Fear Conditioning and the Onset of Social Anxiety

培训计划：在目前的应用程序中，我要求2年的临床和实验心理学博士前研究的支持。拟议的培训计划包括与我的赞助商（Michelle Craske博士）、共同赞助商（Naomi Eisenberger博士）和顾问（布鲁斯·纳里博夫博士和迈克尔·范斯洛博士）的定期会议，重点课程和培训机会，专门解决我研究经验中的差距，以及完成两个相关的研究项目。研究计划：本研究的总体目标是研究社会痛苦经历在临床显著焦虑发作中的作用。社交焦虑障碍在美国的终生患病率为12.1%，并且与显著的合并症、功能障碍和资源利用相关（Ruscio等人，2008年）。尽管如此，这种疾病的病因还没有得到很好的理解，很少有研究表明，社会恐惧的发展和成为个人的损害。拟议中的研究代表了社会疼痛和恐惧调节文学的合并，这两个领域在概念上密切相关，但在很大程度上被孤立地研究。将进行两项研究，检查个人的反应高和低的社会焦虑的社会疼痛线索。在本研究中使用的社会疼痛线索的目的是生态有效的和个人相关的，同时也是离散的和厌恶的，试图调和不同的方法从社会疼痛和恐惧条件反射范式。操作涉及参与者被一名男性面试官在虚拟现实范例中提问，然后在实验期间从同一面试官那里获得负面的口头反馈。在使用这种模式，目前的研究试图复制的少量研究，已在该领域的结果，同时解决了以前的设计的一些局限性，并在新的方向扩展他们的研究结果。在进行研究1之前，将进行大量的试点测试，以确定同时在伦理上适当和有效厌恶的社会疼痛线索水平。在研究1和研究2中，高和低社交焦虑的参与者将被呈现不同强度的社交和身体疼痛线索，并记录他们的皮肤电导、心率、恐惧增强的惊吓、脸红和主观痛苦。第一个研究将检查是否无条件反应的社会疼痛线索不同于更典型的使用物理疼痛线索在显着的quantitativ（响应的幅度）和定性（响应的指数）的方式。第二项研究将检验一种社会痛苦体验是否足以产生条件性恐惧反应。参与者将经历一个经典的条件反射范例，其中三个中性的男性面孔与一个愤怒的男性面孔配对，对参与者在早期任务中的表现给予负面反馈，身体厌恶的电肌肉刺激，或一个中性的面孔做出中性的陈述。

Training Plan: In the present application, I am requesting 2 years of support for pre-doctoral research in clinical and experimental psychology. The proposed training plan involves regular meetings with my sponsor (Dr. Michelle Craske), co-sponsor (Dr. Naomi Eisenberger), and consultants (Dr. Bruce Naliboff and Michael Fanslow), a focused course load and training opportunities that specifically address gaps in my research experience, and the completion of two related research projects. Research Plan: The overarching goal of this research is to examine the role of social pain experiences in the onset of clinically significant anxiety. Social Anxiety Disorder has a lifetime prevalence rate of 12.1% n the United States and is associated with significant comorbidity, functional impairment, and resource utilization (Ruscio et al., 2008). Despite this, the etiology of the disorder is not well understood, with little research having been conducted on the way that social fears develop and become impairing for individuals. The proposed studies represent a merger of the social pain and fear conditioning literature, two areas that are strongly conceptually related but have largely been researched in isolation. Two studies will be conducted that examine the responses of individuals high and low in social anxiety to a social pain cue. The social pain cue utilized in ths study aims to be ecologically valid and personally relevant while also being discrete and aversive in an attempt to reconcile different methodologies from social pain and fear conditioning paradigms. The manipulation involves participants being asked questions by a male interviewer in a virtual reality paradigm prior and then being presented with negative verbal feedback from the same interviewer during the experiment. In using this paradigm, the present research seeks to replicate the findings of the small amount of research that has been done in the field, while simultaneously addressing some of the limitations of the previous designs and extending their findings in new directions. Prior to conducting Study 1, substantial pilot testing will be conducted in order to establish the level of the social pain cue that is simultaneously ethically appropriate and effectively aversive. In both Study 1 and Study 2 participants high and low in social anxiety will be presented with social and physical pain cues of varying intensity and have their skin conductance, heart rate, fear-potentiated startle, blushing, and subjective distress recorded. The first study will examined whether the unconditioned response to a social pain cue differs from the more typically utilized physically painful cue in significant quantitativ (magnitude of responding) and qualitative (indices of responding) ways. The second study will examine whether a social pain experience is aversive enough to produce a conditioned fear response. Participants will undergo a classical conditioning paradigm in which three neutral male faces are paired with an angry male face giving negative feedback about the participants' performance in an earlier task, physically aversive electrical muscle stimulation, or a neutral face making a neutral statement.