The behavioral economics of social anxiety disorder reveal a robust effect for interpersonal traits

Abstract

Recent evidence suggests that reduced generosity among individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) in behavioral economic tasks may result from constraint in changing behavior according to interpersonal contingencies. That is, people with SAD may be slower to be more generous when the situation warrants. Conversely, more global effects on generosity may be related to interpersonal vindictiveness, a dimension only somewhat related to SAD. A total of 133 participants, 73 with the generalized form of SAD, completed self-report instruments and a behavioral economic task with simulated interpersonal (friend, romantic partner, stranger) interactions. In a separate visit, friends (n = 88) also came to the lab and rated participants on vindictiveness. Interpersonal vindictiveness was associated with reduced initial and overall giving to simulated friends. SAD predicted a lack of increased giving to a simulated friend, and attenuated an increase in giving to simulated known versus unknown players compared to participants without SAD. Friend-reported vindictiveness predicted in the same direction as diagnosis. However, the findings for SAD were less robust than those for vindictiveness. SAD is perhaps weakly related to behavioral constraint in economic tasks that simulate interpersonal interactions, whereas vindictiveness is strongly related to lower overall generosity as well as (via friend report) behavioral constraint. Further study is needed to better characterize the construct of vindictiveness. Our findings dovetail with the suggestion that SAD is related to impairment in the proposed affiliation and attachment system, but further suggest that direct study of that system may be more fruitful than focusing on disorders.

Social Anxiety and Social Behavior: A Test of Predictions From an Evolutionary Model

“…These findings conflict with those from our earlier studies using the same iPD task, in which anxious/ depressed youths engaged in more cooperative behavior in response to coplayer defection than did nondiagnosed peers (e.g., McClure et al, 2007;McClure-Tone et al, 2011). However, they align with research that has yielded evidence of a cold and withholding style, marked by failure to reciprocate positive social behaviors, among some individuals with high social anxiety during economic exchange games (e.g., Rodebaugh et al, 2016;Rodebaugh et al, 2011;Rodebaugh et al, 2013;Rodebaugh et al, 2017). Thus, rather than predicting an atypical pattern of responding to others' negative behaviors with putative bids for conciliation, social anxiety appeared, in this sample, to predict a tendency to respond atypically-and aversively-to positive behavior from others.…”

“…Moreover, interpersonal constraint was observed both in general and following the coplayer's defection, which suggests that it did not exclusively constitute a response to perceived betrayal or rejection. Notably, in subsequent research from this group, findings indicated that several characteristics, particularly vindictiveness or a lack of empathy, better predicted interpersonal constraint than did SAD (Rodebaugh, Heimberg, Taylor, & Lenze, 2016;Rodebaugh et al, 2017).…”

“…Their lack of overt interest in the other player, at least as a factor that might figure in desired outcomes, combined with their tendency to defect following cooperation, suggests that other interpersonal characteristics might be important to consider. In particular, this pattern seems reminiscent of the interpersonal coldness/dominance that predicted reduced giving in Rodebaugh and colleagues' iPD variant (Rodebaugh et al, 2016;Rodebaugh et al, 2017). Additional potentially relevant characteristics to consider include competitiveness, or the desire to win in interpersonal situations (Smither & Houston, 1992), and power motivation, or the desire to have an impact on other people (Winter, 1973).…”

A review of neuroeconomic gameplay in psychiatric disorders

“…Cooperation may be more affected by other symptoms than by anxiety itself: patients with GSAD gave less than controls in a Prisoner’s Dilemma [52], but giving was more strongly associated with quality of friendships and the interpersonal traits of vindictiveness and coldness than by the diagnosis [52, 53]. In students with attachment anxiety, symptoms of anxiety and avoidance did not significantly predict cooperation, but highly anxious patients were slower to make decisions and less consistent in their performance on the Assurance Game but not the Prisoner’s Dilemma, indicating a chronic lack of trust, since the Assurance Game is a version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma that encourages cooperation by giving the highest payoff when both players cooperate.…”

Out of Sync: Nonverbal Synchrony in Social Anxiety Disorder

“…Likewise, Kashdan and Steger (2006) found diminished positive experiences and diminished intensity of positive emotions among high compared with low socially anxious individuals. Finally, Rodebaugh and colleagues (2017) found that increases in generosity toward known compared with unknown individuals demonstrated by individuals without SAD was attenuated among individuals with SAD. Likewise, our findings suggest that positive processes occurring among NSA individuals (enhancement of synchrony in closeness-generating conversations) are not found among individuals with SAD.…”