Mediators of Social Rejection in Social Anxiety: Similarity, Self-Disclosure, and Overt Signs of Anxiety

What determines observer-rated social performance in individuals with social anxiety disorder?

“…Consistent with our findings, Beidel et al (1985) also observed a negative association between positive cognitions and social performance suggesting that adaptive behavior in a social situation is promoted by positive cognitions. Our findings further suggest that self-focused attention and safety behaviors (both triggered by dysfunctional cognitions that are not readily observable) as perceived by the confederate are associated with lower social performance as perceived by an observer (for a review Alden & Taylor, 2004;Papsdorf & Alden, 1998;Voncken, Alden, Bogels, & Roelofs, 2008). Hence, as suggested by Clark and Wells (1995), social performance is compromised if self-focused attention is high and safety behaviors are shown.…”

"I would like to Tell You Something": The Contribution of Self-Disclosure to Social Phobia Symptoms in a Non-Clinical Sample

“…Moreover, socially anxious individuals report higher levels of loneliness, depression, and dissatisfaction with their interpersonal and romantic relationships [4]. This lack of contentment can be explained by the tendency to avoid others, a common characteristic of socially anxious individuals, thus contributing to the interpersonal difficulties they tend to experience [5]. Hence, SP symptoms were found associated with high neuroticism, low extraversion, greater self-consciousness, and limited ability to trust others [6].…”

Interpersonal appraisals of emotionally distressed persons by anxious and dysphoric individuals

“…Unfortunately, however, only a few studies in the interpersonal area have examined issues regarding social appraisals of persons with anxiety or comorbid depression and anxiety. These studies provided some preliminary evidence that persons with anxiety with or without comorbid depression also experience interpersonal rejection and thus suggest that adverse interpersonal consequences may not be specific to depression (e.g., Gurtman et al, 1990;Meleshko & Alden, 1993;Papsdorf & Alden, 1998; but see Segrin & Kinney, 1995, for negative results).…”

“…Because most of these studies assessed social rejection through ratings by one or two independent assessors of the depressed or anxious targets instead of by experimental participants in the study (Meleshko & Alden, 1993;Papsdorf & Alden, 1998;Segrin & Kinney, 1995), these interpersonal consequences may be subject to the idiosyncrasies of a few raters. Gurtman et al's (1990) method assessed how participants rated portrayals of depression, anxiety, and control affect.…”

“…However, there is reason to believe that they might given the high degree of comorbidity and symptom overlap with depression (e.g., Clark, 1989;Mineka et al, 1998). There has also been at least one study that found that the relationship between social anxiety and being rejected by a rater was lessened if the target was more similar to the rater (Papsdorf & Alden, 1998). Further, Olson and Evans (1999) found that students who were high on neuroticism reported a greater increase in positive affect after engaging in downward comparison than did people who were low on neuroticism.…”