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Social Anxiety and the Interaction of Imagery and Interpretations in Children: An Experimental Test of the Combined Cognitive Biases Hypothesis

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Abstract

Previous research with adult samples has demonstrated that self-imagery valence influences the emotional interpretations people make about social situations. However, no research has examined the effect of self-imagery valence on interpretations in children. In the present study we examined the causal role of self-imagery valence on interpretations and judgments concerning ambiguous social events. Self-imagery was experimentally induced by asking children to generate and hold in mind a negative or positive self-image while interpretation and judgmental biases were examined using an ambiguous stories task. Our results showed that social anxiety predicts more negative interpretation and judgmental biases in response to hypothetical social events. Additionally, exposing children to negative or positive self-imagery differentially affected their subsequent judgmental biases, although for interpretation biases this was only true for children scoring above the mean on social anxiety. Crucially, self-imagery valence interacted with social anxiety to predict interpretation (but not judgmental) biases. The findings provide early support for the suggestion that cognitive biases interact to maintain childhood social anxiety.

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Notes

  1. Of the original 172 students who participated in both sessions of the study, eight participants were dropped due to incomplete data and language difficulties, yielding a total of 164 students.

  2. We also ran a regression analysis to test whether imagery condition interacted with social anxiety to predict the emotional valence of the recalled self-image while controlling for depression scores. This interaction did not significantly predict image valence, β = .16, t (159) = .67, P = .50.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the “K. Karatheodoris” research grant (contract C919) awarded to the first author by the Research Committee of the University of Patras.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Primary Education, University of Patras, 26 110, Patras, Greece

    Stephanos P. Vassilopoulos & Kandio-Maria Douratsou

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Nicholas J. Moberly

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  1. Stephanos P. Vassilopoulos
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  3. Kandio-Maria Douratsou
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Correspondence to Stephanos P. Vassilopoulos.

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Vassilopoulos, S.P., Moberly, N.J. & Douratsou, KM. Social Anxiety and the Interaction of Imagery and Interpretations in Children: An Experimental Test of the Combined Cognitive Biases Hypothesis. Cogn Ther Res 36, 548–559 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-011-9382-y

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