Washington University in St Louis, 1 St Louis, MO 63130, USA.
J Anxiety Disord. 2011 Apr;25(3):427-36. doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2010.11.006. Epub 2010 Nov 18.
Data from self-report and observational studies make it clear that problematic social anxiety confers interpersonal constraint that may contribute to the interpersonal dysfunction reported by individuals with social anxiety disorder. Direct observation of interpersonal behavior in established relationships is rare and difficult to obtain for practical reasons. We tested a flexible iterated prisoner's dilemma computer task to examine whether it might capture interpersonal constraint related to social anxiety. Our first study suggested that, at least for men, the task directly captures social anxiety's constraint on responses to friendly giving. Our second study more strongly supported the assertion that the task directly assesses interpersonal constraint. The data support a model in which social anxiety directly confers trait-like tendencies toward interpersonal constraint and indirectly constrains behavior in specific interactions. These studies provide further evidence that constrained responses to positive social behaviors are characteristic of people with problematic social anxiety and may be particularly important to dysfunctions in the close relationships of these individuals.
来自自我报告和观察性研究的数据清楚地表明，有问题的社交焦虑会导致人际约束，这可能导致社交焦虑障碍患者报告的人际功能障碍。出于实际原因，对既定关系中的人际行为进行直接观察是罕见且难以实现的。我们测试了一个灵活的迭代囚徒困境计算机任务，以检验它是否可以捕捉与社交焦虑相关的人际约束。我们的第一项研究表明，至少对于男性来说，该任务直接捕捉到社交焦虑对友好给予反应的约束。我们的第二项研究更有力地支持了这样一种观点，即该任务直接评估人际约束。这些数据支持这样一种模式，即社交焦虑直接赋予人际约束的特质倾向，并间接地限制特定互动中的行为。这些研究进一步证明，对积极社交行为的受限反应是有问题的社交焦虑人群的特征，并且可能对这些人亲密关系中的功能障碍特别重要。
