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Identifying psychological and behavioral factors that contribute to low or inconsistent contraceptive use is one important means by which to develop targeted interventions to promote this health behavior. The current study investigated social anxiety as a potential barrier to contraception-related communication and use among a sample of 499 undergraduate women (Mage = 20.81, SD = 3.63). Social anxiety was associated with increased likelihood of having never spoken to anyone about birth control, decreased likelihood of having spoken to one’s mother about birth control, and decreased likelihood of having ever utilized contraceptive methods that require communication with a healthcare provider among the full sample, but not among the subset of the sample that reported being sexually active with men. Additionally, there was no significant impact of social anxiety on contraceptive knowledge and, although there was a positive relationship between social anxiety and embarrassment-related condom concerns, social anxiety was not associated with shared decision-making about birth control or condom use/unprotected sex frequency with past-year partners among the subset of the sample who had been heterosexually active over the last year. Overall, these findings indicate that although social anxiety may negatively impact communication about contraception in some cases, it does not seem be a significant barrier to contraceptive-related communication or use among heterosexually active college-aged women. Future research will benefit from continued exploration of other potential psychosocial (and targetable) barriers to contraceptive-related communication and use. / Psychology

The objective of this study was to examine attentional bias for threat in relation to social anxiety. It is well known that socially anxious individuals are likely to exhibit this bias, and this phenomenon may be clearly separated into two subsections: facilitation and disengagement. Facilitation, or vigilance, is the initial drawing of attention toward threat, and disengagement is the process of drawing attention away from threat. Past research focuses only on individuals ranked in the lowest and highest percentiles of any particular social anxiety measure, however, and fails to consider those having median scores. The current study included participants representing the full range of socially anxious individuals. In order to do this, the Fear of Negative Evaluations Scale (FNE) was distributed to undergraduate students (N = 230). A portion of these students was then drawn from each of six scoring ranges on the FNE. Participants in this new sample (N = 19) were asked to complete a computerized dot-probe detection task measuring attentional bias. The face stimuli for the current version of the computerized task included disgusted, happy, and neutral faces. Results of the correlational analyses showed a statistically significant positive correlation between FNE score and disengagement bias for disgust faces. There also was a statistically significant negative correlation between FNE score and vigilance bias for disgust faces. There was no suggestion of a statistically significant correlation between FNE score and vigilance or disengagement biases with happy faces.

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Children with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) characterized by persistent shyness and anxiety in social or performance situation, exhibit social skills deficits. These deficits include difficulty initiating conversations, maintaining eye contact, and taking turns when speaking, which in turn leads to impairments in their daily interactions and development of peer relationships (Greco, 2005; Miers, 2010). Although there are many subjective assessments for treatment outcomes for children with SAD, in order to become more thorough and effective when assessing treatment outcomes, more objective measures of actual behaviors are needed. This study uses digital vocal analysis to examine vocal parameters associated with anxiety such as pitch and volume in children with SAD pre and post treatment. Measuring vocal parameters during role-play behavioral assessment tasks allowed us to examine whether the software was capable of detecting differences in vocal characteristics that are consistent with the clinical presentation of the disorder. Children with SAD showed differences in vocal characteristics pre to post treatment, in regards to pitch, pitch variability, volume, and volume variability. There were significant changes in volume pre to post treatment, however the changes in pitch, pitch variability, and volume variability were not significant. These results suggest that post SET-C treatment, certain vocal characteristics, (one of the social skills deficits exhibited by children with SAD) improved. Implications of the findings are discussed.

The purpose of the current study was to clarify the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying social phobia. Previous research has identified some specific group differences in neurocognitive functioning between individuals diagnosed with social phobia and nonpsychiatric controls, but has failed to administer a comprehensive neuropsychological battery to a social phobia patient group, resulting in a piecemeal understanding of the neurocognitive functioning of this population and an incomplete picture of the neuropsychological profile inherent to this group. The present research utilized a broader collection of neuropsychological tests to assess nine cognitive domains: Verbal Learning, Verbal Delayed Memory, Visual Immediate Memory, Visual Delayed Memory, Visual-Spatial Processing, Verbal Working Memory, Visual Working Memory, Executive Functioning, and Attention. A mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) did not reveal a significant group by cognitive domain interaction, nor a significant main effect of group. As this was the first study to examine multiple cognitive domains in a single sample of individuals with generalized social phobia, exploratory univariate analyses were performed to examine group differences for the specific cognitive domains. This revealed significant group differences specific to the Visual Working Memory domain, with the social phobia group scoring significantly lower than the nonpsychiatric control group. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Individuals with high anxiety levels from clinical and non-clinical populations tend to exhibit an attentional bias where they selectively allocate more attention to threat stimuli than neutral stimuli, in comparison to individuals with lower anxiety levels. However, longitudinal studies investigating the relations between attentional bias to threat and symptoms of anxiety, depression, and social anxiety––some of the most common mental disorders––are scarce. Using a concurrent and longitudinal design, we investigated the relations between attentional bias to threat and symptoms of anxiety, depression, and social anxiety; concurrently in adulthood (the 30s) as well as longitudinally between young adulthood (the 20s) and adulthood (the 30s). We also investigated whether attentional bias to threat in the 30s moderated and/or mediated the relation between symptoms of psychopathology in the 20s and the same symptoms in the 30s. We found significant concurrent correlations between attentional bias to threat and greater symptoms of anxiety, depression, and social anxiety in the 30s. We also found positive longitudinal correlations between attentional bias to threat in the 30s and symptoms of anxiety (approached significance) and depression (significant) in the 20s. Thus, greater symptoms of internalizing-related psychopathology were associated with greater attentional bias to threat. Attentional bias to threat did not mediate the relation between early psychopathology and later psychopathology, but it did moderate the relation between anxiety in the 20s and social anxiety nearly a decade later. In individuals with greater attentional bias to threat, early anxiety was significantly associated with and predicted greater future social anxiety, but this was not the case for individuals with lower attentional bias to threat. Hence, attentional bias to threat may have a critical role in internalizing-related psychopathology, and interventions targeting it may have preventative and therapeutic potential for mitigating the likelihood of the development and/or persistence of internalizing-related psychopathology. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / People with higher anxiety levels pay more attention to threatening information than neutral information, compared to people with lower anxiety levels. Relatively few studies have investigated the long-term relation between attentional bias to threat and symptoms of mental disorder. Our study investigated the concurrent and longitudinal relations between attentional bias to threat and symptoms of anxiety, depression, and social anxiety. We found that anxiety, depression, and social anxiety in the 30s were concurrently related to greater attentional bias to threat. Additionally, anxiety and depression in the 20s were longitudinally related to greater attentional bias to threat 10 years later. Moreover, people with high anxiety and high attentional bias to threat were more likely to experience social anxiety in the future than people with high anxiety but low attentional bias to threat. Therefore, attentional bias to threat might have a critical role in the development and/or persistence of some mental disorders.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / Although meta-analytic studies support the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy for social anxiety disorder, a proportion of patients drop out of treatment or fail to benefit. Research to date has explored patient- and treatment-specific predictors of poor treatment response, including comorbid depression, but has not evaluated variables related to the patient's social environment. Expressed emotion (EE), an index of critical, hostile, and overprotective attitudes expressed by a significant other toward an individual with a psychiatric or medical condition, has been found to predict psychiatric relapse and poor treatment outcome in a wide range of disorders. Because EE and a closely related construct, perceived criticism, have been shown to predict treatment outcome and course in anxiety and mood disorders, it was expected that EE and perceived criticism would also predict treatment outcome in social anxiety disorder. Forty patients undergoing 12-session group cognitive-behavioral therapy for social anxiety disorder completed questionnaires about their symptoms of social anxiety and depression, and levels of perceived criticism, before and after treatment. Each participant designated one significant other who was then assessed for EE using the Camberwell Family Interview, a semi-structured interview method. Results indicate that higher initial severity of social anxiety and lower levels of perceived criticism predicted treatment dropout. There was also a trend for participants with a significant other rated as high in emotional overinvolvement, one of the EE-subscales, to show less change on a composite measure of anxiety symptoms. Comorbid depression and critical EE were associated with pretreatment severity of social anxiety but not outcome. These findings add to an increasing body of literature showing that the manifestation of significant others' EE, and EE's effect on clinical outcome, can vary as a function of the identified patient's diagnosis. For socially anxious individuals, perceiving criticism in the social environment may provide an important impetus for seeking and adhering to treatment, whereas significant others' overprotective behavior may negatively impact their ability to benefit from treatment. Further research replicating these findings, clarifYing the mechanisms and developing supplemental interventions, are important future directions.