A contextual approach to experiential avoidance and social anxiety: evidence from an experimental interaction and daily interactions of people with social anxiety disorder.
نویسندگان
چکیده
Experiential avoidance (EA), the tendency to avoid internal, unwanted thoughts and feelings, is hypothesized to be a risk factor for social anxiety. Existing studies of experiential avoidance rely on trait measures with minimal contextual consideration. In two studies, we examined the association between experiential avoidance and anxiety within real-world social interactions. In the first study, we examined the effect of experiential avoidance on social anxiety in everyday life. For 2 weeks, 37 participants with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and 38 healthy controls provided reports of experiential avoidance and social anxiety symptoms during face-to-face social interactions. Results showed that momentary experiential avoidance was positively related to anxiety symptoms during social interactions and this effect was stronger among people with SAD. People low in EA showed greater sensitivity to the level of situational threat than high EA people. In the second study, we facilitated an initial encounter between strangers. Unlike Study 1, we experimentally created a social situation where there was either an opportunity for intimacy (self-disclosure conversation) or no such opportunity (small-talk conversation). Results showed that greater experiential avoidance during the self-disclosure conversation temporally preceded increases in social anxiety for the remainder of the interaction; no such effect was found in the small-talk conversation. Our findings provide insight into the association between experiential avoidance on social anxiety in laboratory and naturalistic settings, and demonstrate that the effect of EA depends upon level of social threat and opportunity.
منابع مشابه
Experiential Avoidance and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies as the Mediators in the Relationship Between Mindfulness and Social Anxiety Disorder Symptoms
Objective: The current study seeks to investigate the mechanisms through which mindfulness is related to social anxiety symptoms in a clinical sample of adults by examining whether experiential avoidance and specific cognitive emotion regulation strategies (rumination, catastrophizing, and reappraisal) mediate associations between mindfulness and social anxiety symptoms. Methods: Statistical p...
متن کاملDistinguishing healthy adults from people with social anxiety disorder: evidence for the value of experiential avoidance and positive emotions in everyday social interactions.
Despite the increased attention that researchers have paid to social anxiety disorder (SAD), compared with other anxiety and mood disorders, relatively little is known about the emotional and social factors that distinguish individuals who meet diagnostic criteria from those who do not. In this study, participants with and without a diagnosis of SAD (generalized subtype) described their daily f...
متن کاملRelationship between Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies and Experiential Avoidance with Death Anxiety of Veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: The mediating role of Coping Self-Efficac
Aims: The aim of the present study was to investigate the causal modeling of death anxiety in veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder based on cognitive emotion regulation strategies and experiential avoidance with the mediating role of coping self-efficacy. Instrument & Methods: The research method was descriptive and structural equations. The statistical population of the present study...
متن کاملPredicting Social Anxiety based on Mindfulness, Experiential Avoidance, and Metacognitive Beliefs in Adolescents
Background and purpose: Social anxiety is one of the major psychological challenges in adolescents' social relationships that could lead to many problems. This study aimed at predicting social anxiety based on mindfulness, experiential avoidance, and meta-cognitive beliefs among adolescents in Kermanshah, Iran. Materials and methods: A descriptive-correlational study was performed and the sta...
متن کاملThe Effectiveness of Skill Training based on Dialectical Behavior Therapy on emotional regulation, social avoidance and distress in Adolescents with Social Anxiety Disorder
Background & Aim: Social anxiety is one of the most common problems among adolescents that significantly impact social development. Dialectical behavior therapy has been studied in a wide range of mental health problems and disorders. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of skill training based on dialectical behavior therapy on emotional regulation, social avoidance and distress in ...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید
ثبت ناماگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید
ورودعنوان ژورنال:
- Emotion
دوره 14 4 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2014