Negative self-imagery in social anxiety contaminates social interactions.

Patients with social phobia report experiencing negative images of themselves performing poorly when in feared social situations. The present study investigates whether such negative self-imagery (based on memory of past social situations) contaminates social interactions. High socially anxious volu...

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Main Authors: Hirsch, C, Meynen, T, Clark, D
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2004
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author Hirsch, C
Meynen, T
Clark, D
author_facet Hirsch, C
Meynen, T
Clark, D
author_sort Hirsch, C
collection OXFORD
description Patients with social phobia report experiencing negative images of themselves performing poorly when in feared social situations. The present study investigates whether such negative self-imagery (based on memory of past social situations) contaminates social interactions. High socially anxious volunteers participated in two conversations with another volunteer (conversational partner). During one conversation, the socially anxious volunteers held in mind a negative self-image, and during the other they held in mind a less negative (control) self-image. As predicted, when holding the negative image the socially anxious volunteers felt more anxious, reported using more safety behaviours, believed that they performed more poorly, and showed greater overestimation of how poorly they came across (relative to ratings by the conversational partner). Conversational partners rated the socially anxious volunteers' performance as poorer in the negative image condition. Furthermore, the conversation was contaminated since both groups of participants rated its quality as poorer in the negative image condition.
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spelling oxford-uuid:6efe694f-7910-4f75-9abc-3880084594462022-03-26T19:28:00ZNegative self-imagery in social anxiety contaminates social interactions.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:6efe694f-7910-4f75-9abc-388008459446EnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2004Hirsch, CMeynen, TClark, DPatients with social phobia report experiencing negative images of themselves performing poorly when in feared social situations. The present study investigates whether such negative self-imagery (based on memory of past social situations) contaminates social interactions. High socially anxious volunteers participated in two conversations with another volunteer (conversational partner). During one conversation, the socially anxious volunteers held in mind a negative self-image, and during the other they held in mind a less negative (control) self-image. As predicted, when holding the negative image the socially anxious volunteers felt more anxious, reported using more safety behaviours, believed that they performed more poorly, and showed greater overestimation of how poorly they came across (relative to ratings by the conversational partner). Conversational partners rated the socially anxious volunteers' performance as poorer in the negative image condition. Furthermore, the conversation was contaminated since both groups of participants rated its quality as poorer in the negative image condition.
spellingShingle Hirsch, C
Meynen, T
Clark, D
Negative self-imagery in social anxiety contaminates social interactions.
title Negative self-imagery in social anxiety contaminates social interactions.
title_full Negative self-imagery in social anxiety contaminates social interactions.
title_fullStr Negative self-imagery in social anxiety contaminates social interactions.
title_full_unstemmed Negative self-imagery in social anxiety contaminates social interactions.
title_short Negative self-imagery in social anxiety contaminates social interactions.
title_sort negative self imagery in social anxiety contaminates social interactions
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