Browsing by Author "Vriends, Noortje"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

Citation - WoS: 32
Citation - Scopus: 37
How Do I Look? Self-Focused Attention During a Video Chat of Women With Social Anxiety (disorder)
(Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd, 2017) Vriends, Noortje; Meral Öğütçü, Yasemin; Bargas-Avila, Javier A.; Stadler, Christina; Bogels, Susan M.
We investigated the role of self-focused attention (SFA) in social anxiety (disorder) in an ecologically valid way. In Experiment 1 high (n = 26) versus low (n = 25) socially anxious single women between 18 and 30 years had a video (Slcype) conversation with an attractive male confederate, while seeing themselves and the confederate on-screen. The conversation was divided in four phases: (I) warm-up, (II) positive (confederate was friendly to the participant), (III) critical (confederate was critical to the participant), and (IV) active (participant was instructed to ask questions to the confederate). Participant's SFA was measured by eye-tracked gaze duration at their own image relative to the confederates' video image and other places at the computer screen. Results show that high socially anxious participants were more self-focused in the critical phase, but less self-focused in the active phase than low socially anxious participants. In Experiment 2 women diagnosed with SAD (n = 32) and controls (n = 30) between 18 and 30 years conducted the same experiment. Compared to controls participants with SAD showed increased SFA across all four phases of the conversation, and SFA predicted increased self-rated anxiety during the conversation. In conclusion, in subclinical social anxiety SFA is high only when the interaction partner is critical, whereas instructions to ask questions to the confederate reduces subclinical socially anxious' SFA, while clinical SAD is characterized by heightened self-focused attention throughout the interaction. Results support theories that social anxiety disorder is maintained by SFA, and imply that interventions that lower SFA may help prevent and treat social anxiety disorder, but that SFA can also be adaptive in certain types of interaction, such as when receiving compliments. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Citation - WoS: 2
Citation - Scopus: 2
Self-Image and Self-Focused Attention in a Social Interaction Situation: What Is Relevant for Social Anxiety?
(Cambridge Univ Press, 2022) Meral Öğütçü, Yasemin; Vriends, Noortje
Background: According to Clark and Wells' cognitive model (Clark and Wells, 1995), social anxiety is maintained by both a negative self-image and self-focused attention (SFA). Although these maintaining factors were investigated extensively in previous studies, the direction of this relationship remains unclear, and so far, few studies have investigated self-image and SFA together within a current social interaction situation. Aims: The aim of this experiment is to investigate the influence of a negative versus positive self-image on social anxiety and on SFA during a social interaction. Method: High (n = 27) and low (n = 36) socially anxious participants, holding a manipulated negative versus positive self-image in mind, had a real-time video conversation with a confederate. Social anxiety, SFA and state anxiety before and during the conversation were measured with questionnaires. Results: An interaction between negative self-image and social anxiety showed that high socially anxious individuals with a negative self-image in mind were more anxious than those with a positive self-image in mind during the conversation. They were also more anxious compared with low socially anxious individuals. Furthermore, high socially anxious individuals reported higher SFA; however, SFA was not affected by negative or positive self-image. Conclusion: The present results confirm once again the strong influence of self-image and SFA on social anxiety, highlighting that a negative self-image has more impact on socially anxious individuals. Moreover, the present results suggest that SFA is not necessarily affected by a negative self-image, indicating that therapies should focus on both.