Reduced sensitivity in the recognition of anger and disgust in social anxiety disorder.

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this study was to investigate the recognition of facial expressions in patients with a generalised social anxiety disorder. It is well documented that in different psychiatric disorders (e.g., depression, schizophrenia) patients may show an altered processing of emotions. However, in generalised social anxiety, emotion recognition has not been studied.

METHODS

24 Patients with generalised social anxiety disorder and 26 healthy controls, matched on age, education, and sex were included. The task entailed the emotional labelling of faces with different facial expressions (happiness, fear, disgust, sadness, surprise, anger) presented in different intensities. Subjects were asked to make a forced-choice response.

RESULTS

These revealed that patients with a generalised social anxiety disorder were less sensitive for the negative facial expressions of anger and disgust compared to the control group.

CONCLUSIONS

This deficit could play a role in the development and/or the maintaining of the social anxiety. Both explanations are discussed.