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The Effect of Negative, Positive, and Neutral Self-imagery on Symptoms and Processes in Social Anxiety Disorder

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Abstract

Cognitive models of social anxiety disorder suggest that negative self-images maintain social fears despite repeated exposure to benign social situations. An accumulating body of evidence supports this notion, and preliminary data indicates that modifying self-imagery can potentially reduce fears of negative evaluation in socially anxious individuals. The present study examined the effects of negative, positive, and neutral self-imagery during a speech task in 49 clinically diagnosed and 41 non-clinical participants. The impact of self-imagery on various symptoms and both cognitive and attentional processes proposed by cognitive models was empirically tested in a two group by three condition between-subjects experimental design. Expected group differences emerged with regard to symptom, affective, and cognitive measures, as well as performance discrepancy scores; however, specific statistical interactions hypothesised between group and condition were not supported for the majority of symptom measures, suggesting that negative imagery may not be differentially influential, as posited by current theoretical models. Continuing research is warranted to further disentangle the relative importance of different aspects of self-imagery in order to better understand the factors that maintain social threat fears, and inform clinical intervention research modifying imagery in effective treatments for social anxiety disorder.

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Notes

  1. This analysis was repeated by first entering SIAS and SCQ-frequency variables, followed by the remaining symptom and cognitive variables. The results remained unchanged, that is, after controlling for SIAS and SCQ-frequency, the other variables did not account for significant variance. Similarly, after controlling for SCQ-frequency scores, no other symptom or cognitive variable attained significance in predicting variance in negative rumination. Correlation matrices are available on request to the authors.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Matthew Modini and Aberdine Donaldson for their assistance in coding speech data, and Dr Damian Birney for his statistical advice.

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  1. Clinical Psychology Unit (M02F), School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, 94 Mallett St, Camperdown, Sydney, NSW, 2050, Australia

    Ashlen S. Ng & Maree J. Abbott

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  1. Ashlen S. Ng
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Correspondence to Maree J. Abbott.

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Ashlen S. Ng and Maree J. Abbott declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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We confirm that we obtained ethical approval from The University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee, and that we adhered to all ethical guidelines and principles in the conduct of this research, in keeping with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. We can also confirm that informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Ng, A.S., Abbott, M.J. The Effect of Negative, Positive, and Neutral Self-imagery on Symptoms and Processes in Social Anxiety Disorder. Cogn Ther Res 40, 479–495 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-015-9751-z

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