Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333 AK, Leiden, The Netherlands, The Netherlands; Department of Psychiatry, Leiden University Medical Center, Albinusdreef 2, 2333 ZA, Leiden, The Netherlands; Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333 AK, Leiden, The Netherlands, The Netherlands; Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Eur Psychiatry. 2018 Aug;52:15-21. doi: 10.1016/j.eurpsy.2018.03.002. Epub 2018 Mar 30.
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is associated with altered social norm (SN) processing: SAD-patients rate stories on SN violations as more inappropriate and more embarrassing than healthy participants, with the most prominent effect for stories on unintentional SN violations (i.e. committing a blunder). Until now it's unknown how levels of social anxiety (SA) are related to ratings of SN violations in the general population, in which SA-symptoms are present at a continuum. More insight in this relationship could improve our understanding of the symptom profile of SAD. Therefore, we investigated the relation between ratings of SN violations and SA-levels in the general population.
Adults and adolescents (n = 87) performed the revised Social Norm Processing Task (SNPT-R) and completed self-report questionnaires on social anxiety. Repeated-measures ANCOVAs were used to investigate the effect of SA on the ratings of inappropriateness and embarrassment.
As hypothesized, participants with higher SA-levels rated SN violations as more inappropriate and more embarrassing. Whereas participants with low-to-intermediate SA-levels rated unintentional SN violations as less embarrassing than intentional SN violations, participants with high SA-levels (z-score SA ≥ 1.6) rated unintentional SN violations as equally embarrassing as intentional SN violations.
These findings indicate that increased embarrassment for unintentional SN violations is an important characteristic of social anxiety. These high levels of embarrassment are likely related to the debilitating concern of socially-anxious people that their skills and behavior do not meet expectations of others, and to their fear of blundering. This concern might be an important target for future therapeutic interventions.
社交焦虑障碍（SAD）与社交规范（SN）处理的改变有关：与健康参与者相比，SAD 患者会对 SN 违反的故事进行更多的不适当和更尴尬的评价，其中最明显的影响是对无意 SN 违反（即犯错误）的故事。到目前为止，我们还不知道社交焦虑水平（SA）与一般人群中 SN 违反的评价有何关系，在一般人群中，SA 症状呈连续状态存在。对这种关系的更多了解可以提高我们对 SAD 症状特征的理解。因此，我们调查了一般人群中 SN 违反与 SA 水平之间的关系。
成年人和青少年（n=87）完成了修订后的社会规范处理任务（SNPT-R），并完成了社交焦虑的自我报告问卷。使用重复测量方差分析来研究 SA 对不适当性和尴尬性评价的影响。
正如假设的那样，SA 水平较高的参与者认为 SN 违反更不适当和更尴尬。而 SA 水平较低到中等的参与者认为无意的 SN 违反比故意的 SN 违反更不尴尬，而 SA 水平较高（z 分数 SA≥1.6）的参与者则认为无意的 SN 违反与故意的 SN 违反一样尴尬。
这些发现表明，对无意的 SN 违反感到更尴尬是社交焦虑的一个重要特征。这些高水平的尴尬可能与社交焦虑的人对自己的技能和行为不符合他人期望的严重担忧有关，也与他们对犯错的恐惧有关。这种担忧可能是未来治疗干预的一个重要目标。
