Stevens Stephan, Gerlach Alexander L, Rist Fred
University of Münster, Germany.
J Anxiety Disord. 2008 Aug;22(6):940-8. doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2007.09.007. Epub 2007 Sep 29.
Social phobics have an increased risk of alcoholism. The mechanism behind this co-morbidity is not well understood. According to the appraisal-disruption model [Sayette, M. A. (1993). An appraisal-disruption model of alcohol's effects on stress responses in social drinkers. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 459-476], alcohol disrupts appraisal of threat stimuli unless the stimuli are easy to process. We investigated whether alcohol alters the judgment of emotional facial expressions in social phobics and controls. We also tested the judgment of emotionally ambiguous faces which should be more difficult to process. Forty social phobics and controls rated faces depicting five emotional expressions on an animosity rating scale. For two ambiguous facial expressions, angry, respectively, happy faces were blended with neutral faces. Half of the participants consumed alcohol. Socially phobic participants rated neutral and happy facial expressions as less friendly than controls, irrespective of alcohol consumption. In both groups, consuming alcohol reduced the perceived rejection of angry faces. In line with current theories of social phobia, patients interpreted neutral facial expressions as more rejecting than controls. The rejection perceived in explicitly angry facial expressions was less after drinking alcohol. This reduction of the adversity of socially threatening stimuli by alcohol might act as negative reinforcement and thus contributes to alcohol problems.
社交恐惧症患者患酒精中毒的风险增加。这种共病背后的机制尚未完全了解。根据评估干扰模型[赛耶特，M.A.（1993年）。酒精对社交饮酒者应激反应影响的评估干扰模型。《心理公报》，114，459 - 476]，除非刺激易于处理，否则酒精会干扰对威胁刺激的评估。我们调查了酒精是否会改变社交恐惧症患者和对照组对情绪性面部表情的判断。我们还测试了对情绪模糊面孔的判断，这类面孔应该更难处理。40名社交恐惧症患者和对照组在敌意评定量表上对面部呈现的五种情绪表情进行评分。对于两种模糊的面部表情，分别将愤怒或开心的面孔与中性面孔混合。一半的参与者饮酒。无论是否饮酒，社交恐惧症患者将中性和开心的面部表情评定为比对照组更不友好。在两组中，饮酒都会降低对愤怒面孔的感知排斥。与当前社交恐惧症理论一致，患者将中性面部表情解释为比对照组更具排斥性。饮酒后，在明确愤怒的面部表情中察觉到的排斥减少。酒精对社会威胁性刺激的逆境的这种降低可能起到负强化作用，从而导致酒精问题。
