The Relationship Between Social Anxiety and Anxious Thinking Styles

Summary

This study aims to investigate whether reductions in negative interpretation biases, induced via an experimental manipulation (Cognitive Bias Modification for Interpretation; CBM-I), lead to reductions in symptoms of social anxiety amongst individuals experiencing high levels of social anxiety. The study further aims to investigate the relationship between multifaceted measures of interpretation bias, psychopathological symptoms, neurophysiological indices, behavioral indices of stress reactivity, and SAD symptoms.

To achieve these aims a sample of individuals experiencing high levels of social anxiety will be recruited. After completing multi-faceted measures of interpretation bias, including neurophysiological indices, participants will be randomized to complete an online one-week daily CBM-I or sham training control condition training schedule. Following the one week training, individuals will return to the lab to complete further multi-faceted measures of interpretation bias and social anxiety symptoms. One week after this (i.e. 2 weeks post-basline), participants will complete a final set of symptom and bias measures online.

Conditions

• Social Anxiety

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Cognitive Bias Modification for Interpretation (CBM-I)

The CBM-I intervention is based on the interpretation training paradigm developed by Mathews and Mackintosh (2000). It comprises a series of training scenarios describing different (mostly everyday) socially-relevant situations, structured so they start ambiguously but always have a positive ending. The positive ending is presented as word fragment, which participants are instructure to complete. In about 25% of trials, participants are further requested to respond to comprehension questions about the scenario presented. Each CBM-I session comprises 45 trials presented in 5 blocks of 9 scenarios.

BEHAVIORAL

Sham Training Control Condition

The sham training is in an identical format to the CBM-I training, except that the scenarios are all entirely neutral, with no reference to social situations and no emotional ambiguity.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Utrecht University

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Osnabrueck

  collaborator OTHER

• Ruhr University of Bochum

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Marcella L Woud, PhD · Ruhr University of Bochum

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-05-16

Primary Completion

2024-05-31

Completion

2024-05-31

Countries

• Germany

Study Locations