Self-report questionnaires, behavioral assessment tasks, and an implicit behavior measure: do they predict social anxiety in everyday life?

Abstract

Social anxiety is commonly assessed with self-report measures. This study aimed to investigate whether maximum anxiety levels during in vivo and virtual reality behavioral assessment tasks (BATs), and implicit approach-avoidance tendencies during the approach-avoidance task (AAT) explain more variation as predictors of daily social anxiety than self-report measures. A total of 62 university students (Mage = 20.79; SD = 4.91) with high levels of social anxiety completed self-report measures on fear of negative evaluation (FNE-B) as well as fear and avoidance in social situations (Liebowitz social anxiety scale-self report), in vivo and virtual reality BATs, and the AAT (independent variables) in the laboratory. On seven consecutive days, social anxiety, experiential avoidance, and negative social events (dependent variables) were assessed. The results revealed that fear of negative evaluation predicted everyday social anxiety and experiential avoidance. Fear and avoidance in social situations only predicted experiential avoidance. Neither implicit approach-avoidance tendencies during the AAT nor maximum anxiety levels during the in vivo and virtual reality BATs predicted any outcome variable. Our results support the use of self-report questionnaires in the assessment of social anxiety.

Virtual Reality Therapy in Mental Health

“…Actually, participants rated their fear higher during VR conversation than during in vivo conversation. Kampmann et al (2018) investigated whether a VR behavioral assessment task (BAT) predicted social anxiety in daily life. The virtual situations used in the BAT consisted of engaging in a conversation with a stranger at a bus stop and attending a foreign language class in which the teacher asked the participant a number of questions.…”

Virtual Reality Therapy in Social Anxiety Disorder

“…Recently, research has investigated whether VR can also be used to reliably and validly assess social anxiety and public speaking anxiety, but results are inconclusive. Kampmann et al [20] investigated whether a virtual reality Behavioral Assessment Task (BAT) predicted social anxiety in daily life. The virtual reality BAT consisted of two virtual situations in which participants had to speak with virtual humans.…”

To What Extent is Virtual Reality Therapy Efficient as A Treatment of Social Anxiety Disorder?

“…It is important to find out how effective virtual reality therapy is in treating self-referential processing and if this treatment provides long lasting results. Additionally, prior studies have mostly concentrated on virtual reality settings that imitate extremely frightful real-world social encounters (Kampmann et al, 2018). The effectiveness of virtual reality therapy in creating a real life anxiety inducing situation or a particular stimulus such as interactions with people or scenarios that are difficult to create in real life or in traditional therapy treatment needs to be investigated further.…”