Social Anxiety Disorder is characterized by irrational and persistent fears of potential evaluation and scrutiny by others. For socially anxious youth, the core, maladaptive cognition is fear of negative evaluation (FNE). Whereas Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) targets remediation of intense and unfounded FNE, Attention Bias Modification Treatment (ABMT) targets attention bias. The degree to which FNE and biased attention are related processes is unknown. This study sought to assess the relationship between FNE and two indices of attention bias (dot probe and eye-tracking). In addition, this study examines differences in attention bias between a clinically confirmed group of youth SAD and healthy controls. A significant group difference in average latency to fixate on angry faces was found [F(1,65) = 31.94, p < .001, ηp2 = .33]. However, the pattern was not consistent across the other attention bias metrics (i.e., dot probe bias scores and first fixation direction percentage towards angry faces). In addition, associations between FNE and the attention bias metrics were not statistically significant in either group. Future directions and implications of these findings within the context of refinements to existing interventions are discussed. / Master of Science / Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is characterized by irrational and persistent fears of potential evaluation and scrutiny by others. For socially anxious youth, a main feature of the disorder is fear of negative evaluation (FNE). Whereas Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) targets FNE, Attention Bias Modification Treatment (ABMT) targets attention bias. However, the degree to which FNE and biased attention are related processes has not been studied. This study examined the relationship between FNE and two indices of attention bias (dot probe and eye-tracking). This study also examines differences in attention bias between a youth with SAD and healthy youth (no psychological diagnoses). Group differences were found for only one attention bias measure (i.e., youth with SAD were quicker to look at anger faces relative to non-anxious youth). In addition, associations between FNE and the attention bias metrics were not statistically significant in either group. Future directions of these findings are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/83431 |
| Date | 26 March 2018 |
| Creators | Capriola, Nicole N. |
| Contributors | Psychology, White, Susan W., Kim-Spoon, Jungmeen, Richey, John A., Ollendick, Thomas H. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ |
Page generated in 0.0023 seconds