Negative Interpretive Bias And Intervention Studies In Women With Social Appearance Anxiety

Purposes:(1)To verify the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of Social Appearance Anxiety Scale in Chinese female college students by questionnaire survey;(2)To verify that the high social appearance anxiety group has a more negative interpretation bias related to appearance information in the social situation through the experimental method;(3)Through experimental intervention to verify the effectiveness and uniqueness of the two intervention methods,positive imagery-based interpretation bias modification,and pure interpretation bias modification,on reducing the negative interpretation bias and anxiety symptoms of individuals with social appearance anxiety.Methods and objects:(1)A total of 2814 valid questionnaires were collected from female college students,including the Chinese version of social appearance anxiety scale and social anxiety scale,and other convergent validity scales.The reliability and validity test and difference test were conducted;(2)15%of the participants before and after the score of the social appearance anxiety scale(45 participants in each group)participated in the Scrambled Sentences Task(online measurement)and Sentence Completion task(offline measurement).The results of the differences were tested.(3)Participants with social appearance anxiety scores over 55 participated in the experimental intervention.They were randomly assigned to the positive mental imagery-based interpretation bias modification group(Imagery-IBM,n=19),the pure interpretation bias modification group(IBM,n=19)and the waiting group(n=20).Sentence-Word Association task and Sentence Completion-comprehension task were adopted.Positive mental imagery-based interpretation bias modification training and pure interpretation bias modification training were performed twice a week for two weeks respectively,with follow-ups at 1 and 2 months.The waiting group did not make any intervention,only pre-and post-test and one-month follow-up measurements.Results:(1)The 16 items of the Chinese version of the social appearance anxiety scale had good discrimination and homogeneity;The one-factor structure was verified by factor analysis,and the fitting indexes were good(CFI=0.92,TLI=0.91,RMESA=0.08,SRMR=0.04).The internal consistency reliability was 0.96,and the retest reliability was 0.82.(2)Compared with the low-score group of social appearance anxiety,the high-score group had more negative interpretation bias related to appearance information in the social situation.The higher the score,the more negative interpretation bias;(3)Both imagery-IBM and pure IBM interventions effectively reduced the negative interpretation bias of individuals with high social appearance anxiety(η_p~2:0.61～0.74),thus alleviating their symptoms of social appearance anxiety(η_p~2:0.61～0.74)and reducing their scores on the fear of negative appearance evaluation,social anxiety,and depression scales(η_p~2:0.25～0.54).The effect of intervention had a large effect size(η_p~2>0.14),and maintained in the follow-up test.Although there was no significant difference in the scores of dependent variables between the two intervention groups in the post-test,the scores of social appearance anxiety and appearance negative evaluation fear were still significantly decreased in the imagery-IBM group in the follow-up one month later,indicating a better lasting effect.Conclusion:The revised Chinese version of the social appearance anxiety scale in this study has good reliability and validity,and can be used in Chinese female college students.It further verifies that individuals with high social appearance anxiety have more negative interpretation bias related to appearance information in social situation.The effectiveness of two intervention methods,imagery-IBM and pure IBM,was preliminarily explored,and more targeted intervention materials were revised,which provided some inspiration and empirical basis for future consultation and clinical research.