Adamis Alexandra M, Walske Savannah, Olatunji Bunmi O
Vanderbilt University, 111 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN, 37203, USA.
Vanderbilt University, 111 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN, 37203, USA.
Behav Res Ther. 2025 Aug;191:104759. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2025.104759. Epub 2025 Apr 29.
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by biased patterns of attention that are theorized to play a key role in maintaining symptoms. SAD has been linked to externally oriented attentional biases (i.e., towards social-evaluative threats) and internally oriented attentional biases (i.e., towards anxiety-laden thoughts and sensations), both of which might increase proneness for post-event processing (PEP), a form of rumination about the negative aspects of past social events. However, prior research examining attentional biases in SAD has primarily been conducted in laboratory settings, leaving unanswered questions about the naturalistic patterns of attention and cognition that most strongly characterize and maintain social anxiety. The present study applied ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine attentional biases during real-world social interactions and their effects on subsequent PEP in a sample of adults with high (n = 108) and low (n = 94) levels of social anxiety. Three times per day for one week, participants reported their attention orientation (i.e., internal versus external), the valence of their attentional foci (i.e., negative versus positive), and their degree of PEP following salient social events. Results revealed that high (vs. low) levels of social anxiety were associated with relatively more internally oriented and negatively valenced attention during social interactions, which in turn predicted increases in subsequent PEP. Findings highlight the salience of negative self-focused attention and ruminative thinking as maintenance factors in social anxiety, and suggest that interventions targeting these mechanisms could show promise in future research.
社交焦虑障碍（SAD）的特征是注意力模式存在偏差，从理论上讲，这种偏差在维持症状方面起着关键作用。社交焦虑障碍与外部导向的注意力偏差（即朝向社会评价威胁）和内部导向的注意力偏差（即朝向充满焦虑的想法和感觉）有关，这两种偏差都可能增加事后加工（PEP）的倾向，事后加工是一种对过去社交事件的负面方面进行反复思考的形式。然而，先前研究社交焦虑障碍中注意力偏差的研究主要是在实验室环境中进行的，关于最能表征和维持社交焦虑的自然主义注意力和认知模式的问题仍未得到解答。本研究应用生态瞬时评估（EMA）来检查高社交焦虑水平（n = 108）和低社交焦虑水平（n = 94）的成年人样本在现实世界社交互动中的注意力偏差及其对随后的事后加工的影响。参与者在一周内每天报告三次他们的注意力方向（即内部与外部）、注意力焦点的效价（即负面与正面）以及在显著社交事件后的事后加工程度。结果显示，高社交焦虑水平（与低社交焦虑水平相比）与社交互动期间相对更多的内部导向和负性效价注意力相关，这反过来又预测了随后事后加工的增加。研究结果突出了以自我为中心的负面注意力和反复思考作为社交焦虑维持因素的显著性，并表明针对这些机制的干预措施在未来研究中可能会有前景。
