75176430

Self-focused attention and social anxietyajpy_27 61..67

Anna K. Jakymin1 and Lynne M. Harris2

1School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, and 2Australian College of Applied Psychology, Sydney, New SouthWales, Australia

Abstract

Cognitive models propose that self-focused attention (SFA) interacts with fear of negative evaluation to maintain social anxiety. Thus,the effect of SFA on anxiety would be expected to be specific to those with existing social concerns. However, much research suggeststhat the effect of SFA on anxiety occurs across anxiety levels. Manipulations of attention focus have been criticised for (1) lack ofecological validity and (2) eliciting fear of negative evaluation directly. The present study examined the role of SFA in social anxietyusing an ecologically valid procedure that did not elicit fear of negative evaluation directly. Self-reported anxiety was assessed amonghigh and low socially anxious individuals under conditions of SFA or external-focused attention. The manipulation successfullyaltered focus of attention but did not directly affect fear of negative evaluation or self-reported anxiety. Taken together with thefindings of previous studies, the results suggest that focusing on internal physiological states per se does not increase self-reportedsocial anxiety, and that self-focus that does not have an explicitly evaluative dimension does not elicit social anxiety. The findingshave implications for approaches to reducing social anxiety through reducing SFA.

Key words: external-focused attention, self-focused attention, social anxiety

SELF-FOCUSED ATTENTION AND SOCIAL ANXIETY

Social phobia is a common and disabling condition, with

lifetime prevalence estimates around 12% (Kessler et al.,

2005) and significant impact on quality of life and service

utilisation (Acarturk, de Graaf, van Straten, ten Have &

Cuijpers, 2008). Evaluation from others is a central

concern for those with social phobia (Weeks, Heimberg,

Rodebaugh, & Norton, 2008). Self-focused attention (SFA)

refers to the tendency to direct attention to closely moni-

toring the self rather than to features of the environment.

Cognitive models of social anxiety have suggested that

focusing attention on one’s own thoughts, behaviour, and

signs of physiological arousal interacts with fear of negative

evaluation to maintain social anxiety (e.g. Clark & Wells,

1995; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997). Reducing SFA has been

proposed as a therapeutic strategy in social phobia

(McManus, Sacadura, & Clark, 2008).

Cognitive models of social phobia imply that the effect

of SFA on the experience of social anxiety should be spe-

cific to those with elevated social concerns. It is understood

that the interaction of SFA and fear of negative evalua-

tion gives rise to anxiety (Vassilopoulos, 2008; Zou,

Hudson, & Rapee, 2007). This is consistent with the con-

clusions of Mor and Winquist (2002) who found a stronger

association between SFA and negative affect among those

with anxiety and depression conditions in their meta-

analysis. However, many studies have found that the effect

of SFA on social anxiety is not specific to those with

elevated social concerns, but that increasing SFA increases

anxiety regardless of baseline social concerns (e.g. Bögels

& Lamers, 2002; George & Stopa, 2008; McManus et al.,

2008; Woody, 1996; Woody & Rodriguez, 2000). In addi-

tion, some studies have found that SFA has no effect on

anxiety (Bögels, Rijsemus, & de Jong, 2002), and others

have found that SFA is associated with reductions in

anxiety (Vassilopoulos, 2008).

Explaining the apparently contradictory findings concern-

ing SFA and anxiety requires a closer analysis of the experi-

mental manipulations used to elicit SFA. Some manipulations

of focus of attention bear little resemblance to social interac-

tions. For example, Bögels and Lamers (2002) manipulated

focus of attention using a task in which participants read a

series of hypothetical scripts. Similarly, Vassilopoulos (2008)

asked students selected for high and low scores on the Fear

Correspondence: Lynne Harris, PhD, School of Psychological Sci-ences, Australian College of Applied Psychology, Level 5, 11 YorkStreet, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia. Email: [email protected]

Received 18 November 2010. Accepted for publication 27February 2011.© 2011 The Australian Psychological Society

Australian Journal of Psychology 2012; 64: 61–67doi:10.1111/j.1742-9536.2011.00027.x

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of Negative Evaluation Questionnaire (Watson & Friend,

1969) to focus on either the sensory experience (experiential

SFA) or the meaning (analytical SFA) of a series of written

statements. The ecological validity of procedures such as

these, and therefore the generalisability of findings to more

realistic social situations, has been questioned.

The extent to which more ecologically valid manipula-

tions of SFA are confounded by directly arousing concerns

about negative evaluation, rather than interacting with fear

of negative evaluation, has been raised (Bögels & Mansell,

2004). Bögels and Mansell argued that any manipulation

that explicitly or implicitly included a suggestion that per-

formance would be evaluated, such as video recording

performance, was open to this criticism. These authors sug-

gested that using a mirror positioned so that participants

viewed their own reflections during social interactions was

both ecologically valid and unlikely to arouse evaluation

concerns directly. However, Bögels et al. (2002) used a

mirror to induce SFA during social interactions and found

that while the mirror increased self-awareness, it was not

associated with anxiety. Of the studies they reviewed in

2004, Bögels and Mansell concluded that only Bögels and

Lamers (2002) could be regarded as manipulating SFA in

a way that (1) did not directly elicit evaluation concerns

and (2) demonstrated a relationship between SFA and

social anxiety. However, as noted above, the ecologi-

cal validity of the SFA manipulation used in that study is

questionable.

More recently, Zou et al. (2007) used a manipulation of

SFA in which high and low blushing-anxious participants

engaged in a brief conversation with a female conversational

partner. Those in the SFA condition were instructed to focus

their attention on their own breathing, heart rate, voice,

and signs of blushing. High blushing-anxious participants

reported more anxiety following the SFA manipulation. Zou

et al. recognised that the SFA instructions may have elicited

fear of negative evaluation directly, as those with anxiety

about blushing may have thought that their conversation

partner was aware of their blushing and was evaluating

them in light of this. Thus, this finding is open to the same

alternative explanations as earlier work. George and Stopa

(2008), however, reported that a mirror manipulation

increased both self awareness and anxiety. It is not clear why

these findings differ from those of the methodologically

similar work of Bögels et al. (2002).

Clark and Wells (1995) argued that the effectiveness of

psychological treatment for social phobia would be enhanced

by basing therapy on the cognitive processes involved in the

maintenance of the condition. Thus, from their model, it

would be expected that interventions aimed at reducing both

SFA and fear of negative evaluation would reduce the expe-

rience of social anxiety (Wells & Papergeorgiou, 2001).

Voncken, Dijk, de Jong, and Roelofs (2010) experimentally

manipulated state anxiety among people high and low in fear

of blushing during a 5-minute video recorded conversation

with two confederates by giving false feedback to half the

group that they were blushing continuously during the inter-

action. For both high and low blushing-fearful groups, false

feedback about blushing elicited higher ratings of SFA and

negative beliefs and lower likeability and social performance

ratings. For the high blushing-fearful group, a relationship

between social anxiety and social performance was found,

and this was mediated by negative beliefs but not by SFA.

Voncken et al. argued that SFA may be a by-product of

social anxiety, and that clinical interventions to reduce social

anxiety should focus on negative beliefs and poor social

performance. Voncken et al.’s study further illustrates the

methodological challenges for researchers investigating

anxiety, SFA, and evaluative concerns. Their manipulation

was designed to elicit anxiety; but as it directed attention to

physiological signs of blushing, it is likely to have also elicited

SFA directly.

Despite these methodological challenges, establishing

clearly whether SFA is an independent factor mediating social

anxiety has considerable theoretical and practical signifi-

cance. The present study aimed to investigate the role of SFA

in social anxiety using an ecologically valid task designed to

manipulate direction of attention without directly eliciting

fear of negative evaluation on self-reported anxiety among

analogue samples high and low in social anxiety. Previous

literature suggests three possible models of the relationship

between SFA and social anxiety:

1. If SFA elicits social anxiety regardless of level of ongoing

social concerns (e.g., Bögels & Lamers, 2002; George &

Stopa, 2008; McManus et al., 2008; Woody, 1996; Woody

& Rodriguez, 2000), then a main effect of attention is

expected, where participants in the SFA condition report

higher anxiety during the interaction compared with

those in the external-focused attention (EFA) condition

regardless of level of social anxiety.

2. If the interaction of SFA and concerns about negative

evaluation gives rise to social anxiety (Zou et al., 2007),

then an interaction between direction of attention and

level of social anxiety would be expected here. For those

with high social anxiety, significantly higher self-reported

anxiety would be expected in the SFA condition com-

pared with the EFA condition. For those with low social

anxiety, no differences in self-reported anxiety would be

expected between attention focus conditions.

3. If findings that SFA elicits social anxiety reported in the

literature are a result of a confound whereby the SFA

manipulation also elicits concerns about negative evalu-

ation (Bögels & Mansell, 2004), then no impact of SFA on

social anxiety would be expected in the present study,

where the SFA manipulation is designed to specifically

62 A.K. Jakymin and L.M. Harris

© 2011 The Australian Psychological Society

target attention focus and not to directly arouse concerns

about negative evaluation.

METHOD

Design

A 2 (anxiety group: high social anxiety; low social anxi-

ety) ¥ 2 (attention condition: SFA; EFA) between-subjects

design was used. The dependent variables were self-reported

anxiety measured on a visual analogue scale (VAS) immedi-

ately before and after the attention manipulation. Pilot

testing with a sample of undergraduate students (n = 6) who

were not included in the present study confirmed that the

SFA and EFA manipulations were successful in altering

direction of attention.

Several measures were included to control for alternative

explanations of findings. These were completed after the

attention manipulation task, and participants were asked to

rate their experience during the task. First, VASs assessing

attention focus were used to verify that the attentional focus

manipulations were effective.

Second, as differences in familiarity with conversation

topics may be related to anxiety, participants were asked to

rate ‘how familiar you were with the topic of conversation’.

Third, a modified Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale

(Modified BFNE; Leary, 1983) was used to assess fear of

negative evaluation during the conversation.

Participants

First-year psychology students (n = 203) were screened

using Mattick and Clarke’s (1998) Social Interaction and

Anxiety Scale (SIAS). Students in the upper (332) and

lower (219) tertiles on the SIAS were invited to participate.

Based on the tertile split, the minimum SIAS score for the

high social anxiety group (32) and the maximum SIAS

score for the low social anxiety group (19) were close to

the cut-off scores recommended by Heimberg, Mueller,

Holt, Hope, and Liebowitz (1992) from their validation

study (34 and 20 for high and low social anxiety groups,

respectively).

Seventy high and low socially anxious students were

randomly allocated to either the SFA or EFA condition, and

the researcher conducting the attention focus manipulation

was blind to anxiety group membership. Social anxiety

group membership was confirmed on the day of testing

using the SIAS, and nine participants were eliminated

because their scores were no longer in the upper or lower

tertile range. The number and gender distribution of those

eliminated from the high anxiety group (n = 4; one male)

and the low social anxiety group (n = 5; two male) was

approximately equal.

The final sample comprised 61 participants: 19 males

(31%) and 42 females (69%), ranging in age from 17 to 40

years (mean (M) = 19.87, standard deviation (SD) = 4.20).

There were 29 people in the high social anxiety group

(SFA: n = 14; EFA: n = 15) and 32 in the low social anxiety

group (SFA: n = 17; EFA: n = 15). The high socially

anxious group had SIAS scores ranging from 32 to 66

(M = 46.5, SD = 7.6), and the low socially anxious group

had SIAS scores ranging from 5 to 19 (M = 12.6, SD = 3.7).

The mean SIAS scores for the high and low social

anxiety groups were comparable with those of the student

sample reported by Zou et al. (2007; M = 44.9 and M = 15.5

for their high and low blushing anxious samples, respec-

tively). With regard to age, there were no significant dif-

ferences between the high and low anxiety groups (F(1,

56) = 0.60, p > .05) or the attention conditions (F(1,

56) = 1.65, p > .05), and the interaction between anxiety

group and attention condition was not significant for age

(F(1, 56) = 0.08, p > .05; see Table 1). The distribution of

males and females across social anxiety groups and atten-

tion conditions was not significantly different (c2(1,

N = 61) = 0.29, p > .05 and c2(1, N = 61) = 0.04, p > .05 for

anxiety group and attention group, respectively; see

Table 1).

Table 1 Means and standard deviations for participant characteristics by anxiety group and attention condition

CharacteristicHigh social anxiety Low social anxiety

SFA (n = 14) EFA (n = 15) SFA (n = 17) EFA (n = 15)

Number of females (%) 9 (64.3) 10 (66.7) 12 (70.6) 11 (73.3)Age (years) 18.5 (1.1) 20.3 (3.3) 19.7 (4.0) 20.8 (6.4)Interaction length (mins) 4.3 (0.4) 4.4 (0.4) 4.4 (0.6) 4.6 (1.2)SIAS 45.1 (7.3) 47.7 (7.9) 13.2 (4.4) 11.8 (3.0)SPS 32.1 (13.7) 35.4 (15.6) 8.8 (5.5) 9.3 (4.7)Self-focus 54.0 (15.9) 44.6 (23.4) 52.7 (16.8) 33.9 (25.9)External-focus 25.3 (24.0) 64.5 (18.3) 22.1 (16.7) 65.5 (20.6)Modified BFNE 33.3 (11.2) 40.5 (10.2) 22.8 (7.0) 24.0 (6.6)Familiarity with topic 78.6 (16.0) 43.1 (27.4) 72.9 (28.8) 76.1 (20.6)

Note. EFA = external-focused attention; Modified BFNE = Modified Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale; SFA = self-focused attention;SIAS = Social Interaction and Anxiety Scale; SPS = Social Phobia Scale.

Self-focused attention and social anxiety 63


Materials

SIAS and Social Phobia Scale (SPS; Mattick & Clarke, 1998)

The SIAS assesses social interaction fears, and the SPS

assesses fears of being scrutinised. Both have been found to

have strong internal consistency and test-retest reliability

and good discriminant validity (Mattick & Clarke, 1998).

BFNE (Leary, 1983)

The BFNE is a short form of the Fear of Negative Evaluation

Scale (FNE; Watson & Friend, 1969). The BFNE was modi-

fied so that participants indicated their fear of negative

evaluation by the experimenter during the conversation.

The items from the BFNE were framed in the past tense to

refer to the interaction that the person had just participated

in, and references to other people generally were replaced

with references to the conversational partner specifically.

For example, the item ‘I worry about what other people think of

me even when I know it doesn’t make a big difference’ was

changed to ‘I worried about what the other person thought of

me even when I knew it didn’t make a big difference’. The

instructions were changed so that instead of being asked to

rate the extent to which each item was ‘characteristic of you’,

participants were asked to indicate how true each statement

was ‘of you during the conversation task with the experimenter’ on

a scale from ‘not at all true of you’ to ‘extremely true of you’. The

original BFNE has high internal consistency and correlates

significantly with the original FNE scale (Leary, 1983). The

internal consistency of the modified BFNE in the present

sample was high, with Cronbach Alpha = 0.93.

VAS

VASs have frequently been used to assess level of anxiety

and self-awareness during social tasks (e.g., Bögels &

Lamers, 2002; Zou et al., 2007). The VAS was used before

and after each conversation to measure anxiety using a

rating scale from 0 (not at all) to 100 (extremely).

SFA, EFA, and Familiarity with the conversation topic

VASs were included to verify that the conversation topic was

successful in affecting attention focus and familiarity with

the conversation topic. For all items, participants responded

on a scale from 0 (not at all) to 100 (extremely). Average

responses to VAS ratings of the extent to which participants

focused on ‘internal bodily reactions’ and ‘yourself and your

feelings’ during the conversation were used to assess extent of

SFA, and average responses to VAS ratings of the extent to

which participants focused on ‘experiences of other people’ and

‘general environmental conditions’ during the conversation

were used to assess the extent of EFA. Participants also rated

their familiarity with the conversation topic from 0 (not at

all familiar) to 100 (extremely familiar).

Procedure

Those with SIAS scores from the initial screening of 332 or

219 were invited to participate in a study to investigate the

relationship between social behaviour and emotions where

they would complete further questionnaires and take part in

a brief conversation with a female researcher. Upon arrival,

written informed consent was obtained, and participants

completed the SIAS, SPS, and the anxiety VAS. Participants

were then engaged in conversation about exercise with a

female researcher who responded to participants in a

friendly, neutral manner. While the broad topic was the

same for all participants, the SFA condition was designed to

focus participants’ attention on their own physiological state

by asking them about their personal experiences with exer-

cise, particularly the immediate physiological effects of exer-

cise on their body (e.g., temperature, heart rate, breathing,

and sweating). In the EFA condition, the conversation was

about environmental factors that could affect athletes’ per-

formance at the Beijing Olympic Games (e.g., climate,

humidity, and air pollution) so that attention was focused on

the experiences of other people in response to external,

environmental factors. The average conversation was 4 min

and 41 s (SD = 56.3 s) long, and there were no significant

differences between anxiety groups (F(1, 57) = 1.20, p > .05)

or attention conditions (F(1, 57) = 0.97, p > .05) in the

length of the conversation and no interaction between

anxiety group and attention condition (F(1, 57) = 0.22,

p > .05; see Table 1).

Immediately following the conversation, participants

completed the VASs measuring focus of attention, anxiety,

and familiarity with the conversation topic followed by the

modified BFNE.

RESULTS

SIAS and SPS

Separate 2 (anxiety group) ¥ 2 (attention condition) analy-

ses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted to confirm the

allocation to high and low social anxiety groups (see

Table 1). As expected, the high socially anxious group

scored significantly higher than the low socially anxious

group on the SIAS (F(1, 57) = 500.61, p < .05) and SPS

(F(1, 57) = 79.66, p < .05). However, prior to the manipula-

tion, there were no significant main effects for attention

condition on SIAS or SPS (F(1, 57) = 0.15, p > .05;

F(1, 57) = 0.45, p > .05 for SIAS and SPS, respectively),

and no significant interactions between anxiety group



and attention condition on either of these variables

(F(1, 57) = 1.76, p > .05; F(1, 57) = 0.26, p > .05 for SIAS

and SPS, respectively).

Manipulation check

Separate 2 (anxiety group) ¥ 2 (attention condition)

ANOVAs were carried out to determine whether the atten-

tion focus manipulation had been successful (see Table 1).

The dependent variables were the average of responses to

the two VASs concerning SFA and EFA. For SFA, there was

a significant main effect of attention condition indicating

that participants were more self-focused in the SFA condi-

tion (M = 53.3) relative to the EFA condition (M = 39.2;

F(1, 57) = 7.05, p < .05), no significant main effect of anxiety

group (F(1, 57) = 1.27, p > .05), and no significant interac-

tion between anxiety group and attention condition

(F(1, 57) = 0.80, p > .05). For EFA, there was a significant

main effect of attention condition with higher external focus

in the EFA condition (M = 65.0) compared with the SFA

condition (M = 23.7; F(1, 57) = 65.36, p < .05), no significant

main effect of anxiety group (F(1, 57) = 0.04, p > .05), and

no significant interaction between anxiety group and atten-

tion condition (F(1, 57) = 0.17, p > .05).

Fear of negative evaluation during the conversation

A 2 (anxiety group) ¥ 2 (attention condition) ANOVA was

conducted to examine modified BFNE scores during the

conversation (see Table 1). There was a significant main

effect for anxiety group, indicating that high socially

anxious participants reported greater fear of negative

evaluation during the conversation than low socially

anxious participants (M = 36.9 and M = 23.4 for high and

low social anxiety groups, respectively; F(1, 57) = 33.39,

p < .05). There was no significant main effect of attention

condition (F(1, 57) = 2.97, p > .05) and no significant inter-

action between anxiety group and attention condition

(F(1, 57) = 2.00, p > .05).

Familiarity with conversation topic

A 2 (anxiety group) ¥ 2 (attention condition) ANOVA was

conducted to examine differences in familiarity with the

conversation topic (see Table 1). There was a significant

main effect of anxiety group (F(1, 57) = 27.11, p < .05) and

of attention condition (F(1, 57) = 6.02, p < .05). Low socially

anxious participants reported greater familiarity with the

conversation topics than high socially anxious participants

(M = 74.5 and M = 60.9, respectively), and participants

reported being more familiar with the conversation topic in

the SFA condition compared with the EFA condition

(M = 75.8 and M = 59.6, respectively). There was also a sig-

nificant interaction between anxiety group and attention

condition (F(1, 57) = 9.84, p < .05). Follow-up tests used to

examine familiarity ratings in attention conditions for

anxiety groups separately confirmed that there was a signifi-

cant difference in ratings between the SFA and EFA condi-

tions in the high social anxiety group (F(1, 57) = 14.10,

p < .05) but no difference between SFA and EFA conditions

in the low social anxiety group (F(1, 57) = 0.24, p > .05).

Self-reported anxiety

A 2 (anxiety group) ¥ 2 (attention condition) ¥ (2; time:

(before or after conversation)) ANOVA was conducted to

determine whether there was a change in self-reported

anxiety following the manipulation (see Fig. 1). There was a

significant main effect for anxiety group (F(1, 57) = 22.90,

p < .05) where, averaged over time, high socially anxious

participants reported greater anxiety than low socially

anxious participants (M = 40.7 and M = 17.4 for high and

low social anxiety groups, respectively). There was also

a significant main effect for attention condition (F(1,

57) = 4.63, p < .05) where, averaged over time, participants

in the EFA condition reported greater anxiety than partici-

pants in the SFA condition (M = 34.5 and M = 23.6 for the

EFA and SFA conditions, respectively). There was no signifi-

cant interaction between anxiety group and attention

Figure 1 Self-rated anxiety by anxiety group and attention condi-tion: Total sample (n = 61; upper panel); Matched sample (n = 44;lower panel).



condition (F(1, 57) = 0.04, p > .05). The main effect of time

was not significant (F(1, 57) = 0.18, p > .05), and there was

no significant interaction between anxiety group and time

(F(1, 57) = 0.68, p > .05), attention condition and time

(F(1, 57) = 0.18, p > .05) or anxiety group, and attention

condition and time (F(1, 57) = 0.77, p > .05; see Fig. 1). The

pattern of results was the same when familiarity rating was

included as a covariate.

Random allocation to conditions resulted in variations in

self-rated anxiety before the conversation where anxiety

was higher in the EFA condition for both high and low social

anxiety groups, and it is possible that this contributed to the

findings reported here. To examine this possibility, the

analysis was repeated with participants matched for self-

rated anxiety before the conversation (n = 11 per group).

Only the main effect for anxiety group was significant in this

analysis (F(1, 40) = 13.14, p < .05; see Fig. 1).

DISCUSSION

This study investigated the effects of SFA compared with EFA

on self-rated anxiety in high and low socially anxious indi-

viduals. The study was designed to manipulate attention

focus in the context of an ecologically valid conversation

task similar to that used by Zou et al. (2007). The attention

focus task used in the present study, however, did not

require participants in the SFA condition to directly focus

attention during the conversation ‘inwards by concentrating

on your breathing, heart-rate, your voice, or any signs of

blushing’ (p. 2329). This instruction is likely to elicit evalu-

ation concerns particularly as participants were selected for

anxiety about blushing, and anxiety about blushing is

understood to be centrally related to fear of negative evalu-

ation. Here, the SFA condition indirectly focused attention

on the individual’s internal physiological state, asking par-

ticipants to think about their experiences with the physi-

ological signs of exercise (body temperature, heart rate,

breathing, and sweating). Using measures of SFA and EFA

similar to those used in previous work (e.g., Bögels &

Lamers, 2002), it was demonstrated that the conversation

task successfully altered focus of attention. Importantly,

scores on the modified BFNE did not differ across attention

conditions, although expected effects of anxiety condition on

the modified BFNE were found: Those in the high social

anxiety group reported higher fear of negative evaluation

during the conversation than those in the low social anxiety

group.

No effect of SFA on self-reported anxiety, either as a main

effect or as an interaction with social anxiety group, was

found in the present study. Therefore, the results do not

support the view that SFA will lead to social anxiety irre-

spective of anxiety status (e.g. Bögels & Lamers, 2002;

George & Stopa, 2008; McManus et al., 2008; Woody, 1996;

Woody & Rodriguez, 2000), nor do they support the predic-

tion that those with high social anxiety would have higher

self-reported anxiety in the SFA condition compared with

the EFA condition, while attention focus would have no

effect on anxiety for those with low social anxiety (Zou et al.,

2007). Instead, using a manipulation of attention that was

ecologically valid task and designed to influence focus of

attention without directly influencing fear of negative evalu-

ation, no association between SFA and anxiety was found

(cf. Bogels et al., 2002). Inconsistencies between the findings

of the present study and many earlier results may be

explained by these important methodological differences.

Cognitive models of social anxiety argue that it is the

interaction of SFA and fear of negative evaluation that gives

rise to social anxiety, and interventions to reduce social

anxiety have been designed to target both of these processes.

The findings of the present study have implications for inter-

ventions to reduce social anxiety, suggesting that SFA alone

may not be a suitable target for treatment (see also Voncken

et al., 2010). The findings are consistent with suggestions

that manipulations of SFA reported to affect anxiety in the

literature may have acted by directly affecting fear of nega-

tive evaluation (Bögels & Mansell, 2004).

Several limitations of the present study must be acknowl-

edged. First, the number of participants was relatively small

(n = 14 to n = 17 in each group). However, these numbers

are similar to those reported in other published studies (e.g.,

Vassilopoulos, 2008; Zou et al., 2007). Second, participants

in the present study were asked to rate their level of anxiety

immediately before and immediately after the conversation,

rather than being asked to rate their anxiety during the

conversation. Thus, the findings of the present study may

reflect apprehension about the task before the conversation,

and relief after the conversation was over. Other work in this

area has also required participants to rate their mood imme-

diately before and immediately after an experimental

manipulation (e.g., Vassilopoulos, 2008), and the accuracy of

post-task ratings of the experience during the task may be

questioned. Third, unlike previous work examining the rela-

tionship between SFA and anxiety, participants here were

asked to rate their fear of negative evaluation during the

conversation to directly assess the extent to which the atten-

tion manipulation was associated with concerns about nega-

tive evaluation. The BFNE was designed as a trait measure

and was modified here to detect state fear of negative evalu-

ation. It is therefore possible that the measure was not sen-

sitive enough to detect situational differences in fear of

negative evaluation.

In summary, this study addressed several concerns associ-

ated with previous research concerning the role of SFA in

eliciting social anxiety. The attention manipulation occurred

in the context of a commonly encountered social interaction



between two people. The attention manipulation was effec-

tive in influencing direction of attention and did not appear

to be confounded by directly causing fear of negative evalu-

ation. Under these conditions, SFA was not associated with

self-reported anxiety. The inconsistency between the con-

clusions of the present study and those of earlier work where

SFA was associated with increased anxiety may be explained

with reference to Watkins and Teasdale’s (2004) distinction

between adaptive, experiential SFA and maladaptive, ana-

lytical SFA. For example, the processes engaged during

the SFA manipulation used by Zou et al. (2007) appear to be

analytic and evaluative, while the processes engaged by the

SFA manipulation in the present study reflect a more expe-

riential focus on the self. Further research comparing ana-

lytical and experiential SFA using an ecologically valid

conversation task is needed to clarify this interpretation.

There is evidence to suggest that undergraduate popula-

tions with high levels of social anxiety constitute an appro-

priate analogue for clinical samples (Turner, Beidel, &

Larkin, 1986), and the average SIAS scores of the high social

anxiety group in the present study (M = 46.5) were higher

than that of a sample with social phobia reported by Mattick

and Clarke (1998; M = 34). However, extension of this study

to a clinical sample would strengthen the findings. Further

research in this area is important given that social anxiety is

both common and disabling, and that therapeutic interven-

tions targeting attention are recommended to treat social

anxiety. Increasing our understanding of the factors that

maintain social anxiety will enable more targeted treatment

approaches.

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