Effects of negative self-image on the late positive potential in individuals with high social anxiety
Abstract
Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is characterized by excessive fear of social situations that can result in avoidance in these situations. Additionally, individuals with SAD will show information processing biases when interpreting social information. One way to study these information processing biases is with event related potentials (ERP). Studies have shown that individuals with SAD will show early attentional vigilance to facial cues by increasing attentional resources when viewing angry faces. Additionally, some studies have shown that attentional biases extend to later processing, as well. Individuals with SAD will show increased processing of all faces, regardless of emotional state. This study uses the Late Positive Potential (LPP) to evaluate potential attentional biases held by individuals with SAD when creating neutral and negative self-images. Sixty-eight participants were recruited and separated into high and low social anxiety groups. Participants were instructed that they would be given a speech. Then participants were randomized to conditions that either attempted to increase anticipation anxiety or not. Following this, participants listened to audio recordings that were either neutral (e.g. sitting in a classroom) or threatening (e.g. being embarrassed publicly) and were asked to imagine themselves in the described scenario. Contrary to previous research, we found that the LPP was elicited for both the neutral and threatening scenarios. Additionally, we found no group differences between the low socially anxious group and the high socially anxious group. Finally, anticipation of a speech had no influence on the elicitation of the LPP. These results suggest that the effects of negative self-imagery may have similar effects on individuals with high and low social anxiety. Additionally, they also suggest that the audio recordings used in this study may not have been effective, as suggested by the similar LPP between neutral and threatening scenarios.