Social anxiety and attentional bias to negative emotional information: the relationship and intervention

Abstract

Background According to the cognitive behavioral model of social anxiety, attentional bias to negative emotional information causes and maintains anxiety. The goal of attentional bias modification (ABM) is to reduce anxiety by reducing attention bias to negative emotional information. Method We used questionnaires and experiments to explore the improvement effect of ABM training on social anxiety in college students. In Study 1, we used dot-probe tasks to investigate the attentional bias to negative emotional information and the relationship with social anxiety severity in college students. In Study 2, college students with high social anxiety were divided into two groups: attentional bias modification training task group (ABM) and attention control condition task group (ACC). The ABM group received a continuous intervention for 10 days to observe changes in social anxiety levels and attentional bias scores in the pretest and posttest stages. Results The results showed that the correlation of attentional bias to negative emotional information and social anxiety severity was significant. Meanwhile, the high social anxiety participants responded more quickly to negative emotional information. After the intervention, social anxiety levels and attentional bias scores of the training group were significantly reduced. Conclusions The results showed that attentional bias modification training can reduce attentional bias to negative emotional information in college students with social anxiety and effectively improve their social anxiety.