Aus der Einleitung: "In den vergangenen 15 Jahren sind in verschiedenen Ländern der Welt größere epidemiologische Studien zur Häufigkeit psychischer Störungen in der Allgemeinbevölkerung durchgeführt worden, die auch eine grobe Abschätzung der Häufigkeit Sozialer Phobien erlauben. Ein Überblick über diese Studien ergibt allerdings auf den ersten Blick ein recht verwirrendes Bild, da die Prävalenzabschätzungen der verschiedenen Studien eine scheinbar widersprüchliche Befundlage erkennen lassen. Ältere - vor Einführung expliziter diagnostischer Kriterien für Soziale Phobi durchgeführte Studien aus den 60er und frühen 70er Jahren - schätzten die Prävalenz dieses Krankheitsbildes auf lediglich 1% (1). [...]"

This study explored why individuals write personal blogs and the influences of blogging on their lives. Four structural equation models that specified the social and psychological process of blogging were tested in this study. The models included four major components: personal characteristics, blogging motives, blogging behaviors and blogging social outcomes. A total of 412 bloggers recruited online completed the survey questionnaire. A factor analysis revealed nine salient motives for writing personal blogs: self-documentation, information sharing, entertainment, emotion regulation, communication with existing friends, formation of new friendships, identity exploration, pass time and self-presentation. Significant associations between these motives and demographics, including gender, age and education, were also identified. The results of the structural equation modeling suggested that public self-consciousness was positively related to the self-presentation motive, which was in turn positively related to self-presentation in blogs. In the same vein, social anxiety was positively related to the motive to form new friendships, which in turn was positively related to the number of new friends made via blogs and the quality of new friendships. Social anxiety was found to be negatively associated with the number of new friends made, the number of existing friends communicated with, and the quality of existing friendships maintained through blogs, but positively related to the quality of new friendships established via blogs. Self-disclosure was positively related to the number of new friends made, the quality of new friendships and the quality of existing friendships. The mediation effects of blogging motivations and self-disclosure on the relationships between social anxiety and blogging social interaction outcomes were also tested. The content analysis of the responses to an open-ended question indicated that the majority of the respondents believed that blogging had positively influenced their lives. The major benefits of blogging reported by the respondents included keeping in touch with family and friends, making new friends, improved social interaction, writing and thinking ability, expanded vision, emotional relief and social support, identity exploration, and documentation of daily life. Interpretations of the findings, and implications for understanding the social use of the Internet, were discussed.

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is the 3rd most common psychiatric diagnosis, and is associated with significant social, occupational, health, and educational impairment. Fortunately, both pharmacological and psychological treatments can reduce symptoms. Cognitive behavioral therapy is considered the gold standard treatment for SAD, and a robust literature supports its effectiveness. In contrast, process related factors, including the role of the working alliance, have received less attention in treatment of SAD. The current study examined development of the working alliance for a SAD sample. The working alliance is characterized as the collaborative relationship between a client and therapist, and includes shared goals, strategies, and an attachment bond. Within the context of SAD, the working alliance is particularly interesting, as the alliance itself is a social relationship that may elicit anxiety, which, in turn, may impact development of the alliance. The present study also investigated whether treatment type, that is, exposure group therapy (EGT) versus virtual reality exposure (VRE) therapy, or pre-treatment symptom severity influenced the working alliance trajectory. Data were provided by an adult sample presenting with a primary diagnosis of SAD. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions, both involved use of a manualized CBT treatment approach. Standardized measures of social anxiety were administered pre-treatment whereas working alliance ratings were obtained after each session. Results indicated high levels of working alliance and significant change in ratings over time. Treatment condition did not contribute to significant differences in the working alliance trajectory. Regarding the impact of SAD symptoms, initially high ratings of fear was associated with progressively increasing rates of growth in the working alliance whereas high initial ratings of avoidance signified steeper increase in the working alliance earlier in treatment followed by a declining rate of change over time. The current study contributes to the limited literature regarding the working alliance trajectory for clients with SAD, and is the first to consider the impact of VRE treatment on this trajectory. Findings also provide preliminary evidence for the differential impact of initial fear and avoidance as well as a potential curvature for the working alliance trajectory when using CBT.

Exposure therapy has received a great deal of support as an effective treatment for social anxiety. However, not all those who undergo exposure therapy improve, and some of those who do respond continue to report significant levels of symptoms. A theorized mechanism of change for exposure therapy is extinction learning. Extinction learning is believed to occur across exposure sessions during which new associations are formed and stored in memory. Individuals with social anxiety are prone to engage in post event processing (PEP), or rumination, after social experiences, which may interfere with extinction learning, and thus attenuate response to treatment. The current study examined whether PEP limits treatment response to two different exposure based treatments, a group based cognitive behavioral intervention and an individually based virtual reality exposure therapy among participants (n = 75) diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. The findings suggested that PEP decreased as a result of treatment and that social anxiety symptoms for those with greater amounts of PEP improved at a slower rate of change than those with lower levels of PEP. Implications for the role of PEP on treatment response are discussed.

Parent and child readiness to change have been identified as emerging areas informing pediatric obesity interventions. The purpose of this study was to increase understanding of child and parent readiness to change in obese youth by examining how these constructs are related to demographic variables, as well as to psychosocial functioning, in a sample of obese youth presenting for weight- management treatment. A secondary aim was to examine consistency between parent and child readiness to change. Two hundred twenty-eight 7- to 17-year-old children and their parents participated during the child’s initial assessment at a multidisciplinary weight-management clinic. Demographic variables included in analyses were child Body Mass Index, parent Body Mass Index, child age, child gender, child race, and family income. Children completed measures of quality of life, depression, social anxiety, internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and readiness to change. Parents completed assessments of children’s quality of life, children’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and parents’ own readiness to change. The child’s Body Mass Index was significantly related to both parent and child readiness to change. There was also a significant positive relation between child readiness to change and the child’s own report of social anxiety symptoms, as well as a curvilinear relation with internalizing symptoms, such as depression. In addition to the child’s Body Mass Index, parent readiness to change was positively related to the child’s age and was higher in African American parents than in European American parents. Race moderated the relation between parent readiness to change and health-related quality of life, internalizing symptoms, and externalizing problems. Parents and children were discordant in their ratings of readiness to change, with parents tending to report higher levels; the child’s Body Mass Index moderated the relation between parent and child report of readiness to change. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.

This study is exploratory in nature and focuses on the relation between the individual and macrosystems by investigating the link between African Americans’ fear of confirming stereotypes and their experience with symptoms and treatments for social anxiety. This study hypothesizes that 1) among a sample of African Americans diagnosed with social anxiety, there will be a significant, positive relationship between African-Americans’ self-reported concerns over confirming stereotypes relevant to both social anxiety and their own self-reported levels of social anxiety, 2) significantly more African Americans will drop-out of therapy than Caucasians, 3) amongst African Americans, significantly more will drop out of group therapy than individual therapy, 4) the racial composition of the group will matter, such that more African Americans will drop out of groups where they are the only African American participant, compared to if there are other African Americans in the group, and 5) the presence of an African American co-therapist will impact attrition from group treatment, with higher attrition rates in groups without an African American co-therapist, compared to if there is one. Thirty-four participants, 23 females and 11 males, who self-identified as African Americans and forty-four participants, 23 females and 21 males, who self-identified as Caucasian took part in this study. Results did not show a relation between stereotype confirmation concern and social anxiety. Regarding attrition, results showed that significantly more African Americans dropped out of therapy than Caucasians. Additionally, more African Americans dropped out of group therapy than individual therapy. There was no impact of therapist ethnicity or the presence of other African Americans on attrition rates, though these tests were underpowered.

Previous studies examining memory biases for threatening faces in social anxiety (SA) have yielded inconclusive results. In the present study, memory and expectancy biases were tested within the context of a novel face recognition paradigm that was designed to offset some of the methodological challenges that have hampered previous research. Undergraduates with high (n = 40) and low (n = 40) levels of SA viewed a series of neutral faces randomly paired with phrases that communicated positive or negative social feedback. Participants’ recognition memory was tested for previously encountered faces, and for their categorization of each encoded face as having been associated with negative (mean) or positive (nice) interpersonal statements. For new faces, participants were asked whether the person seemed mean or nice. Results provided no evidence in support of a general memory bias for threatening (mean) faces among high SA individuals, but instead suggested that high SA individuals lack a positive expectancy bias to appraise new social partners as being nice. Implications are considered for cognitive behavioral and interpersonal models of SA.

Previous research has elucidated social competence as a prominent variable contributing to psychosocial adjustment in juveniles with chronic illness. In particular, early interactions with parents and peers play a large role in the development of social competence by teaching young people how to initiate and maintain satisfying and warm relationships. The current study examined developmental differences in relations among parent-child relationship variables (parental protectiveness), peer interaction variables (social skills, social anxiety), and social competence in juveniles with asthma and diabetes. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to evaluate mediated models using data from a sample of 178 preadolescent (ages 7-11) and adolescent (ages 12-16) juveniles. Results indicated that social anxiety and social skills mediated the relation between parental protectiveness and social competence in the adolescent age group, but not in the preadolescent age group. In contrast, social skills mediated the relation between parental protectiveness and social anxiety in the preadolescent group only. Attachment security evidenced a strong direct influence on social competence, which was not mediated by social skills or social anxiety. Because protective parenting styles were found to influence social competence through peer interaction variables posited to be directly impacted by chronic illness (i.e., social skills and social anxiety), it is suggested that they are an influential illness-specific determinant of psychosocial adjustment in young people with asthma or diabetes.

The present study investigated self-presentational predictors of shyness among university students via a mediational causal model, in which socially-prescribed perfectionism, perceived social skills, and perceived parental attitudes were proposed to interact with fear of negative evaluation and self-esteem to predict shyness. The sample consisted of 497 undergraduate students (287 females, 210 males) selected from Middle East Technical University by stratified random sampling. Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale, Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale, Socially-Prescribed Perfectionism Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Social Skills Inventory-Short, and Parental Attitude Scale were used in data collection. Pilot studies were conducted for assessing the reliability and validity of Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale, Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale, and Social Skills Inventory-Short. Path analysis was utilized to test the causal model. The results revealed that shyness was positively predicted from fear of negative evaluation and socially-prescribed perfectionism / and negatively from self-esteem and perceived social skills. Fear of negative evaluation was predicted positively from socially-prescribed perfectionism and perceived strictness/supervision from parents, and negatively from self-esteem / whereas self-esteem was predicted positively from perceived social skills, perceived parental psychological autonomy and acceptance/involvement, and negatively from socially-prescribed perfectionism. These findings suggested that fear of negative evaluation partially mediated the relationship between shyness and socially-prescribed perfectionism / between shyness and perceived parental strictness/supervision / and between shyness and self-esteem. In addition, self-esteem partially mediated the association of shyness with socially-prescribed perfectionism / with perceived social skills / with parental acceptance/involvement / and with parental psychological autonomy. Findings are discussed within the self-presentational framework of shyness.

Looming Maladaptive Style (LMS) was proposed to be an anxiety specific cognitive vulnerability factor. Perfectionism also acts as a vulnerability to both anxiety disorders and depression. Parenting is another factor associated with both anxiety and depression, with a majority of studies focusing on care and overprotection dimensions of parenting. These parenting dimensions have been reported to be associated with vulnerabilities to psychological disorders. The present study, aims to investigate the parental characteristics associated with LMS and perfectionism as well as testing the mediator roles of these constructs in the relationship of parental bonding to social anxiety and depression. To fulfill this aim, data was gathered from 389 university students all of whom were administered a questionnaire package composed of Looming Maladaptive Style Questionnaire- Revised (LMSQ-R), Parental Bonding Inventory (PBI), Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS), Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation (BFNE) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). In order to obtain psychometric characteristics of LMSQ-R, the scale was administered to a group of 176 university students prior to the main study. Results revealed that both social looming and maladaptive perfectionism were associated with dimensions of parenting. Although perfectionism was associated with both social anxiety and depression, LMS was much more closely associated with social anxiety. Maladaptive perfectionism had a significant mediator role between all dimensions of PBI and depression. Perfectionism also mediated the relationship between maternal care and social anxiety. LMS was not found to have any mediator role. These results were discussed under the light of relevant literature.