Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences - Theses
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ItemDevelopmental and maintaining processes in social anxiety, and the impact upon social adjustment( 2013)Social anxiety disorder is the second most prevalent anxiety disorder in Australia and subthreshold social anxiety symptoms are experienced by a large majority of the population. Prevailing theoretical and treatment models primarily emphasise maintaining factors such as biased information-processing, but neglect developmental mechanisms which are important for both the conceptualisation and treatment of social anxiety. Using a cross-sectional methodology, the present study investigated the relationships between social anxiety and the developmental variables of adult attachment style and early maladaptive schemas. Additionally, the influence these variables have upon emotion sensitivity, which was used to measure biased information-processing, was explored. The relationship between social anxiety and social adjustment was examined to ascertain the level of functional impairment experienced as a result of social anxiety, a neglected area in the literature. The research consisted of two studies. The first study involved 348 undergraduate students, and the second study included 40 individuals diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. Participants completed the Social Phobia Scale, Social Interaction Anxiety Scale, Relationship Scales Questionnaire, Young Schema Questionnaire – Short Form, Social Adjustment Scale – Self Report, and the Morphed Faces experimental task. In addition, the clinical participants were compared with 80 participants from the first study – 40 who had high social anxiety scores, and 40 who had low scores. The results attest to the importance of preoccupied and fearful attachment styles in the onset of social anxiety, the protective influence of a secure attachment style, as well as the detrimental effect of social anxiety upon functioning. Early maladaptive schemas from the disconnection and rejection and impaired autonomy and performance domains, as well as subjugation and emotional inhibition, were important predictors of social anxiety. In addition, many of these schemas mediated the relationship between insecure attachment and social anxiety. The conceptualisation of attachment according to the dimensions of attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance was supported in the context of social anxiety. Overall, there was little difference between the high socially anxious group and clinical group on attachment and early maladaptive schemas, with both groups demonstrating elevated scores on these variables in comparison to the low socially anxious group. The clinical group, however, was faster and more accurate at identifying emotions, and had poorer social adjustment. In the first study, no significant relationships were found between emotion sensitivity and social anxiety. The findings elaborate upon prevailing cognitive-behavioural models which emphasise maintaining factors, and substantiate the importance of both maintaining and early environmental factors in social anxiety. The assertions that early maladaptive schemas may be derived from internal working models were supported, and insight has been provided into the cognitions underlying attachment organisations in socially anxious individuals. These studies suggest that understanding social anxiety symptoms as attachment-related psychopathology could be beneficial for early intervention and longer-term treatment gains.