Cognitive effects of social exclusion in social anxiety

Social anxiety (SA) is characterized by persistent and intense fears of situations that provide the opportunity for social evaluation. Moreover, SA is often associated with core interpersonal (e.g., overt social skills, differential processing of socially-salient cues) and intrapersonal (e.g., biased attention and cognitions toward others and of oneself within social settings) impairments that present across a variety of social contexts. In particular, those with SA tend to demonstrate differences in attentional engagement and disengagement with socially-salient information such as negative facial expressions relative to those without SA. Moreover, social exclusion may serve as a social context in which such fears associated with core features of SA may be initiated and exacerbated. As a result, understanding sensitivity to different social contexts in which these fears and biases may present may clarify maintenance factors and adverse outcomes associated with SA. However, there currently exists a paucity of research regarding the nuanced impacts of different forms of social exclusion on impairments associated with SA. The present work aims to address these gaps at the intersections of attention, socio-emotional cue processing, and social exclusion in an effort to expand upon literature regarding mechanisms maintaining SA concerns. Using a mixed factorial 2 SA group (Low, High) by 2 Exclusion Type (Ostracism, Rejection) by 3 Time (Baseline, Post-Inclusion, Post-Exclusion) design, participants engaged online in a series of modified dot-probe tasks at baseline and following inclusion and exclusion versions of either Cyberball or an adapted written feedback-based rejection task. Primary results revealed a statistically significant main effect of time such that participants, on average, responded more slowly on trials within the modified dot probe task relative to those at the post-inclusion or post-exclusion versions of the same tasks. These findings may correspond to practice effects, and are inconsistent with broader literature. Implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed

Examining self-report and behavioral measure of attentional control in anxiety disorders

Attention is a fundamental cognitive process which shapes the way an individual sees and interacts with their environment. Anxiety disorders disrupt normal cognitive functioning by interfering with top-down (i.e., goal driven) and bottom-up (i.e., stimulus driven) attentional control processes, such that individuals with high anxiety have distinct attentional biases toward threatening stimuli. Attentional control can be assessed through self-report measures such as the Attentional Control Scale, or through behavioral measures such as a dot-probe task, both of which are used commonly in cognitive research. The current study sought to examine if levels of worry and social anxiety symptoms predict self-reported and behavioral indicators of attentional control abilities, as this relationship has not been well documented in existing literature. Participants completed self-report measures of worry, social anxiety, and attentional control, followed by a modified emotional dot-probe task designed to provide behavioral indicators of attentional control. Results found that those in the high social anxiety group expressed low self- reported attentional control and displayed low responding accuracy across dot-probe trials. No significant relationship was found among worry groups, possibly due to anxiety related deficits in attentional efficiency but not performance. This study expands on current research by documenting the relationship between self-report and behavioral measures of attentional control across levels of anxiety and social anxiety

Links between parental monitoring and parent-adolescent conflict: A multi-modal test of bidirectional relations

During adolescence, youth increase in both independence and conflict with parents. Parents vary in how much they know about their adolescents’ whereabouts and activities, and how they acquire this information (i.e., the sources of what parents know). We probed how parental knowledge of adolescents’ whereabouts and activities―and their information sources―relates to (a) domains of parent-adolescent conflict (fighting about, or having different beliefs about, daily life topics); and (b) parent and adolescent attachment-related behavior during a conflict discussion task. Using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model, we tested links between parental knowledge and its sources and conflict processes. Eighty-seven adolescents (agem=15.18; 55% female) and parents completed surveys about parental knowledge and its sources (i.e., parental solicitation of adolescents’ activities, adolescent disclosure to parents about their activities), and separate interviews on conflict domains. A subset of parent-adolescent dyads (n = 65) interacted for 5 minutes about an adolescent-identified conflict topic. Different beliefs about daily life topics related to parental knowledge: parents’ reports of greater different beliefs about daily life topics predicted less knowledge of adolescents’ activities/whereabouts, solicitation, and disclosure, for both parent and adolescent reports of these domains. For adolescents, greater different beliefs related to less solicitation and disclosure. Only adolescent reports of parental knowledge, solicitation, and disclosure predicted attachment-related behaviors both dyad members displayed during the conflict discussion task. Findings reveal links between parental knowledge of adolescents’ activities and conflict processes, and demonstrate dyadic interdependence between parental knowledge of adolescents’ activities and conflict processes

Moderated mediation of the link between parent-adolescent conflict and adolescent risk-taking: The role of physiological regulation and hostile behavior in an experimentally controlled investigation

Compared to childhood and adulthood, adolescence is a time of greater risk-taking behavior, potentially resulting in serious consequences. Theories of adolescent brain development highlight the imbalance between neural circuitry for reward vs. regulation. Although this imbalance may make adolescents more vulnerable to impaired decision-making in the context of heightened arousal, not all adolescents exhibit problematic risk behavior, suggesting other factors are involved. Relatedly, parent-adolescent conflict increases in mid-adolescence, and is linked to negative outcomes like substance use related risk-taking. However, the mechanism by which parent-adolescent conflict and risk-taking are linked is still unknown. Therefore, we investigated this association using a multi-method experimental design. Parent-adolescent dyads were randomly assigned to complete a discussion task together on the topic of either the adolescent’s dream vacation or an adolescent-identified conflict topic. During the task, adolescent peripheral psychophysiology was measured for later calculation of heart rate variability (HRV), an index of self-regulation. Immediately after the discussion task, adolescents completed a performance-based measure of risk-taking propensity that indexes real-world risk behaviors. We hypothesized that parent-adolescent conflict would predict greater adolescent risk-taking propensity, and that increased behavioral arousal in the context of conflict, coupled with impaired self-regulation, would explain this link. Results indicated no direct effect of parent-adolescent conflict on adolescent risk-taking propensity. However, there was a significant conditional indirect effect: lower HRV, indexing worse regulatory ability, mediated the relation between conflict and risk-taking propensity but only for adolescents exhibiting behavioral arousal during the discussion task. We discuss implications for understanding adolescent risk-taking behavior

Uproar on Campus: Student Protests in the Vietnam War Era

The Vietnam War was one of the most polarizing events in United States history. Protesters angered by a decade of controversial policy decisions in Vietnam opposed what they believed to be an unfair and corrupt political system waging an unpopular war. As the antiwar movement began to gain momentum in the late 1960s and early 1970s, college students took leading roles, protesting not only against the war, but also against conventional forms of authority and social norms. Student protesters embraced a philosophy of free love, and peace and justice for all that had its roots in the radical counterculture movement that started in the early 1960s. The Vietnam War opened an ideological rift between Americans. The radical ideas of student protesters, and the antiwar movement more broadly, met opposition from the US government, as well as from supporters of the war. Americans on both side of this divide banded together to print and distribute materials across the country in the hopes of gaining support and recognition for their respective causes. The artifacts in this exhibit are drawn from the Radical Pamphlets Collection housed in Gettysburg College’s Musselman Library. These artifacts have been selected to provide a taste of what it might have been like to be a college student during the Vietnam War era