San Diego State University/University of California San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology.
Colorado State University.
Behav Ther. 2021 Nov;52(6):1464-1476. doi: 10.1016/j.beth.2021.04.003. Epub 2021 May 1.
Social impairments are common across many psychiatric conditions. Standardized dyadic assessments intended to elicit social affiliation between unacquainted partners are used to elucidate mechanisms that disrupt relationship formation and inform possible treatment targets; however, the psychometric properties of such paradigms remain poorly understood. This study evaluated the psychometric properties of a controlled social affiliation paradigm intended to induce connectedness between a target participant and trained confederate. Individuals with an anxiety or depressive disorder diagnosis (clinical group; n = 132) and those without (control group; n = 35) interacted face-to-face with a trained confederate; partners took turns answering a series of increasingly intimate questions about themselves. Social connectedness, affect, and affiliative behavior measures were collected during the interaction. Participant symptom and social functioning measures were collected to examine validity. The paradigm elicited escalating social connectedness throughout the task for both participants and confederates. Parallel forms (i.e., different question sets) elicited similar affiliation outcomes. Self-reported (but not behavioral) affiliation differed across some demographic variables (e.g., participant gender, Hispanic ethnicity). Within-task affiliation measures were associated with one another and with global social connectedness and social anxiety symptom measures, but not with somatic anxiety measures. Clinical participants reported lower social affiliation and positive affect reactivity and higher negative affect reactivity than healthy participants. These findings provide initial psychometric support for a standardized and controlled dyadic affiliation paradigm that could be used to reliably probe social disconnection mechanisms across psychopathology.
社交障碍在许多精神疾病中都很常见。标准化的对偶评估旨在激发陌生伙伴之间的社交联系，用于阐明破坏关系形成的机制，并为可能的治疗目标提供信息；然而，这种范式的心理测量特性仍然知之甚少。本研究评估了一种旨在诱导目标参与者和训练有素的同谋之间联系的受控社交关联范式的心理测量特性。患有焦虑或抑郁障碍诊断的个体（临床组；n=132）和没有这些诊断的个体（对照组；n=35）与一名训练有素的同谋进行面对面互动；参与者轮流回答一系列关于自己的越来越亲密的问题。在互动过程中收集了社交联系、情感和亲和行为的测量值。收集参与者的症状和社交功能测量值以检验有效性。该范式在整个任务中激发了参与者和同谋的社交联系不断增强。平行形式（即，不同的问题集）引发了类似的关联结果。自我报告的（但不是行为的）关联因一些人口统计学变量而异（例如，参与者的性别、西班牙裔种族）。任务内的关联测量值彼此相关，与整体社交联系和社交焦虑症状测量值相关，但与躯体焦虑症状测量值无关。临床参与者报告的社交联系和积极情绪反应较低，消极情绪反应较高，而健康参与者则相反。这些发现为一种标准化和受控的对偶关联范式提供了初步的心理测量支持，该范式可用于可靠地探测精神病理学中的社交脱节机制。
