School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Oakfield House, Bristol BS8 2BN, UK.
J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 2012 Dec;43(4):1082-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2012.05.004. Epub 2012 May 26.
Fears of negative evaluation characterise social anxiety, and preferential processing of fear-relevant information is implicated in maintaining symptoms. Little is known, however, about the relationship between social anxiety and the process of inferring negative evaluation. The ability to use social information to learn what others think about one, referred to here as self-referential learning, is fundamental for effective social interaction. The aim of this research was to examine whether social anxiety is associated with self-referential learning.
102 Females with either high (n = 52) or low (n = 50) self-reported social anxiety completed a novel probabilistic social learning task. Using trial and error, the task required participants to learn two self-referential rules, 'I am liked' and 'I am disliked'.
Participants across the sample were better at learning the positive rule 'I am liked' than the negative rule 'I am disliked', β = -6.4, 95% CI [-8.0, -4.7], p < 0.001. This preference for learning positive self-referential information was strongest in the lowest socially anxious and was abolished in the most symptomatic participants. Relative to the low group, the high anxiety group were better at learning they were disliked and worse at learning they were liked, social anxiety by rule interaction β = 3.6; 95% CI [+0.3, +7.0], p = 0.03.
The specificity of the results to self-referential processing requires further research.
Healthy individuals show a robust preference for learning that they are liked relative to disliked. This positive self-referential bias is reduced in social anxiety in a way that would be expected to exacerbate anxiety symptoms.
对负面评价的恐惧是社交焦虑的特征，而对恐惧相关信息的优先处理被认为与维持症状有关。然而，人们对社交焦虑与推断负面评价的过程之间的关系知之甚少。这里所说的使用社交信息来了解他人对自己的看法的能力，即自我参照学习，是有效社交互动的基础。本研究旨在探讨社交焦虑是否与自我参照学习有关。
102 名女性（高社交焦虑组 n = 52，低社交焦虑组 n = 50）完成了一项新颖的概率性社会学习任务。通过试错，该任务要求参与者学习两个自我参照规则，“我被喜欢”和“我被讨厌”。
样本中的所有参与者都更善于学习积极的规则“我被喜欢”，而不是消极的规则“我被讨厌”，β = -6.4，95%CI[-8.0，-4.7]，p < 0.001。这种对学习积极的自我参照信息的偏好，在社交焦虑最低的参与者中最为强烈，而在症状最严重的参与者中则被消除。与低焦虑组相比，高焦虑组更善于学习到他们被讨厌，而不善于学习到他们被喜欢，社交焦虑与规则的交互作用β = 3.6；95%CI[+0.3，+7.0]，p = 0.03。
结果对自我参照加工的特异性需要进一步研究。
健康个体表现出对学习他们被喜欢的强烈偏好，而不是被讨厌。这种积极的自我参照偏差在社交焦虑中会减少，这可能会加剧焦虑症状。
