Suicide continues to be a critical concern for society as one of the leading causes of death in the United States, increasing from 10.4 to 13.5 per 100,000 from 2000 to 2016. This risk is further increased up to 8 times for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Suicidal thoughts and behaviors have been difficult to predict on a moment-by-moment basis, in part due to technological challenges. Suicidal ideation has been identified as an important indicator of suicidal behavior and an important measurement for predicting suicide in both neurotypical individuals and individuals with autism spectrum disorder. In particular, sleep disturbances are one risk factor for suicidal behavior. Important aims of this study include identifying personalized predictors of leading up to suicidal ideation, including how sleep activity patterns affect suicidal ideation, and how these risk factors differ between those with autism spectrum, socially anxious groups. This will give further insight into predictors of suicidal ideation, providing a better understanding for predicting changes in suicidal ideation, with aims to bring more clarity in this at-risk population and improve treatment options. To observe predictors of both long-term and short-term changes in suicidal ideation, I will analyze longitudinal data. The data includes daily phone questionnaires and actigraphy data tracking using GENEActiv wearable devices that includes sleep from individuals with autism spectrum and social anxiety with a history of suicidal ideation, and neurotypical individuals who are tracked over 24-36 weeks. Results of analysis indicate that sleep duration is not a significant predictor of suicidal ideation intensity, and that there is no difference between the autism spectrum and social anxiety groups in the predictive ability of sleep. Limitations of this study include local convenience sampling which includes a large majority of white participants, part of the study and data collected occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic, and potential response bias for such a sensitive topic. This study shows overall that there is a working model for this type of analysis, however many more features of sleep including movement during sleep and waking during sleep need to be analyzed to see if there is any predictive power in information from actigraphy, which would be a low invasive method for detecting increases in suicidal ideation risk.

Social media use (SMU) has become commonplace in modern society, especially among young adults. Research has examined whether more frequent SMU is more commonly associated with poorer psychological well-being, although findings are mixed. A few more recent studies have examined how type of SMU (active vs. passive use) may also affect well-being. Socially anxious individuals are at risk of engaging more frequently and passively online, yet few studies have examined how social anxiety (SA) influences the relationship between SMU and psychological well-being. Undergraduates (N = 1091) completed an online survey assessing their SMU, SA, and psychological well-being; 123 of these individuals were randomized to either actively (n = 56) or passively (n = 67) engage on their preferred social media site for a period of 10 minutes; participants’ psychological well-being was assessed before, after, and the evening following the experimental task. Self-reported SMU frequency was positively correlated with SA, depression, envy, and fear of missing out. Self-reported passive SMU was positively correlated with SA, envy, and negative social comparison. SA moderated the relationships between self-reported passive SMU and loneliness (LO), as well as autonomy. However, contrary to expectation, for less socially anxious individuals, more passive SMU was associated with lower LO and more autonomy. Experimentally-manipulated passive SMU, compared to active SMU, did not predict poorer psychological well-being across time. SA also did not moderate the relationships between experimentally-manipulated SMU and psychological well-being. Future research should continue to examine how frequency and type of SMU (e.g., active vs. passive) affect psychological well-being, using experimental designs in addition to self-report measures to examine these constructs. / Psychology

College life is a unique experience in the life of many young adults that presents many challenges for which they might not be prepared, including living away from home and adapting to a new social and academic environment. In particular, these experiences may be particularly adverse for students with social phobia and may be predictors of academic and social problems, and may even predict dropout. The purpose of the present research is to identify possible connections between socially phobic tendencies and the social, emotional, and overall well-being of college students. Social phobia itself is an unnecessary and overwhelming fear of being scrutinized by others (National Institute of Mental Health 2009). By implementing the use of four psychological tests: the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, College Affiliation Questionnaire, and Life Orientation Test, this research sought to investigate the correlations existing between college students' self-reports on these measures through the use of the UCF Sona system. Students' personal characteristics and demographics were also examined correlationally along with their self-reports on all four measures. A total of 165 participants were used in this study. After gathering descriptive statistics from each test and their demographics, correlations were run between the four tests and then between demographic information and tests. The results showed social phobia having a positive correlation with negative affect and a negative relationship with positive affect. In turn, negative emotion was correlated with a lowered overall life orientation and a more pessimistic mindset. No strong correlations were identified between psychological tests and student characteristics as was previously thought. Overall, there are definite indicators that social anxiety has a negative impact on one's quality of life and emotions, however, more research needs to be done with more diverse sampling and different methodology to see if there is a link between particular student characteristics and prevalence rates of social anxiety within those characteristic subsets.

This study explored the relationship between gaze anxiety and the perception of facial expressions. The literature suggests that individuals experiencing Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) might have a fear of making direct eye contact, and that these individuals also demonstrate a hypervigilance towards the eye region. It was thought that this increased anxiety concerning eye contact might be related to the tendency of socially anxious individuals to mislabel emotion in the faces of onlookers. A better understanding of the cognitive biases common to SAD could lead to more efficient intervention and assessment methods. In the present study, the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) and the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory-23 (SPAI-23) were used to measure social anxiety, depression, and overall distress. These forms allowed us to separate participants who reported high socially anxious and depressive traits from those in the normal range. We then compared anxiety concerning mutual eye contact as measured by the Gaze Anxiety Rating Scale (GARS) to performance on a facial recognition task. Performance was measured as recognition accuracy and average perceived intensity of onlooker expression on a scale of 1-5. A linear regression analysis revealed that higher GARS scores were related to higher perceived intensity of emotion by socially anxious individuals. An exploratory correlation analysis also revealed that higher gaze anxiety was related to lower accuracy at identifying neutral emotions and higher accuracy at identifying angry emotions. While past research has demonstrated these same biases by socially anxious individuals, gaze anxiety had not been explored extensively. Future research should investigate gaze anxiety’s role as a moderating variable.

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