Social Anxiety is Associated with Impaired Memory for Imagined Social Events with Positive Outcomes

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Cognition & Emotion in 2020, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2019.1675596Cognitive models of social anxiety disorder suggest that memory biases for negative social information contribute to symptoms of social anxiety (SA). However, it remains unclear whether memory biases in SA are related to social information, specifically, and if so, whether the valence of such information would moderate memory performance. In the present study, 197 community participants were randomised to imagine themselves as the central character in either 10 social or 10 non-social scenarios. In both conditions, half of the scenarios ended with objectively positive outcomes and half ended with objectively negative outcomes. Results demonstrated that higher trait SA was related to memory performance for social scenarios only, and in particular to poorer memory for social scenarios that ended positively. Thus, the impact of SA on memory performance depended on how social information was framed, with higher SA related to poorer memory for positive social experiences. These context-specific effects contribute to the growing literature on positivity deficits in SA.This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under grant [SSHRC Insight grant number: 435-2018-0959]

Social anxiety in the digital age: The measurement and sequelae of online safety-seeking

The final publication is available at Elsevier via https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.08.023 © 2019. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Online communication is essential to modern life, but its features may also afford socially anxious individuals the ability to conceal themselves, or parts of themselves, from evaluation by others. In this way, Internet-based social interaction may function as a form of safety behavior for socially anxious people seeking to avoid face-to-face encounters. To enhance our understanding of how social anxiety manifests online and examine the nature and impact of safety behaviors within online social contexts, we developed the Seeking Online Safety Questionnaire (SOSQ). The SOSQ measures the degree to which specific features of online communication contribute to the perception of interpersonal safety in online contexts. We explored the measure's factor structure and psychometric properties in a sample of 374 participants who completed the online survey through Mechanical Turk. Exploratory factor analysis suggested two correlated factors: control over self-presentation, and control over personal information. The SOSQ showed good convergent validity, such that as each of the SOSQ factors and total score increased, so too did participants' trait social anxiety, concerns about self-attribute flaws, fear of negative evaluation, and use of offline safety behaviors. Regression analyses demonstrated that control over online self-presentation explained unique variance in social anxiety symptoms and fear of negative evaluation over and above control over personal information. Results expand our understanding of social anxiety-driven safety behaviors in online contexts, which have important implications for conceptualizing the nature and treatment of social anxiety.Canada Research ChairsSocial Sciences and Humanities Council of Canad

Coping with negative mental images in social anxiety disorder: Investigating the potential benefits of image morphing

Negative mental imagery contributes to symptom maintenance in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Here, we investigated the effects of image morphing, a brief mental strategy designed to facilitate access to positive images. Participants with SAD and healthy control (HC) participants were randomly assigned to receive either image morphing or supportive counseling. Although initial training and 1-week daily practice were successful in equipping morphing participants across groups with the required skill, those assigned to morphing failed to demonstrate differential improvements in positive affect, negative affect, or self-perception relative to control participants during a subsequent social stress task. Ancillary analyses revealed that the number of positive details contained in retrieved or morphed images prior to the task significantly predicted the level of positive affect reported after the task, but this effect was observed only for HC participants. We discuss the need for future research to refine innovative imagery-based psychotherapeutic strategies for social anxiety.This research was undertaken thanks to funding awarded to the third author from the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Concurrent and prospective associations between negative social-evaluative beliefs, safety behaviours, and symptoms during and following cognitive behavioural group therapy for social anxiety disorder

Background: Improving the delivery of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for social anxiety disorder (SAD) requires an in-depth understanding of which cognitive and behavioural mechanisms drive change in social anxiety symptoms (i.e., social interaction anxiety) during and after treatment. The current study explores the dynamic temporal associations between theory-driven cognitive and behavioural mechanisms of symptom change both during and following group CBT. Methods: A randomized controlled trial of imagery-enhanced CBT (n = 51) versus traditional verbal CBT (n = 54) for social anxiety was completed in a community mental health clinic setting. This study included data collected from 12-weekly sessions and a 1-month follow-up session. Mixed models were used to assess magnitude of change over the course of treatment. Cross-lagged panel models were fit to the data to examine temporal relationships between mechanisms (social evaluative beliefs, safety behaviours) and social interaction anxiety symptoms. Results: Participants in both CBT groups experienced significant improvements across all cognitive, behavioural, and symptom measures, with no significant differences in the magnitude of changes between treatments. During treatment, greater social-evaluative beliefs (fear of negative evaluation, negative self-portrayals) at one time point (T) were predictive of more severe SAD symptoms and safety behaviours at T+1. Social-evaluative beliefs (fear of negative evaluation, probability and cost of social failure) and safety behaviours measured at post-treatment were positively associated with SAD symptoms at the 1-month follow-up. Conclusions: The current study identifies social-evaluative beliefs that may be important targets for symptom and avoidance reduction during and following CBT. Assessment of these social-evaluative beliefs throughout treatment may be useful for predicting future SAD symptoms and avoidance, and for adapting treatment to promote optimal change for patients

Practicing self-compassion weakens the relationship between fear of receiving compassion and the desire to conceal negative experiences from others

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Mindfulness. The final authenticated version is available online from Springer at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12671-017-0792-0Disclosure of personal distress is linked to important inter- and intrapersonal benefits. However, people who tend to view self-disclosure as being risky are likely to conceal their feelings and forgo opportunities to receive valuable social support. One such group of people may be those who fear receiving compassion. The current study of 85 female undergraduates investigated (a) whether fear of receiving compassion would predict decreased distress disclosure, and (b) whether inducing a self-compassionate mindset could help to temper the association between fear of receiving compassion and perceived risks of revealing one’s distress to others. Participants completed self-report questionnaires to measure trait-like fears of receiving compassion as well as general distress disclosure tendencies. They were then enrolled in a laboratory experiment in which they recalled a personal past negative experience and were randomly assigned to write about it in a self-compassionate, self-esteem enhancing, or non-directive way. Finally, they rated how risky disclosing their experience would feel and disclosed the event in a written letter to another person. At a trait level, results indicated that the more participants feared receiving compassion, the less they tended to disclose. Moreover, self-compassion training – but neither of the comparison conditions – significantly weakened the positive link between fear of receiving compassion and perceived risks of distress disclosure. These novel findings suggest that practicing self-compassion could help to neutralize the maladaptive relationship between fear of receiving compassion and perceived risk of disclosure.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Grant 435-2012-0017 || Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Grant 430-2013-000757|| Canada Research Chairs, Grant 950-22314

Longitudinal biomarkers in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

OBJECTIVE: To investigate neurodegenerative and inflammatory biomarkers in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (PALS), evaluate their predictive value for ALS progression rates, and assess their utility as pharmacodynamic biomarkers for monitoring treatment effects. METHODS: De-identified, longitudinal plasma, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from PALS (n = 108; 85 with samples from \u3e /=2 visits) and controls without neurological disease (n = 41) were obtained from the Northeast ALS Consortium (NEALS) Biofluid Repository. Seventeen of 108 PALS had familial ALS, of whom 10 had C9orf72 mutations. Additional healthy control CSF samples (n = 35) were obtained from multiple sources. We stratified PALS into fast- and slow-progression subgroups using the ALS Functional Rating Scale-Revised change rate. We compared cytokines/chemokines and neurofilament (NF) levels between PALS and controls, among progression subgroups, and in those with C9orf72 mutations. RESULTS: We found significant elevations of cytokines, including MCP-1, IL-18, and neurofilaments (NFs), indicators of neurodegeneration, in PALS versus controls. Among PALS, these cytokines and NFs were significantly higher in fast-progression and C9orf72 mutation subgroups versus slow progressors. Analyte levels were generally stable over time, a key feature for monitoring treatment effects. We demonstrated that CSF/plasma neurofilament light chain (NFL) levels may predict disease progression, and stratification by NFL levels can enrich for more homogeneous patient groups. INTERPRETATION: Longitudinal stability of cytokines and NFs in PALS support their use for monitoring responses to immunomodulatory and neuroprotective treatments. NFs also have prognostic value for fast-progression patients and may be used to select similar patient subsets in clinical trials

Autobiographical memory retrieval and appraisal in social anxiety disorder

The final publication is available at Elsevier via https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2018.06.008 © 2018. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SADs; n = 41) and healthy controls (HCs; n = 40) were administered the Waterloo Images and Memories Interview, in which they described mental images that they tend to experience in both anxiety-provoking and non-anxiety-provoking social situations. Participants then recalled, in as much detail as possible, specific autobiographical memories of salient aversive and non-aversive social experiences that they believed led to the formation of these images. Audio-recorded memory narratives were transcribed and coded based on the procedure of the Autobiographical Interview, which provides a precise measure of the degree of episodic detail contained within each memory. Participants also rated the subjective properties of their recalled memories. Results revealed that participants across the two groups retrieved equivalent rates of both aversive and non-aversive social memories. However, SAD participants' memories of aversive events contained significantly more episodic detail than those of HCs, suggesting that they may be more highly accessible. Moreover, participants with SAD appraised their memories of aversive experiences as more distressing and intrusive than HCs, and perceived them as having a significantly greater influence on their self-perception. In contrast, no group differences were observed for memories of non-aversive events. Findings have the potential to shed new light on autobiographical memory in SAD, with implications for psychotherapeutic intervention.Canada Research Chairs ProgramSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council of CanadaCanadian Institutes of Health Researc