Processing mode during repetitive thinking in socially anxious individuals: evidence for a maladaptive experiential mode

Reflective Abstract Processing Reduces Negative Emotions Independent of Self-Perspective

This study tested predictions from Processing Mode Theory, Self-Distancing Theory, and the Construal Matching Hypothesis by manipulating processing mode (abstract vs. concrete), self-perspective (self-distanced vs. self-immersed), and the construal level of emotion (high-level vs. low-level) to examine their effects on negative emotional reactivity. A total of 247 emerging adults were randomly assigned to one of eight experimental conditions, where they recalled either low-level or high-level negative emotional experiences. Participants visualised these events from either a self-immersed or self-distanced perspective and then wrote essays focusing on either the abstract or concrete aspects of the events. Emotional reactivity was assessed both before and after these interventions to evaluate the effects of the manipulations. Results indicated that abstract processing significantly reduced negative emotional reactivity, regardless of self-perspective and construal level. No significant interaction effects were observed between self-perspective and processing mode, nor between processing mode and the construal level of emotion. These findings suggest that transitioning to a reflective abstract processing mode facilitates emotion regulation independently of psychological distance or the nature of the negative emotion. Implications for theories of self-reflection and directions for future research, including distinctions between adaptive and maladaptive reflection, are discussed.

Effects of abstract versus concrete rumination about anger on affect

BACKGROUND

The processing-mode theory of rumination proposes that an abstract mode of rumination results in more maladaptive consequences than a concrete ruminative mode. It is supported by evidence mostly from the area of depression and little is known of the relative consequences of abstract versus concrete rumination for anger.

AIMS

We investigated the differential effects of abstract versus concrete rumination about anger on individuals' current affect. We hypothesized that abstract rumination would increase current anger and negative affect, and decrease positive affect, to a greater extent than concrete rumination.

METHOD

In a within-subject design, 120 participants were instructed to focus on a past social event that resulted in intense anger and then to ruminate about the event in both an abstract and a concrete mode, in a randomly assigned order. Current anger, negative and positive affect were assessed before and after each rumination phase.

RESULTS

Anger and negative affect increased and positive affect decreased from pre- to post-rumination. Contrary to expectations, these patterns were observed irrespective of the ruminative mode induced.

CONCLUSIONS

This initial study does not support the hypothesis that abstract and concrete rumination about anger have different consequences for current affect. Replications and more extensive designs are needed.

Repetitive Thinking in Social Anxiety Disorder: Are Anticipatory Processing and Post-Event Processing Facets of an Underlying Unidimensional Construct?

Existing literature suggests that anticipatory processing and post-event processing-two repetitive thinking processes linked to social anxiety disorder (SAD)-might be better conceptualized as facets of an underlying unidimensional repetitive thinking construct. The current study tested this by examining potential factor structures underlying anticipatory processing and post-event processing. Baseline data from two randomized controlled trials, consisting of 306 participants with SAD who completed anticipatory processing and post-event processing measures in relation to a speech task, were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis. A bifactor model with a General Repetitive Thinking factor and two group factors corresponding to anticipatory processing and post-event processing best fit with the data. Further analyses indicated an optimal model would include only the General Repetitive Thinking factor (reflecting anticipatory processing and a specific aspect of post-event processing) and Post-event Processing group factor (reflecting another specific aspect of post-event processing that is separable), providing evidence against a unidimensional account of repetitive thinking in SAD. Analyses also indicated that the General Repetitive Thinking factor had moderately large associations with social anxiety and life interference (rs = .43 to .47), suggesting its maladaptive nature. The separable Post-event Processing group factor only had small associations with social anxiety (rs = .16 to .27) and was not related to life interference (r = .11), suggesting it may not, in itself, be a maladaptive process. Future research that further characterises the bifactor model components and tests their utility has the potential to improve the conceptualisation and assessment of repetitive thinking in SAD.

Remembering or knowing how we felt: Depression and anxiety symptoms predict retrieval processes during emotional self-report

Researchers and clinicians routinely rely on patients' retrospective emotional self-reports to guide diagnosis and treatment, despite evidence of impaired autobiographical memory and retrieval of emotional information in depression and anxiety. To clarify the nature and specificity of these impairments, we conducted two large online data collections (Study 1, N = 1,983; Study 2, N = 900) examining whether depression and/or anxiety symptoms would uniquely predict the use of self-reported episodic (i.e., remembering) and/or semantic (i.e., knowing) retrieval when rating one's positive and negative emotional experiences over different time frames. Participants were randomly assigned to one of six time frames (ranging from at this moment to last few years) and were asked to rate how intensely they felt each of four emotions, anxious, sad, calm, and happy, over that period. Following each rating, they were asked several follow-up prompts assessing their perceived reliance on episodic and/or semantic information to rate how they felt, using procedures adapted from the traditional "remember/know" paradigm (Tulving, 1985). Across both studies, depression and anxiety symptoms each uniquely predicted increased likelihood of remembering across emotion types, and decreased likelihood of knowing how one felt when rating positive emotion types. Implications for the theory and treatment of emotion-related memory disturbances in depression and anxiety, and for dual-process theories of memory retrieval more generally, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Social cognition and metacognition in social anxiety: A systematic review

Cognitive-behavioural and metacognitive approaches to emotional disorder implicate beliefs in social anxiety, but the types of beliefs differ across these perspectives. Cognitive models suggest that social beliefs about the self (i.e., high standards and conditional and unconditional beliefs) are central. In contrast, the metacognitive model gives centre stage to metacognitive beliefs (i.e., positive and negative beliefs about thinking) as main contributors to the maintenance of the disorder. Despite an expanding research interest in this area, the evidence for such contributions has not yet been reviewed. This study set out to systematically review relevant cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental investigations of the direct and indirect (through cognitive processes, such as anticipatory processing, self-focused attention, the post-mortem, and avoidance) relationships of social and metacognitive beliefs with social anxiety. Clinical and nonclinical samples were included, and correlation and regression coefficients as well as results from group comparisons (e.g., t tests and analyses of variance) were extracted. Overall, 23 papers were located, through PsycINFO, PubMed, and Web of Science, and reviewed using narrative synthesis. The results showed a robust positive relationship between social beliefs and social anxiety that appeared to be mediated by cognitive processes. Specific metacognitive beliefs were found to positively contribute to social anxiety both directly and indirectly, through cognitive processes. The study's findings are limited to 2 models of social anxiety and other minor limitations (e.g., grey literature was excluded). With these accounted for, the results are discussed in terms of the conceptualization and treatment of social anxiety and suggestions for future research are made.

The efficacy of imagery rescripting compared to cognitive restructuring for social anxiety disorder

Imagery rescripting (IR) aims to alter negative meanings associated with distressing autobiographical memories. The current study aimed to extend demonstrated benefits of IR for social anxiety disorder (SAD), including direct comparison of IR with cognitive restructuring (CR) to assess the relative impact of these interventions on symptoms and processes. SAD individuals (N=60) were randomly allocated to IR, CR or Control conditions, and completed two speech tasks (before and after) their assigned intervention. Participants completed measures of symptomatology and state affective/cognitive variables in relation to the intervention and speech tasks. Results support the benefits of IR for SAD, with both IR and CR yielding large and equivalent reductions in trait social anxiety. However, IR and CR may function via differing pathways. Outcomes suggest that IR may be most effective in the treatment of SAD when delivered across multiple sessions or preceded by CR to target verbal and imaginal self-representations.

"Why is everyone always angry with me?!": When thinking 'why' leads to generalization

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

The degree of (over)generalization (to the self, over situations) is an important characteristic of depression and anxiety disorders. Little is known about cognitive mechanisms underlying this (over)generalization. In this context, the present study examined the effect of an abstract processing style (compared to a more concrete processing style) on generalization of angry faces to the self. An abstract processing style refers to thoughts about the meaning, causes and consequences of events or situations ('Why'-thinking).

METHODS

To test the impact of an abstract processing experimentally, images of angry faces were paired with the name of the participant and happy faces were paired with another person's name while participants adopted either an abstract ('Why') or a concrete ('How') processing style. A surprise recognition task, where participants were asked to indicate whether they had seen the faces before, served as a test of generalization of angry faces to the self.

RESULTS

Results indicated that participants who adopted an abstract processing style showed more generalization of angry faces to the self and a trend towards more generalization of happy faces to the other person, relative to participants who adopted a concrete processing style.

LIMITATIONS

Our sample was a non-clinical student sample and thus conclusions about the generalizability to clinical samples should be done with caution.

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest that abstract thought may underlie the generalization of bad/failure/angry feelings toward the self ('Everyone is always angry with me') and of good feelings towards other people ('Everyone is always nicer to other people') that is often seen in depression and social anxiety disorder.

The influence of anticipatory processing on attentional biases in social anxiety

Research on cognitive theories of social anxiety disorder (SAD) has identified individual processes that influence this condition (e.g., cognitive biases, repetitive negative thinking), but few studies have attempted to examine the interaction between these processes. For example, attentional biases and anticipatory processing are theoretically related and have been found to influence symptoms of SAD, but they rarely have been studied together (i.e., Clark & Wells, 1995). Therefore, the goal of the current study was to examine the effect of anticipatory processing on attentional bias for internal (i.e., heart rate feedback) and external (i.e., emotional faces) threat information. A sample of 59 participants high (HSA) and low (LSA) in social anxiety symptoms engaged in a modified dot-probe task prior to (Time 1) and after (Time 2) an anticipatory processing or distraction task. HSAs who anticipated experienced an increase in attentional bias for internal information from Time 1 to Time 2, whereas HSAs in the distraction condition and LSAs in either condition experienced no changes. No changes in biases were found for HSAs for external biases, but LSAs who engaged in the distraction task became less avoidant of emotional faces from Time 1 to Time 2. This suggests that anticipatory processing results in an activation of attentional biases for physiological information as suggested by Clark and Wells.

The impact of cognitive restructuring and mindfulness strategies on postevent processing and affect in social anxiety disorder

Postevent processing (PEP; reviewing a past social event in detail) is a key maintenance factor of social anxiety disorder (SAD). The current study examined the efficacy of a single session cognitive restructuring or mindfulness strategy on decreasing PEP and its associated effects, and investigated the cognitive processes involved. Fifty-six individuals with SAD completed a speech task to elicit PEP and were taught a cognitive restructuring, mindfulness, or control strategy to manage their negative thoughts. Participants in the cognitive restructuring and mindfulness conditions reported significantly reduced PEP and improved affect as compared to the control condition. There were no significant differences between the cognitive restructuring and mindfulness conditions. Participants in the cognitive restructuring condition reported decreased probability and cost biases. Regardless of study condition, decreases in cost biases and maladaptive beliefs significantly predicted reductions in PEP. Cognitive restructuring and mindfulness appear to be promising strategies to decrease PEP and improve affect.

Anticipatory and Post-Event Rumination in Social Anxiety Disorder: A Review of the Theoretical and Empirical Literature

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a psychological disorder characterised by an excessive and persistent fear of social or performance situations, which interferes with daily functioning. Cognitive models of SAD (Clark & Wells, 1995; Hofmann, 2007; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997) emphasise the importance of negative pre- and post-event rumination as a maintaining factor in the cycle of SAD. While the link between negative rumination and SAD is well supported by empirical research, little is understood about this cognitively important process; thus, research investigating the predictors of negative rumination in SAD is important to consider. Within the current literature, performance appraisal appears to be the most likely unique cognitive predictor of post-event rumination. There is limited research into cognitive predictors of pre-event rumination. Treatments targeting this maintaining factor are important to consider. Suggestions for future research examining the cognitive models of SAD by experimentally manipulating perceived social standards in order to examine the impact of high and low perceived social standard on appraisal processes (i.e., threat appraisal and performance appraisal), state social anxiety, and negative pre-event and post-event rumination, are proposed. Implications for theoretical models and efficacious treatments for SAD are discussed.

An Examination of the Measurement Equivalence of the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale Across Individuals Who Identify With an Asian Ethnicity and Individuals Who Identify With a European Ethnicity

A body of research has demonstrated that individuals with Asian ethnicity endorse higher levels of fear of negative evaluation compared with individuals with European ethnicity. To date, no study has examined whether this Asian-European difference may be confounded by the differential interpretation of the measures of fear of negative evaluation by the two groups. The current study thus aimed to examine the measurement equivalence of the 12-item Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation (BFNE) scale and its 8-item variant composed of straightforwardly worded items (BFNE-S) in a sample of individuals who identified with a Chinese ethnicity ( n = 204) and a sample of individuals who identified with an Anglo ethnicity ( n = 528). Measurement equivalence across the samples was obtained for a two-factor BFNE model and a one-factor BFNE-S model. However, the BFNE-S model demonstrated superior fit to the data. Using the BFNE-S, we found that the Chinese ethnicity sample scored significantly higher on the latent dimension of fear of negative evaluation compared with the Anglo ethnicity sample ( d = 0.24). These findings disambiguate previous research on Asian-European differences in fear of negative evaluation and highlight the need for the continued examination of the validity of measures across different ethnicities and cultures.

Maladaptive social self-beliefs in alcohol-dependence: a specific bias towards excessive high standards

BACKGROUND

Emotional and interpersonal impairments associated with alcohol-dependence have been recently explored, but the distorted cognitive representations underlying these deficits remain poorly understood. The present study aims at exploring the presence of maladaptive social self-beliefs among alcohol-dependent individuals, as these biased self-beliefs have been recently shown to play a crucial role in the development and maintenance of other psychopathological states (social anxiety and depression).

METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS

Twenty-five recently detoxified alcohol-dependent participants and 25 matched controls filled in self-report questionnaires evaluating maladaptive social self-beliefs, interpersonal problems and several comorbid states (anxiety, social anxiety, depression). As compared to controls, alcohol-dependent individuals showed higher scores than controls for the three subcategories of maladaptive social self-beliefs (high standards, conditional beliefs and unconditional beliefs). Our key finding was that when comorbidities were controlled for, alcohol-dependence was associated with a specific bias towards exaggerated high standards in social contexts. Moreover, these high standards beliefs were strongly correlated with interpersonal problems.

CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE

These results provide the first insights into the influence of cognitive biases on interpersonal problems in addictive states, and suggest that maladaptive self-beliefs could have a central influence on the development and maintenance of alcohol-dependence.