Social Anxiety and Positive Emotions: A Prospective Examination of a Self-Regulatory Model With Tendencies to Suppress or Express Emotions as a Moderating Variable☆
Section snippets
The Current Study
This was the first study to use a short-term prospective design to examine the effects of social anxiety and emotion regulation variables on positive emotions. We hypothesized that tendencies to suppress emotions would moderate any prospective relations between social anxiety and positive emotions. People with excessive social anxiety who suppress or hide their emotions were expected to experience the greatest erosion in positive emotional experiences over time. Alternatively, social anxiety
Participants
Participants were undergraduate students enrolled in psychology courses at a large, public, Mid-Atlantic university. Students received research credit for their participation and were required to complete an initial survey and 3-month follow-up survey to receive full course credit.
Participants in the current examination were individuals who completed both waves of data (initial survey and 3-month follow-up). At Time 1 (T1), a total of 148 individuals participated. At Time 2 (T2), 145 of the
Trait social anxiety
The 19-item Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS; Mattick & Clarke, 1998) assesses tendencies to be fearful and avoidant of social situations based on concerns related to possible negative evaluation and rejection. Responses are provided using a 5-point Likert scale, rated from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely). The SIAS demonstrates internal consistency (α = .88–.94) and stability across a 4-week period of time (r = .92; Mattick & Clarke, 1998) and reliably differentiates between individuals
Preliminary analyses
Means, standard deviations, and alpha coefficients for all scales at T1 and T2 are reported in Table 1. All scales had acceptable internal consistency. Participants' average social anxiety scores at T1 (M = 23.31; SD = 13.83) were similar to other large nonclinical samples (Heimberg et al., 1992, Mattick and Clarke, 1998) and scores at least one standard deviation above the mean were similar to clinical samples (E. Brown et al., 1997).
We examined the level of independence between emotion
Discussion
There is now good evidence that social anxiety is associated with diminished positive experiences (Kashdan, 2007, Watson et al., 1988). The current study was the first to examine the longitudinal relation between social anxiety and positive emotions. We found support for a stable, moderately large inverse relation between social anxiety and positive emotions over a 12-week period. Further, consistent with our moderation model, less socially anxious adults who tend to openly express rather than
References (63)
- et al.
Interpersonal processes in social phobia
Clinical Psychology Review
(2004) Self-presentational styles
- et al.
The effects of suppressing thoughts and images about worrisome stimuli
Behavior Therapy
(2005) - et al.
Thought suppression: Specificity in agoraphobia versus broad impairment in social phobia?
Behaviour Research and Therapy
(2002) - et al.
Emotional avoidance: An experimental test of individual differences and response suppression during biological challenge
Behaviour Research and Therapy
(2003) - et al.
Anxiety sensitivity—physical concerns as a moderator of the emotional consequences of emotion suppression during biological challenge: An experimental test using individual growth curve analysis
Behaviour Research and Therapy
(2006) - et al.
Facets of emotional expressivity: Three self-report factors and their correlates
Personality and Individual Differences
(1995) - et al.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Model, processes, and outcomes
Behaviour Research and Therapy
(2006) - et al.
Assessment of anxiety in social interaction and being observed by others: The Social Interaction Anxiety Scale and the Social Phobia Scale
Behavior Therapy
(1992) Social anxiety spectrum and diminished positive experiences: Theoretical synthesis and meta-analysis
Clinical Psychology Review
(2007)
Social anxiety and romantic relationships: The costs and benefits of negative emotion expression are context-dependent
Journal of Anxiety Disorders
Development and validation of measures of social phobia scrutiny fear and social interaction anxiety
Behaviour Research and Therapy
Discriminant validity of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI), the Social Phobia Scale (SPS) and the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS)
Behaviour Research and Therapy
A test of the interactive effects of anxiety sensitivity and mindful attention in the prediction of anxious arousal, agoraphobic cognitions, and body vigilance
Behaviour Research and Therapy
Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions
Couples shared participation in novel and arousing activities and experienced relationship quality
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation
Psychological Bulletin
Anxiety and social exclusion
Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology
Beck Depression Inventory manual
Validation of the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale and the Social Phobia Scale across the anxiety disorders
Psychological Assessment
Structural relationships among dimensions of the DSM-IV anxiety and mood disorders and dimensions of negative affect, positive affect, and autonomic arousal
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
Why are depression and anxiety correlated? A test of the tripartite model
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
Emotional behavior in long-term marriage
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Common and specific dimensions of self-reported anxiety and depression: Implications for the cognitive and tripartite models
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
A cognitive model of social phobia
Tripartite model of anxiety and depression: Psychometric evidence and taxonomic implications
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
Asymmetric brain function, affective style, and psychopathology: The role of early experience and plasticity
Development and Psychopathology
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for anxiety disorders: A practitioner's treatment guide using mindfulness, acceptance, and values based behavior change strategies
Mood and judgment: The affect infusion model (AIM)
Psychological Bulletin
Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought-action repertoires
Cognition and Emotion
The undoing effect of positive emotions
Motivation and Emotion
Cited by (98)
Effectiveness of cognitive behavioral group therapy, psychodrama, and their integration for treatment of social anxiety disorder: A randomized controlled trial
2024, Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental PsychiatryChildhood Trauma Predicts Positive Expressive Suppression During Social Affiliation in Adults With Anxiety and/or Depression: Implications for Social Functioning
2023, Behavior TherapyCitation Excerpt :The current study aimed to (1) determine the associations between CT severity and within-task positive and negative ES in a clinical sample of adults with anxiety and/or depression, (2) contingently examine the association between within-task ES and social affiliation, and (3) contingently assess the effects of CT severity on participants’ and confederates’ desire for future affiliation through ES during the task. The sample included 77 individuals between the ages of 18 and 55 meeting diagnostic criteria for a depressive or anxiety disorder who were enrolled in one of two studies: (1) an observational study that selected for participants with (1) elevated social anxiety on the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS; Liebowitz, 1987) as indicated by a total score of > 50 (n = 17) and (2) a clinical trial that selected for participants with clinically elevated symptoms of anxiety and/or depression, defined as scoring 10 or higher on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9; Kroenke et al., 2001) and/or scoring 8 or higher on the Overall Anxiety Severity and Impairment Scale (OASIS; Norman et al., 2006; n = 60). Participants were recruited through clinical referrals as well as posted announcements in community and online settings (e.g., ResearchMatch.org).
A systematic review and meta-analysis of the association between expressive suppression and positive affect
2021, Clinical Psychology ReviewThe phobic applying for a job: Differential efficacy of reappraising or faking on subjective states, physiological reactions and performance
2020, Personality and Individual Differences
- ☆
This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health grant MH-73937 to Todd B. Kashdan. Portions of this article were presented at the 2005 Annual Convention of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.
We express our gratitude to Jeffrey Volkmann and other members of our research laboratory in the data collection stage.