Vicarious learning of children’s social-anxiety-related fear beliefs and emotional Stroop bias.

Abstract

Models of social anxiety suggest that negative social experiences contribute to the development of social anxiety and this is supported by self-report research. However, there is relatively little experimental evidence for the effects of learning experiences on social cognitions.The current study examined the effect of observing a social performance situation with a negative outcome on children's (8-to 11-years-old) fear-related beliefs and cognitive processing. Two groups of children were each shown one of two animated films of a person trying to score in basketball while being observed by others; in one film the outcome was negative and in the other it was neutral. Children's fear-related beliefs about performing in front of others were measured before and after the film and children were asked to complete an emotional Stroop task. Results showed that social fear beliefs increased for children who saw the negative social performance film.In addition, these children showed an emotional Stroop bias for social anxiety-related words compared to children who saw the neutral film. The findings have implications for our understanding of social anxiety disorder and suggest that vicarious learning experiences in childhood may contribute to the development of social anxiety.

Inhibition of vicariously learned fear in children using positive modeling and prior exposure.

“…Clinically, it would also be useful to investigate whether these contemporary conditioning properties also apply to children particularly at risk of anxiety disorders, such the offspring of mothers with anxiety. Finally, the research investigated fear learning for novel animals, but other types of fears, such as social anxiety, can also be vicariously learnt ( Askew, Hagel, & Morgan, 2015 ). Future research should investigate whether these fears can also be prevented using immunization and latent inhibition.…”

Thinking anxious, feeling anxious, or both? Cognitive bias moderates the relationship between anxiety disorder status and sympathetic arousal in youth

“…Moreover, when researchers provide verbal threat information (with the intent of inducing a threat bias) to community children, these youth exhibit elevated physiological arousal during behavioral approach toward the stimuli about which they were provided threat information (Askew, Hagel, & Morgan, 2015; Field & Price-Evans, 2009; Field & Schorah, 2007; Reynolds, Field, & Askew, 2014). These data provide preliminary evidence that cognitive bias may influence physiological arousal, which in turn may lead to anxious avoidance or symptoms.…”

Propiedades psicométricas de un Stroop emocional computarizado para evaluar vulnerabilidad cognitiva

“…Así, este instrumento es uno de los más usados en el estudio de la atención y motivación en diferentes patologías como la ansiedad social (v.g., Askew, Hagel, & Morgan, 2015;Boehme et al, 2015;Gantiva et al, 2012), y con base en el paradigma de interferencia, la tarea de Stroop se ha modificado con estímulos o variables emocionales, frente a los cuales la persona responde con mayor latencia ante las palabras con valor adaptativo como aquellas que indican amenaza, siguiendo el modelo bioinformacional y la activación de circuitos subcorticales primitivos en términos evolutivos (Lang et al, 2000), denominado atención motivada (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1997). …”