Social anxiety and the accuracy of predicted affect

Abstract

Social anxiety is theorised to arise from sustained over-activation of a mammalian evolved system for detecting and responding to social threat with corresponding diminished opportunities for attaining the pleasure of safe attachments. Emotional forecasting data from two holidays were used to test the hypothesis that greater social anxiety would be associated with decreased expectations of positive affect (PA) and greater anticipated negative affect (NA) on a holiday marked by group celebration (St. Patrick's Day) while being associated with greater predicted PA for daters on a romantic holiday (Valentine's Day). Participants completed symptom reports, made affective forecasts and provided multiple affect reports throughout each holiday. Higher levels of social anxiety were associated with greater anticipated PA for Valentine's Day daters, but lower experienced PA on the holiday; this was not found for trait anxiety and depression. Alternatively, trait anxiety, depression and social anxiety were associated with less predicted PA for St. Patrick's Day, greater anticipated NA and diminished experienced PA/greater NA during the holiday. Results are discussed in light of perceived hope for rewarding safe emotional contact for those daters in contrast to the greater possibility for social threat associated with group celebration typical of St. Patrick's Day.

Toward a Taxonomy of Future Thinking

“…Finally, studies of mood and anxiety related disorders have historically focused on the fluency with which individuals with depression and anxiety think about positive and negative events that may occur in the future (MacLeod, Tata, Kentish, & Jacobsen, 1997). Although this work has provided important insights into future thinking in these populations, relatively little is known about the extent to which these individuals are able to engage in episodic and semantic forms of simulation, prediction, intention, and planning (for relevant work on episodic predictions, see Marroquín & Nolan-Hoeksema, 2015;Martin & Quirk, 2015;Wenze, Gunthert, & German, 2012). Development of research programs that consider the role of these various modes of future thinking could enhance our understanding of the Taxonomy of Future Thinking 18 ability of individuals afflicted with various mood and anxiety disorders to engage in adaptive behavior (e.g., How well are individuals with depression or anxiety able to predict their reactions to future events?…”

Episodic foresight and anxiety: Proximate and ultimate perspectives

“…From this perspective, it is perhaps not surprising that the impact bias persists in spite of repeated mispredictions (Meyvis, Ratney, & Levav, ), considering the importance of these mispredictions in facilitating management of potential threats. It is important to note that anxiety is not associated with decreased generativity, expectation, or anticipation of positive events, and anxious individuals generally exhibit a comparable impact bias to asymptomatic controls in the positive direction (MacLeod & Byrne, ; Martin & Quirk, ; Miranda & Mennin, ; Wenze et al ., ).…”

“…Anxious individuals tend to remember, generate, predict, anticipate, and overestimate the affective impact of personally relevant threat‐related future events (Anderson, Goldin, Kurita, & Gross, ; Butler & Mathews, ; D'Argembeau, Van der Linden, d'Acremont, & Mayers, ; Hoerger et al ., ; Martin & Quirk, ; Miloyan et al ., ; Mogg, Mathews, & Weinman, ; Nesse & Klaas, ; Reidy & Richards, ). Self‐reflection has been proposed to represent a key model for conceptualizing and classifying psychiatric disorders, whereby anxiety would be associated with an increased tendency to focus on one's own feelings and thoughts (Philippi & Koenigs, ).…”

“…Despite a general desire for interpersonal relations, these individuals endure social situations with severe discomfort due to a fear of criticism, rejection, or humiliation. Relative to asymptomatic controls, socially anxious individuals have been found to exhibit a greater positive impact bias for a Valentine's Day date, suggesting that these individuals are driven to cultivate safe interpersonal relations (Martin & Quirk, ). Similar to GAD, SAD involves worry about potential (social) threats; however, unlike GAD, SAD appears to be accentuated by visual imagery rather than inner speech (Brozovich & Heimberg, ).…”

An evolutionary perspective on the co-occurrence of social anxiety disorder and alcohol use disorder

“…Although socially anxious individuals tend to avoid encounters with people they don’t know well, or complex social situations altogether, they may relish interpersonal relations with known others, or more generally, social encounters in safe settings or environments (Martin and Quirk, 2015; Schneier, 2006; Stein and Stein, 2008). Thus, social anxiety may aptly be viewed as a continuum of sensitivity to unknown, complex, and unsafe social situations, such that individuals at one end tend to evaluate threats in such social situations more readily than those at the other.…”