The present study evaluated the cortisol stress response and its relationship to several behavioural measures in SAD participants. It is hypothesized that SAD participants will show an exaggerated cortisol response to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and differing positive and negative affects compared to controls, as well as correlations between the two measures. SAD (n=12) and controls (n=12) underwent the TSST. Serial plasma cortisol samples were taken and self-report measures were completed. The plasma cortisol levels were numerically higher in SAD at all time points compared to controls but the difference was not statistically significant. Cortisol response correlated inversely with childhood emotional abuse (p=0.01) and directly with positive affect (p=0.02) in SAD participants. Furthermore, SAD participants reported greater negative affect (prior to and after TSST) and more frequent emotional abuse than controls. SAD is associated with changes in HPA axis activity and affective states that differ from controls.

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Individuals experience varying levels of anxiety in social situations. When intense and enduring, this anxiety can lead to difficulties in daily functioning. Considering the often-central roles that relationships and interactions play in people's lives, it becomes crucial to understand how unhelpful levels of social anxiety are maintained over time. According to cognitive theories of social anxiety disorder, post-event processing (PEP; e.g., the review of the negative aspects of past social situations), is one of the factors that can perpetuate symptoms of social anxiety. The objective of this dissertation was to investigate PEP and its relationship with other important cognitive and affective factors across two studies to better understand its role in social anxiety. In Study 1, I assessed the temporal links between PEP, anticipatory processing (AP), anxiety, performance appraisals, and memory. Participants (n = 101) completed two speeches, four days apart. In between the two speeches, they answered ecological momentary assessment alerts to measure PEP about the first speech and AP about the second speech. I found that both PEP and AP decreased over the two-day assessment period. Feeling more anxious during the first speech also triggered a cascade of negative thinking and affect, including worse performance appraisals, increased PEP and AP, and higher anxiety levels in anticipation of the second speech. Contrary to expectations, PEP was unrelated to change in performance appraisals over time. There was also preliminary evidence that PEP might be linked to the phenomenological memory qualities of the first speech, namely its valence and emotional intensity. In Study 2, I extended these findings by examining positive PEP and pleasant social interactions in addition to the typically studied negative PEP and stressful social interactions. Participants (n = 411) brought back to mind a recent stressful or pleasant social interaction, completed self-reported measures, and wrote a description of the recalled interaction. Participants who recalled a stressful interaction reported engaging in more negative PEP, and less positive PEP, compared to those who recalled a pleasant interaction. I also observed that higher social anxiety was linked with more negative and less positive PEP irrespective of whether the PEP was following a stressful or a pleasant interaction. Moreover, participants' descriptions of the interactions contained more negative words when they also reported having engaged in more negative PEP. Negative PEP was also associated with a more negative emotionally intense self-reported memory of the interaction. In addition, descriptions contained more positive and less negative words when participants reported engaging in more positive PEP. Positive PEP's relationship with memory depended on whether the interaction was stressful or pleasant. For the former, positive PEP was related to a more positive memory; for the latter, it was related to increased emotional intensity. Both studies help elucidate the complex nature of PEP. Their conclusions have many theoretical and clinical implications for the PEP and social anxiety field (e.g., how negative PEP evolves over time, how high social anxiety may be characterized by both more negative and less positive PEP). Considering methodological strengths and limitations provides additional questions and directions for future research examining negative and positive PEP.

Two cognitive processes have been proposed to play a role in social anxiety: self-focused attention and threat perception bias. Mansell, Clark, and Ehlers (2003) devised a novel dot-probe paradigm to simultaneously measure on-line attention to internal and external events among socially anxious adults. Their results indicated that high speech anxious individuals show an internal attention bias specific to a social threat condition. They did not find any differences between groups in a no-threat condition; however, the researchers did not account for processes of effortful control of attention. The current study replicated the Mansell et al. study with an added condition to control for effortful processes of attention. Fifty young adults (mean age = 19.8) were assessed using a self-report measure of social anxiety, as well as the Mansell et al. dot-probe paradigm. Half of the subjects were randomly assigned to a brief (250ms) stimulus presentation time with the other half to a 25 second condition, as used by Mansell et al. In addition, subjects were randomly assigned to social threat and non-threat conditions. A three-way interaction of anxiety x threat x length of stimulus presentation was predicted, such that socially anxious individuals would show an external attention bias when not under social threat (threat perception bias). However, under threat, it was hypothesized that anxious individuals would shift their attention internally (self-focused attention). Results of the current study did not support the hypothesized interaction, and provided only equivocal evidence for both self-focused attention and threat perception bias. / Master of Science

Despite numerous studies documenting the high prevalence of social anxiety in children and adolescents with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (HFASD), there has been little empirical investigation into methods for the assessment of social anxiety in this population. The purpose of this study was to create an empirically derived screening instrument to measure subjective feelings of social anxiety in adolescents and adults with HFASD. Based on a thorough review of the literature in this area, items from all measures (k = 15) used to assess social anxiety in adolescents and adults with HFASD were compiled. After collapsing similar items into one composite item, a pool of 86 items were included in an electronic survey that was sent to experts (n = 99) in the field of anxiety disorders in ASD. Experts ranked the degree to which each item was indicative of social anxiety in HFASD. Based on expert responses, 30 items were selected as the most representative for assessing social anxiety in the target population. In the second phase of the study, experts were asked to rate the final pool of items comprised of the 30 derived from phase I and 10 additional items developed from expert feedback and coding of taped diagnostic interviews with adolescents with HFASD and social anxiety. A final screening measure was derived comprised of 31 items. Future directions and use of the newly formed measure are discussed. / Master of Science

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the nature of social skills in socially anxious children from a social learning theory perspective. The reasons why socially anxious children often perform poorly in social situations have not yet been fully resolved. Is it due to lack of social skills or are these children too inhibited and nervous in social situations to exhibit the skills they possess? Ninety-two elementary and middle school children (age 10-14 years) in Kopavogur, Iceland participated in the study and completed questionnaires on social phobia and anxiety, social skills, assertiveness, and self-efficacy and outcome expectancy in social situations with friends and strangers. Based on how socially anxious they reported to be on the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C), 59 children were selected for further study. Results showed that socially anxious children reported being less socially skilled, less assertive with strangers than with friends, and lower in self-efficacy and outcome expectancy than children in a normal comparison group. However, the socially anxious children were not rated as less skilled by parents or teachers than the other children. Implications for the assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with social anxiety are discussed. / Master of Science

Introduction: Young people recovering from first episode psychosis experience a high degree of emotional distress and co-morbidity. Depression and social anxiety are highly prevalent following first episode psychosis and have been associated with poorer outcome, increased risk of suicide and lower quality of life. However, there is little research examining how these emotional difficulties relate to the course of psychotic symptoms and subsequent adaptation and recovery. The primary aim of this research was to establish a grounded theory of the experience of mood and anxiety related difficulties in young people who experience a first episode psychosis. Secondly, the research aimed to establish the underlying psychological factors contributing to the relationship between psychosis and affective dysfunction. Method: The study used a mixed-methods design with primacy given to the qualitative component (QUAL+quan). Young people (n=10) who had experienced a first-episode of psychosis were interviewed and completed measures of depression, social anxiety and recovery. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using a social constructivist version of grounded theory. Quantitative measures were integrated with the qualitative data, providing a framework for re-examining inferences made in the qualitative analysis. Results: The overarching theme to emerge was the experience of a developmental trajectory of psychosis. Seven key categories were identified: The build up; coping; breaking point; facing diagnosis; impact of illness; getting stuck and; moving on. Isolation, low mood and anxiety were universal outcomes and appeared to be mediated by maladaptive forms of coping and mood regulation in addition to psychological appraisals and negative illnessrelated experiences. Conclusions: The findings suggest that depression and social anxiety are not co-morbid features of psychosis but are intrinsically linked to the underlying processes involved in coping with and adapting to psychosis. Strengths and limitations of the research are discussed and implications for clinical practice and further research are reviewed.

Resilience refers to the capacity to quickly return to normal levels of functioning in the face of adversity. This capacity has previously been linked to social support. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of social networks in the association between resilience and social anxiety in a clinical group with social anxiety disorder (n = 41) and a control group of university students (n = 40). The results showed that controls were significantly more resilient than the clinical group. Controls had significantly larger, more diverse and active social networks than the clinical group. Resilience was negatively associated with social anxiety in both groups. In the clinical group, there was a significant partial mediation effect of resilience on social anxiety through the size of the social network, a x b = –0.33, 95% CI [–0.718, –0.111]. Potential clinical applications of these results were discussed.

The present study was concerned with comparing the relative effectiveness of behavior rehearsal and systematic desensitization in the treatment of social anxiety.

Cette recherche porte sur la compréhension des processus cognitifs, émotionnels et comportementaux en jeu dans l’émergence du trouble d’anxiété sociale chez l’enfant, et sur l’interaction de ces processus dans son développement. Nous tenterons de décrire les mécanismes précoces de développement de ce trouble chez les enfants de 6 à 9 ans. Il est observé un déficit de compétences dans la reconnaissance des émotions du visage d’autrui chez les enfants anxieux. Ils reconnaitraient plus difficilement les émotions positives d’un visage, et seraient particulièrement sensibles aux émotions négatives. Certaines études ont ainsi parlé d’« un biais de perception négative » dans la reconnaissance des visages chez ces enfants. Nous essaierons de mesurer si dès six ans, il existe des différences dans leur capacité de jugement de l’intentionnalité émotionnelle de l’autre en fonction de leur niveau d’anxiété sociale, et d’analyser l’évolution de ce processus dans le temps. Des auteurs ont montré que les enfants chez qui l’on observe une attitude comportementale inhibée devant des stimuli sociaux nouveaux paraissent émotionnellement plus réactifs et plus susceptibles de développer un trouble anxieux. Ils ont indiqué qu’apparaissant dès le très jeune âge chez l’enfant, l’inhibition comportementale peut être un facteur de risque de développement d’un trouble d’anxiété sociale. Nous testerons l’hypothèse d’un processus d’inhibition comportementale accompagnant l’émergence et l’évolution du trouble d’anxiété sociale au cours de l’enfance, et nous essaierons de voir comment ce processus s’articule avec les phases de développement émotionnel de l’enfant. Lors de l’introduction du concept d’anxiété sociale, on s’est interrogé sur les spécificités culturelles de ce trouble qui est, par essence, lié aux normes sociales et relationnelles véhiculées par le groupe d’appartenance d’un individu. Nous proposons donc d’intégrer une dimension interculturelle à cette étude afin de tester l’universalité de ces processus. / Pas de résumé disponible