Amy Wenzel1, Craig S Holt. 1. Department of Psychology, University of North Dakota, PO Box 8380, Grand Forks, ND 58202-8380, USA.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: The present study examined whether social phobia is an anxiety disorder associated with a memory bias toward threat. DESIGN: Social phobic (N = 16) and non-anxious (N = 17) individuals were compared on their recall of evaluative threat and neutral prose passage content. METHOD: Participants were presented with two evaluative threat and two neutral prose passages and completed an immediate free recall task after each trial. RESULTS: Contrary to expectation, individuals with social phobia recalled a smaller percentage of units from the evaluative threat passages than non-anxious individuals. CONCLUSION: Consistent with the vigilance-avoidance theory, it is suggested that social phobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by the avoidance of elaborate processing of threatening material.
OBJECTIVES: The present study examined whether social phobia is an anxiety disorder associated with a memory bias toward threat. DESIGN: Social phobic (N = 16) and non-anxious (N = 17) individuals were compared on their recall of evaluative threat and neutral prose passage content. METHOD:Participants were presented with two evaluative threat and two neutral prose passages and completed an immediate free recall task after each trial. RESULTS: Contrary to expectation, individuals with social phobia recalled a smaller percentage of units from the evaluative threat passages than non-anxious individuals. CONCLUSION: Consistent with the vigilance-avoidance theory, it is suggested that social phobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by the avoidance of elaborate processing of threatening material.