmann, 2007), and that they are likely to interpret ambiguous cues in negative ways (for a review, see Chen et al, 2020). These negative interpretation biases activated by ambiguous social feedback may be further reinforced by post-event rumination in which individuals with SA selectively focus on negative moments and interpretations from recent social encounters (Gavric et al, 2017;Zou & Abbott, 2012), or remember positive or ambiguous moments in more negative ways (Glazier & Alden, 2019;Romano et al, 2020).…”

Section: Masks As a Barrier To The Interpretation Of Social And Emotional Feedbackmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of mask-wearing on social anxiety: an exploratory review

Saint

Moscovitch

2021

Anxiety, Stress, & Coping

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Background: A unique feature of the global coronavirus pandemic has been the widespread adoption of mask-wearing as a public health measure to minimize the risk of contagion. Little is known about the effects of increased mask-wearing on social interactions, social anxiety, or overall mental health. Objectives: Explore the potential effects of mask-wearing on social anxiety. Design: We review existing literatures to highlight three preselected sets of factors that may be important in shaping the effects of mask-wearing on social anxiety. These are: (a) people's perceptions of the social norms associated with wearing masks; (b) people's experiences of the degree to which masks prevent accurate interpretation of social and emotional cues; and (c) people's use of masks as a type of safety behavior that enables self-concealment. Methods: APA PsycNet and PubMed were searched principally between September and November 2020 for articles describing the relationship between social anxiety, intolerance of uncertainty, ambiguous feedback, and safety behavior use and for research on the relationship between mask-wearing and social norms and social interactions. Information identified as relevant from articles of interest was extracted and included in our review.Results & Conclusions: The effects of mask-wearing on social anxiety are likely to be substantial and clinically relevant.

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“…The tendency to appraise ambiguous stimuli and events as negative may be a cognitive mechanism implemented in psychopathology more broadly. Meta-analyses demonstrate that socially anxious people are more likely to interpret social scenarios as negative and threatening compared to people without social anxiety (Chen et al, 2020).…”

Section: Individual Differences In Appraisal and Psychopathologymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Research investigating the role of individual differences in appraisal for psychopathology tends to focus on interpretation biases in the appraisal of ambiguous information (e.g., Chen et al, 2020;Everaert et al, 2017). Interpretation is the cognitive process in which aspects of a situation are integrated in a way that resolves ambiguity (Blanchette & Richards, 2010).…”

Section: Individual Differences In Appraisal and Psychopathologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotion in non-suicidal self-injury: A contradiction between global self-reports and real-time responses

Robinson¹

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People who engage in non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) report doing so largely to manage overwhelming emotions. Prominent theories of NSSI argue that an amplified emotional response system creates the context in which a person chooses to regulate their emotions by engaging in NSSI. In line with these theories, people who engage in NSSI consistently report greater global emotion reactivity and emotion dysregulation than do controls. These global self-reports of emotional functioning also predict the onset and cessation of NSSI, demonstrating their considerable utility in understanding the behaviour. However, global self-reports provide an overall evaluation of one’s average affective experience and so are ill-suited to isolating precise alterations in emotional responding. I first establish how best to assess NSSI (Study 1a and 1b). I then leverage experimental affective science and individual differences methodologies to test whether NSSI is characterised by a more reactive and intense emotional response to challenge, and/or whether factors that help to create, modify, and later recall the emotional response are altered in those who engage in NSSI compared with controls. Study 2 compared how young adults with a past-year history of NSSI and controls subjectively and physiologically reacted to, and recovered from, acute stress. Study 3 compared how young adults with a past-year history of NSSI and controls subjectively reacted to both explicit and more ambiguous social exclusion. Consistent with a wealth of research, across both Studies 2 and 3 people with a past-year history of NSSI reported considerably greater global emotion reactivity and emotion dysregulation than did controls. However, counter to predictions, both the NSSI and Control groups showed similar patterns of real-time emotional responding to both acute stress (Study 2) and social exclusion (Study 3), providing no evidence that NSSI is characterised by an amplified response to emotional challenge. In addition, we found no evidence that emotional recovery, emotion regulation strategy use, memory of emotional experience, or appraisal—all factors that shape the emotional response—operate differently in those who engage in NSSI. Focusing on how people make global self-reports, exploratory reanalysis of Study 2 and 3 suggests that people with no history of NSSI draw from their real-time experiences of acute (but not mild) emotional challenge when making judgements about their global emotion dysregulation. In contrast, people who engage in NSSI appear to rely on different channels of information when reporting their global emotion dysregulation. Overall, this thesis demonstrates that, despite reporting considerably poorer global emotional functioning, people who engage in NSSI show largely typical responses to real-time emotional challenges. Given that global self-reports of emotional functioning appear to be critical for understanding NSSI onset and cessation, the discrepancy between global self-reports and measures of real-time responding highlights the complexity of the relationship between emotion and NSSI. To advance our understanding of emotional responding in NSSI, research should: a) establish the conditions (if any) under which people who engage in NSSI show amplified emotional responding, and b) isolate the psychological processes that underlie the experience of poorer global emotional functioning reported by people who engage in NSSI.

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Interpretation bias in social anxiety: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Cited by 111 publications

References 76 publications

Social Rejection Sensitivity and its Role in Adolescent Emotional Disorder Symptomatology

Social Rejection Sensitivity and its Role in Adolescent Emotional Disorder Symptomatology

Effects of mask-wearing on social anxiety: an exploratory review

Emotion in non-suicidal self-injury: A contradiction between global self-reports and real-time responses

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