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Memory for Physiological Feedback in Social Anxiety Disorder: The Role of Fear of Bodily Sensations

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Abstract

This study examined whether individuals with social anxiety disorder have a memory bias for bodily sensations associated with anxiety. Using a false feedback paradigm, 33 individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and 34 non-anxious control (NAC) participants completed a performance task while monitoring stimuli they were told provided feedback on whether their physiological response was changing or stable. On measures of free recall and recognition for their feedback no differences were found between SAD and NAC individuals. However, among SAD participants only, fear of bodily sensations was significantly associated with enhanced memory for stimuli associated with physiological responses. Results suggest that research and treatment may benefit from considering not only fear of social situations, but also the focus of those fears, such as bodily sensations, when examining memory biases in social anxiety.

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Notes

  1. In Quebec students are required to complete a pre-university college which is the equivalent of the final 2 years of high school in other parts of Canada and the United States.

  2. Results pertaining to the predictions of the study did not change when analyses were rerun excluding the two SAD participants meeting diagnostic criteria for substance dependence without physiological dependence and the two NAC participants who reporting taking psychotropic medication.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript, as well as Stella Paradisis and Ivana DiLeo for their help with data collection and entry. This study was completed as part of the Ph.D. dissertation of the first author. Portions of this paper were presented at the 2007 conference of the Association for the Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering and Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and by Fonds de la recherche en santé Quebec.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal, QC, H4B 1R6, Canada

    Andrea R. Ashbaugh & Adam S. Radomsky

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  1. Andrea R. Ashbaugh
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  2. Adam S. Radomsky
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Correspondence to Adam S. Radomsky.

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Ashbaugh, A.R., Radomsky, A.S. Memory for Physiological Feedback in Social Anxiety Disorder: The Role of Fear of Bodily Sensations. Cogn Ther Res 35, 304–316 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-009-9291-5

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