Hirsch Colette R, Mathews Andrew, Clark David M
Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK.
Behav Res Ther. 2007 Sep;45(9):2173-81. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2006.11.001. Epub 2006 Dec 18.
Prior work suggests that variations in self-imagery can influence the emotional interpretations people make about social situations. The current experiment investigated the converse possibility: that inducing an inferential bias can change the content of self-related images. The effects of repeated practice in accessing either negative or positive social outcomes was tested by having participants report on self-images generated during subsequent experience with ambiguous social situations. Participants and independent judges rated the content of participants' self-images as being more negative after prior practice in accessing negative rather than positive social outcomes. Furthermore, participants who practiced accessing negative outcomes rated their anticipated anxiety in an imagined stressful social situation as being greater, and their expected social performance as poorer than participants in the positive outcome group. Groups did not differ in state anxiety levels when making their ratings, so it is unlikely that any observed differences between groups can be attributed to mood effects. We suggest that this finding is consistent with the hypothesis that inferential biases and content of self-images can interact with each other and may together serve to maintain social anxiety.
先前的研究表明，自我意象的变化会影响人们对社交情境的情感解读。当前的实验探究了相反的可能性：即诱导推理偏差会改变与自我相关的意象内容。通过让参与者报告在随后面对模糊社交情境时所产生的自我意象，测试了反复练习获取消极或积极社交结果的影响。参与者和独立评判者将参与者的自我意象内容评定为，在先前练习获取消极而非积极社交结果后，其更消极。此外，练习获取消极结果的参与者将他们在想象的压力社交情境中的预期焦虑评定为更高，且他们预期的社交表现比积极结果组的参与者更差。两组在进行评定时的状态焦虑水平并无差异，因此，两组之间观察到的任何差异不太可能归因于情绪影响。我们认为，这一发现与以下假设一致：推理偏差和自我意象内容可能相互作用，并可能共同导致社交焦虑持续存在。
