Social Anxiety and teh Direction of Attentional Focus

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed research plan seeks to investigate the effects of social anxiety and attentional focus on positive affect (PA), curiosity, interpersonal closeness, and negative affect (NA) via experimental designs and treatment outcome studies. Socially anxious (SA) individuals tend to be preoccupied with negative thoughts, including expectations of being rejected, potentially interfering with their ability to be attentive and responsive during social interactions. In social interactions, listening and responding are important ingredients that lead to reciprocal self-disclosure and intimacy. Excessive self-focused attention may prevent attention from being allocated outward, toward other people, potentially impairing the quality and enjoyment of social interactions. The primary experimental study will test the hypotheses that: (1) self-focused attention will amplify the relationship between high-SA and low levels of PA, curiosity, poor social performance, and high NA during social interactions, (2) self-focused attention will amplify differences between high and low-SA groups for ratings of affect, self-disclosure, and social skills as measured by confederates and independent raters, (3) immediately following and the day after interactions, high-SA individuals will demonstrate greater ruminative post-event cognitive processing and recall biases to negative stimuli relative to low-SA individuals. To test these hypotheses, an interpersonal closeness-generating experimental task, previously validated in a pilot study, will be employed. High and low-SA students will interact with same-sex confederates trained in standardized scripted roles. All participants will take part in both a self and external-focus experimental manipulation. In the self-focus condition, participants will answer questions while a camera is directed at them. In the external-focus condition, participants will ask questions with the camera focused on the confederate. A secondary study is planned to test the potential moderating role of self-focused attention on symptom reduction and affectivity during the course of a cognitive-behavioral group treatment for depression. Comparisons will be made between individuals with depression vs. comorbid depression and social anxiety disorder. The overarching goal of this research is to identify the potential contributing role of attentional focus to the affect, motivation, and interpersonal behavior of SA individuals. A better understanding of these mechanisms could ultimately lead to the development of treatment modules designed to re-train attention from a self-orientation to a better balance of positively-valenced self and other orientation.