Distinguishing Healthy Adults From People With Social Anxiety Disorder: Evidence for the Value of Experiential Avoidance and Positive Emotions in Everyday Social Interactions
Distinguishing Healthy Adults From People With Social Anxiety Disorder: Evidence for the Value of Experiential Avoidance and Positive Emotions in Everyday Social Interactions
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DOI：
10.1037/a0032733
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发表时间：
2013-08-01
影响因子：
4.6
通讯作者：
Nezlek, John B.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Kashdan, Todd B.;Farmer, Antonina S.;Nezlek, John B.
尽管研究人员对社交焦虑障碍（SAD）的关注越来越多，但与其他焦虑和情绪障碍相比，人们对区分符合诊断标准的个体和不符合诊断标准的个体的情感和社会因素知之甚少。在这项研究中，有和没有被诊断为SAD（广义亚型）的参与者描述了他们在两周内使用掌上电脑进行的日常面对面的社交互动。我们假设，与健康对照相比，在考虑了社交焦虑、负面情绪和社交互动中的归属感之后，被诊断为SAD的个体会体验到更少的积极情绪，更多地依赖于经验回避（焦虑），并且有更大的自我控制消耗（社交后精神和身体上的疲惫）。我们发现，与健康对照组相比，患有SAD的个体经历了更弱的积极情绪和更大的经验回避，但在自我控制消耗方面各组之间没有差异。此外，我们发现的差异不能归因于共病的焦虑或抑郁障碍。我们的研究结果表明，负面情绪本身并不能完全区分正常和病态的社交焦虑，评估社交焦虑障碍应该包括积极情绪体验的损害和社交情境中功能失调的情绪调节（以经验回避的形式）。
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 face-to-face social interactions for 2 weeks using handheld computers. We hypothesized that, compared with healthy controls, individuals diagnosed with SAD would experience fewer positive emotions, rely more on experiential avoidance (of anxiety), and have greater self-control depletion (feeling mentally and physically exhausted after socializing), after accounting for social anxiety, negative emotions, and feelings of belonging during social interactions. We found that compared with healthy controls, individuals with SAD experienced weaker positive emotions and greater experiential avoidance, but there were no differences in self-control depletion between groups. Moreover, the differences we found could not be attributed to comorbid anxiety or depressive disorders. Our results suggest that negative emotions alone do not fully distinguish normal from pathological social anxiety, and that assessing social anxiety disorder should include impairments in positive emotional experiences and dysfunctional emotion regulation (in the form of experiential avoidance) in social situations.