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Interpersonal Sensitivity and Response Bias in Social Phobia and Depression: Labeling Emotional Expressions

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Abstract

Interpersonal sensitivity to ambiguous facial expressions of emotions was examined using individual growth modeling. Generalized socially phobic (n = 54), depressed (n = 44), comorbidly socially phobic and depressed individuals (n = 39), and non-clinical controls (n = 65) were assessed on an emotion labeling task. Patients were as good as controls in labeling happy expressions as positive, and better than controls in labeling faint angry and sad expressions as negative. Depression and social anxiety (SA) were positively correlated with a response bias, and negatively correlated with sensitivity, to angry expressions. Depression was also correlated with higher sensitivity, and SA with higher response bias, to sad expressions. The effects of depression and SA on the identification of negative expressions were sub-additive. Finally, depression, but not SA, was associated with longer examination of happy, but not angry emotional expressions. Implications of these findings for the understanding of interpersonal impairments in social phobia and depression are discussed.

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Notes

  1. A correct identification in our study is defined as identification of the emotion used to generate the expression. Note, however, that for faint emotional expression, the normative response may be “neutral”.

  2. In a sense, this distinction parallels the distinction between beta and d’ in signal detection theory. Whereas signal detection theory applies to binary inputs, the regression analysis conducted here suggests a conceptually similar distinction for continuous stimuli.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Israeli Science Foundation Grant No. 866-99. The first author thanks the Department of Psychology at Yale University for its hospitality.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, 52900, Israel

    Eva Gilboa-Schechtman & Yael Vaknin

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, University of Pennsylvania, 3535 Market Street, 6th Floor, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Edna Foa

  3. Anxiety Disorders and Behavior Therapy Unit, Geha Mental Health Medical Center, Petah Tikva, Israel

    Sofi Marom & Haggai Hermesh

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  1. Eva Gilboa-Schechtman
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  2. Edna Foa
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Correspondence to Eva Gilboa-Schechtman.

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Gilboa-Schechtman, E., Foa, E., Vaknin, Y. et al. Interpersonal Sensitivity and Response Bias in Social Phobia and Depression: Labeling Emotional Expressions. Cogn Ther Res 32, 605–618 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-008-9208-8

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