Social Anxiety and the Generation of Positivity During Dyadic Interaction: Curiosity and Authenticity Are the Keys to Success

Barber, Kevin C.; Michaelis, Maggie A.M.; Moscovitch, David A.

doi:10.1016/j.beth.2021.03.011

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Emerging research has begun to identify important targets for positivity deficits in socially anxious individuals. In a study where high socially anxious individuals were paired with unfamiliar, low socially anxious partners in a 45-minute conversation task, dyadic analyses revealed affiliative interpersonal goals, as opposed to impression management goals, drove positive outcomes for both participants and conversation partners; furthermore, it was found that such affiliative interpersonal goals contributed to positive outcomes by increasing participants' perceptions of curiosity and authenticity (Barber et al, 2021). Indeed, curiosity has been found to play a key role in facilitating positive subjective experiences and personal growth opportunities (Kashdan et al, 2004).…”

Section: Deficits In Positive Emotional Responding To Affiliationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The moderating effects of reported pre-pandemic social anxiety, symptom impairment, and current stressors on mental health and affiliative adjustment during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

Moscovitch

2021

Anxiety, Stress, & Coping

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I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. David Moscovitch, for his endless support and guidance in my research work so far and throughout the Master's degree. I have especially admired his immense commitment to communication and collaboration-particularly in the face of a global pandemic-and value the openness that he has shown towards my thoughts and ideas. I would further like to thank my thesis readers, Dr. Christine Purdon and Dr. Jonathan Oakman, for their time and effort in providing valuable feedback on the written thesis. Additionally, thank you to Molly Scarfe for her assistance in setting up the online study questionnaire during the initial stages of the project. I am grateful to my fellow lab members and my wonderful cohort for their encouragement and inspiration throughout this process. Finally, thank you to my family and friends-both old and new, near and far-for their unwavering support and enthusiasm. vi

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Section: Deficits In Positive Emotional Responding To Affiliationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The moderating effects of reported pre-pandemic social anxiety, symptom impairment, and current stressors on mental health and affiliative adjustment during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

Moscovitch

2021

Anxiety, Stress, & Coping

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“…Ultimately, the cumulative benefits of simulation-based self-updating in SAD ought to stimulate the pathways from the vmPFC to downstream neural-reward centers elsewhere in the brain, outside the autobiographical memory system, which will enable socially anxious patients to begin adopting and benefiting from approach-oriented social-behavioral goals (Hudd & Moscovitch, 2020; Richey et al, 2014). Following successful schema updating, individuals with SAD should begin to engage in more frequent social-approach behaviors while also relinquishing avoidance-based self-regulatory strategies that block their ability to derive pleasure from social relationships and occupy valuable attentional resources that interfere with adaptive social problem solving and emotion regulation (see Alden et al, 2018; Barber, Michaelis, & Moscovitch, 2021; Gilboa-Schechtman et al, 2014; Kashdan et al, 2011; Moscovitch, Rowa, et al, 2013; Plasencia et al, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neurocognitive Model of Schema-Congruent and -Incongruent Learning in Clinical Disorders: Application to Social Anxiety and Beyond

Moscovitch

2023

Perspect Psychol Sci

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Negative schemas lie at the core of many common and debilitating mental disorders. Thus, intervention scientists and clinicians have long recognized the importance of designing effective interventions that target schema change. Here, we suggest that the optimal development and administration of such interventions can benefit from a framework outlining how schema change occurs in the brain. Guided by basic neuroscientific findings, we provide a memory-based neurocognitive framework for conceptualizing how schemas emerge and change over time and how they can be modified during psychological treatment of clinical disorders. We highlight the critical roles of the hippocampus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and posterior neocortex in directing schema-congruent and -incongruent learning (SCIL) in the interactive neural network that comprises the autobiographical memory system. We then use this framework, which we call the SCIL model, to derive new insights about the optimal design features of clinical interventions that aim to strengthen or weaken schema-based knowledge through the core processes of episodic mental simulation and prediction error. Finally, we examine clinical applications of the SCIL model to schema-change interventions in psychotherapy and provide cognitive-behavior therapy for social anxiety disorder as an illustrative example.

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“…Daily diary research has often relied on end-of-day affect ratings (e.g., Farmer & Kashdan, 2012; Kashdan & Steger, 2006). Other research that assessed in-the-moment state PA did so in the context of anxiety-inducing tasks such as before meeting a new person (e.g., Barber et al, 2021; Trew & Alden, 2012) or an impromptu speech (e.g., Rodebaugh & Shumaker, 2012), or throughout a conversation with a stranger. All these prior studies provided consistent support for an inverse relationship between SA and PA, with medium to large effects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Positive emotional reactivity to pleasant social and nonsocial stimuli in social anxiety disorder.

Barber¹,

Moscovitch²

2023

Emotion

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Prior research has shown that Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is associated with significantly diminished positive affect (PA). Few studies have examined PA reactivity to pleasant experimental stimuli in individuals with SAD and whether emotional responses might be moderated by social context. Here, we investigated repeated measures of PA reactivity among individuals with SAD (n = 46) and healthy controls (HC; n = 39) in response to standardized neutral images, pleasant music, and social versus nonsocial guided imagery. Primary analyses revealed that SAD and HC participants did not differ in their PA reactivity when PA was conceptualized as a unitary construct. Exploratory analyses examining discrete subfacets of PA revealed potential deficits for SAD participants in relaxed and content PA, but not activated PA. Although participants with SAD reported relatively lower levels of relaxed and content PA overall compared with controls, they exhibited normal increases in all PA subfacets in response to pleasant music as well as pleasant social and nonsocial stimuli. These findings support a more nuanced conclusion about PA deficits in SAD than is described in the extant literature, suggesting that detecting PA deficits in SAD may depend upon how PA is conceptualized, evoked, and measured.

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Social Anxiety and the Generation of Positivity During Dyadic Interaction: Curiosity and Authenticity Are the Keys to Success

Cited by 9 publications

References 47 publications

The moderating effects of reported pre-pandemic social anxiety, symptom impairment, and current stressors on mental health and affiliative adjustment during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

The moderating effects of reported pre-pandemic social anxiety, symptom impairment, and current stressors on mental health and affiliative adjustment during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

Neurocognitive Model of Schema-Congruent and -Incongruent Learning in Clinical Disorders: Application to Social Anxiety and Beyond

Positive emotional reactivity to pleasant social and nonsocial stimuli in social anxiety disorder.

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