Social information processing, anxiety sensitivity, and depression in socially anxious adolescents

Social Anxiety is a debilitating illness, and has been found to affect up to 30 percent of adolescents. Studies show that social anxiety is related to cognitive biases and social information processing deficits, mainly in children and adults. Specifically, children and adults with social anxiety tend to pay more attention to threatening/hostile cues in their environment (Gilboa-Schechtman et al., 1999; Vasey, El-Hag, & Daleiden, 1996), to have negative intent attributional biases (Amir et al., 2005; Barrett et al., 1996; Bell-Dolan, 1995; Chorpita et al., 1996a; Constans et al., 1999; Huppert et al., 2003; Joormann & Gotlib, 2006), and to enact more avoidant/safety behaviors in social situations (Alden & Bieling, 1998; Barrett et al., 1996). Few studies on the social information processing of socially anxious adolescents have been conducted, and results have been inconsistent, indicating that the social information processing of socially anxious adolescents may be different from that of socially anxious children and adults. The high rate of comorbidity of other psychiatric diagnoses with social anxiety may have influenced results of past studies. Therefore, the current study examined the social information processing of 78 socially anxious adolescents from community high schools, and measured levels of social anxiety, depression and anxiety sensitivity to better understand their effect on social information processing. Results showed that socially anxious adolescents with depression and anxiety sensitivity were more likely to process social information in a negative manner. Further, socially anxious adolescents with depression were less likely to generate prosocial responses, and displayed an overall less positive social information processing style. Social anxiety severity was not significantly associated with any social information processing variables. However, results suggest that within a group of socially anxious adolescents, level of depression and level of anxiety sensitivity account for significant variance in social information processing. Results support the Tripartite model of anxiety and depression (Clark & Watson, 1984), as both anxiety sensitivity and depression were related to negative social information processing, and only depression was related to less positive social information processing. While results suggest that the SIP of socially anxious adolescents may differ from that of socially anxious children and adults, further discussion regarding restricted range of social anxiety, the high rate of comorbidity and the differences among social anxiety measures is warranted.