Fear Conditioning and the Onset of Social Anxiety

培养计划：在本次申请中，我要求支持2年的临床和实验心理学博士预科研究。拟议的培训计划包括与我的赞助人（Michelle Craske博士）、共同赞助人（Naomi Eisenberger博士）和顾问（Bruce Naliboff博士和Michael Fanslow博士）定期会面，重点关注课程负荷和培训机会，具体解决我研究经验中的空白，并完成两个相关的研究项目。研究计划：本研究的首要目标是研究社交疼痛经历在临床显著焦虑发作中的作用。在美国，社交焦虑障碍的终生患病率为12.1%，并与显著的合并症、功能障碍和资源利用有关（Ruscio et al., 2008）。尽管如此，这种疾病的病因尚不清楚，关于社交恐惧如何发展并对个人造成损害的研究很少。拟议的研究代表了社会痛苦和恐惧调节文献的合并，这两个领域在概念上有很强的相关性，但在很大程度上是单独研究的。将进行两项研究，以检查社交焦虑程度高和社交焦虑程度低的个体对社交疼痛线索的反应。本研究中使用的社会疼痛线索旨在具有生态有效性和个人相关性，同时也具有离散性和厌恶性，试图调和来自社会疼痛和恐惧条件反射范式的不同方法。在实验过程中，参与者先被一名男性采访者在虚拟现实范式中提问，然后在实验过程中从同一采访者那里得到负面的口头反馈。在使用这种范式的过程中，目前的研究试图复制在该领域已经完成的少量研究的发现，同时解决以前设计的一些局限性，并将他们的发现扩展到新的方向。在进行研究1之前，将进行大量的试点测试，以确定同时在道德上适当和有效厌恶的社会痛苦线索的水平。在研究1和研究2中，研究人员将向社交焦虑程度高和社交焦虑程度低的参与者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。第一项研究将检验对社会疼痛线索的非条件反应是否在显著的定量（反应幅度）和定性（反应指数）方面不同于更典型地使用的身体疼痛线索。第二项研究将检验社交痛苦经历是否足以产生条件恐惧反应。参与者将经历一个经典的条件反射范式，在这个范式中，三个中性的男性面孔与一个愤怒的男性面孔配对，这些男性面孔对参与者在早期任务中的表现给予负面反馈，身体上厌恶的电肌肉刺激，或者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.