cognitive processes in social anxiety the effects of self-focus, rumination and anticipatory...

Cognitive processes in social anxiety: the e�ects of self-focus, rumination and anticipatory processing

Tanna M.B. Mellings, Lynn E. Alden*

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4

Received 4 January 1999

Abstract

We examined three cognitive processes hypothesized to contribute to biases in judgments about andmemory for social events: self-focused attention, post-event rumination, and anticipatory processing.Socially anxious (N = 58) and nonanxious (N = 58) subjects participated in a social interaction andthen completed measures of self-focused attention and anxiety-related physiological sensations andbehavior. The next day, subjects completed measures that assessed frequency of post-event processingand recall of the interaction. The results indicated that selective attention to negative self-relatedinformation led to biases in social judgments and recollections and that post-event processingcontributed to the recall of negative self-related information. No evidence was found for selectiveretrieval of negative self-related information prior to a second social interaction. The results reconcileinconsistent previous ®ndings related to memory bias in social anxiety. # 2000 Published by ElsevierScience Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Cognitive; Memory; Attention; Social anxiety; Rumination; Self-focus

1. Introduction

Cognitive theories of social phobia are based on the general concept of biased processing ofsocial information (e.g., Beck & Emery, 1985; Clark & Wells, 1995). Such models have threecentral tenets: (a) that patients with social phobia selectively attend to negative informationabout social situations; (b) that this leads to biases in their judgments and recollections ofsocial events and (c) that these biases exacerbate and perpetuate social fears. Although there is

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growing empirical support for this approach, several key features of the cognitive perspectiveremain to be con®rmed, particularly in regards to the existence of memory bias and theidenti®cation of the speci®c cognitive operations that contribute to cognitive distortions.Clark & Wells, (1995) provided a detailed description of the way in which biased processing

is believed to occur. According to these writers, in social situations, social phobics focus onmonitoring themselves, particularly their anxiety-related internal sensations, thoughts andbehaviors. Self-focused attention increases the salience of this negative self-related informationat the expense of external information about the social situation. This not only exacerbatesanxiety, but leads to negative biases in the person's social judgments both during and after thesituation, particularly about the person's own performance. The adoption of safety behaviorscontributes to this process by increasing anxiety and self-focused attention and preventing thediscon®rmation of negative beliefs. Following social situations, social phobics engage in post-event processing in which they review the interaction in detail. According to Clark and Wells,(1995), this postmortem rumination is likely to center on anxious feelings and negative self-perceptions because they ``were processed in detail . . . and hence were strongly encoded inmemory'' (Clark & Wells, 1995, p. 74). The end result of this is that the person recalls theinteraction as more negative than it really was. Prior to subsequent social events, the socialphobic engages in anticipatory processing in which their thoughts ``tend to be dominated byrecollections of past failures'' and predictions of poor performance and thus, the cycle beginsagain.One unique feature of this model is the delineation of several distinct cognitive operations,

most notably self-focused attention and anticipatory and post-event processing, that areproposed to contribute to social anxiety. Self-focused attention occurs during social events andhighlights speci®c types of information. Post-event rumination occurs between social eventsand reactivates memory traces, which results in deeper processing of the information recalled.Anticipatory processing occurs prior to social events and evokes the negative memories andpredictions that begin the anxious cycle. Thus, all three operations contribute to biasedprocessing of social information and hence social anxiety, although at di�erent points in timeand in di�erent ways.Some aspects of this model have empirical support. Research has demonstrated that social

scrutiny increases self-focused attention in socially anxious and social phobic individuals (e.g.,Buss, 1980; Alden, Teshuck & Tee, 1992; Woody, 1996) and it is well established that self-focused attention heightens awareness of negative emotional states (e.g., Buss, 1980). Similarly,socially anxious and social phobic individuals are known to display negative biases in their selfand social judgments (e.g., McEwan & Devins, 1983; Lucock & Salkovskis, 1988; Rapee &Lim, 1992; Stopa & Clark, 1993; Alden & Wallace, 1995). However, the extent to which biasedsocial judgments are due to self-focused attention, rather than other factors such as a generalnegative response set or the other cognitive operations identi®ed by Clark and Wells, has yet tobe established. If judgmental biases arise as a result of self-focused attention, one would expectindividuals who display more extensive self-directed attention to display greater distortions intheir social judgments.Another unanswered question is whether self-focused attention leads to biases in memory for

the social event. Although judgment and memory are clearly interrelated, they are not identicalprocesses. For example, one may remember many pieces of information about a social event,

T.M.B. Mellings, L.E. Alden / Behaviour Research and Therapy 38 (2000) 243±257244

yet base one's general judgments (e.g., ``How well did I handle that situation?'') on only a fewof these (e.g., a single inept comment). Therefore, demonstrating that socially anxiousindividuals discount their behavior in a social situation does not necessarily mean that theyhave stored only negative information about the event. Relatively few studies have examinedmemory biases in socially anxious populations and these have produced inconsistent results.The strongest evidence for such biases comes from a study by Hope, Heimberg, and Klein(1990), which examined recall following a social interaction. These researchers found thatsocially anxious subjects had less accurate recall of partner- and topic-related information thancontrol subjects did. Support is also provided by Lundh and Ost (1996), who concluded thatgeneralized social phobics displayed selective recall of pictures depicting negative as opposed topositive faces. However, this study did not control for the possibility that social phobics mayhave a general negative response set that a�ected their ratings. Weaker support is provided byO'Banion and Arkowitz (1977), who found a statistically nonsigni®cant trend for sociallyanxious subjects to recall more negative than positive feedback. In contrast to these threestudies, Rapee, McCallum, Melville, Ravenscroft and Rodney (1994) conducted four studiesthat examined implicit and explicit memory on a variety of semantic and other memoryretrieval tasks and found no di�erences between social phobic and control subjects.It is di�cult to compare these studies because they measured recall for di�erent types of

information (e.g., word lists, experimenter feedback), which also varied in terms of locus(internal versus external), valence (neutral versus positive or negative) and situationalcomplexity during encoding. In addition, with the exception of the autobiographical memoryretrieval study by Rapee et al. (1994, study 4), memory was assessed immediately after theinteraction or stimulus presentation. It may be that more extensive memory biases wouldemerge if time was allowed for memory decay, i.e., assessed via delayed recall. It is also worthnoting that some researchers have argued that biases in memory are associated with depressionas opposed to anxiety (Mathews & MacLeod, 1994). Thus, studies of memory bias in socialanxiety must control for the e�ects of comorbid depression and this has not always been done.Even if memory biases can be identi®ed, it remains to be established whether these stem

from self-focused attention, as proposed by cognitive writers. Only one study examined self-focused attention in this regard. Hope et al. (1990) assessed public self-awareness and found asigni®cant, albeit modest, correlation with memory omissions for external social cues.However, public self-awareness was not associated with overall recall accuracy in sociallyanxious subjects and was actually associated with better recall in nonanxious subjects. Thus,although cognitive perspectives on social anxiety imply that self-focused attention should leadto biased recall of social events, this relationship remains to be established.Clark and Wells, (1995) suggest that both anticipatory and post-event processing play a role

in social anxiety. Consistent with this suggestion, socially anxious individuals have been foundto engage in negative thoughts and predictions prior to social interactions, which likelycontribute to their anxiety (e.g., Dodge, Hope, Heimberg & Becker, 1988). However, the extentto which anticipatory processing also involves recollections of past failure remains to bedetermined. If this is the case, one would expect that social anticipation would lead to selectiveretrieval of negative information about past social events. In a similar vein, although sociallyanxious and social phobic individuals report ruminating after social events (e.g., Fairbrother,Rachman & Mitchell, 1998), no work of which we are aware has examined the relationship

T.M.B. Mellings, L.E. Alden / Behaviour Research and Therapy 38 (2000) 243±257 245

between post-event processing and judgmental or recall bias. Such a relationship could takeone of three forms. First, rumination may simply perpetuate existing biases by keepingmemory traces active. On the other hand, further processing may increase the salience ofnegative self-related information, thereby exacerbating initial biases. Both of these patterns arein keeping with the Clark±Wells' model. In contrast, it is also conceivable that prolongedprocessing of an anxiety-provoking event might help some individuals resolve their concerns.Overall, the relationships between anticipatory- and post-event processing and cognitive biasesrequire further examination.In this study, socially anxious students participated in a social interaction with an opposite

sex confederate and then completed measures of self-focused attention, ratings of anxiety-related physiological sensations and anxiety-related behavior. At a second session the next day,subjects rated frequency of ruminative thinking, memory for anxiety-related physiologicalsensations and anxiety-related behavior and two additional measures of recall of self- versusexternal-information. In this context, we examined the following predictions.Consistent with Clark and Wells' model, we anticipated that socially anxious subjects would

report more self-focused attention and less other-focused attention than control subjects. Wealso anticipated that socially anxious subjects would over-estimate their anxiety-relatedbehaviors relative to the ratings of objective observers, as this discounting e�ect is wellestablished in the literature. If the cognitive perspective is correct, one would expect that self-focused attention would be associated with distortions in judgments about anxiety-relatedbehavior and this was our prediction. We also predicted that self-focused attention would leadto biased recall of social information. In particular, we expected that socially anxious subjectswould recall less partner-related (i.e., external) and more negative self-related information atdelayed recall than nonanxious control subjects.Less precise predictions could be made about the e�ects of post-event- and anticipatory-

processing because of the absence of previous work. However, if post-event processing plays a rolein social anxiety, not only should socially anxious subjects report more rumination about the socialinteraction than control subjects, but in addition, post-event processing should be associated witheither the perpetuation or exacerbation of any initial biases in encoding. In terms of anticipatoryprocessing, we examined whether socially anxious subjects anticipating a second interactiondisplayed signs of selective retrieval of negative information about the initial interaction.

2. Method

2.1. Subjects

Undergraduate psychology students (43 men, 73 women) were selected on the basis of theirscores on the Social Avoidance and Distress scale (SAD; Watson & Friend, 1969)1. The SADis a 28 item inventory measuring social anxiety and distress that has displayed good internal

1 Of the original 122 subjects, 6 subjects were dropped due to incomplete data (N = 1), language di�culties(N= 3), or suspicion of the confederate (N = 2) to yield a total of 116 subjects.


consistency (KR-20=0.94) and reliability (test±retest=0.68) (Watson & Friend, 1969). Subjectswere assigned to either high (SAD scores > 13) or low (SAD scores < 8) social anxietygroups. The high anxious group (26 men, 32 women) had a mean SAD score of 19.06(S.D.=3.75, range=14±27). The low anxious group (17 men, 41 women) had a mean SADscore of 3.87 (S.D.=1.56, range=0±6). Within each group, subjects were randomly assigned tothe high and low state-anxiety conditions. Chi-square analyses revealed no signi®cantdi�erences in gender between the various cells.

2.2. Personnel

Two experimenters (1 woman, 1 man) were trained to follow a scripted protocol to deliverthe experimental instructions. Two undergraduate research assistants (1 man, 1 woman) servedas experimental confederates. They were trained to engage in consistent behavior acrosssubjects. Four students (2 men, 2 women) served as observers and were trained to rate subjectand confederate behavior. All personnel were blind to hypotheses and group assignments.

2.3. Procedure

Subjects were assessed at two time points that were separated by one day. At time 1, subjectsparticipated in an unstructured ten-minute interaction with the confederate, who was presentedas another research participant. During this interaction, the confederates presented certain keyinformation about themselves, such as their hobbies, interests and so on. Following theinteraction, subjects completed measures of self-focused attention, anxiety-related physiologicalsensations and anxiety-related behaviors. Subjects returned on the following day (time 2) andwere randomly assigned to one of two anticipation conditions. Following the delivery of themanipulation, subjects completed an open-ended recall measure and a structured measure ofrecall for objective (partner, setting) information. They also completed measures of thefrequency of ruminative thinking during the interval and recall for anxiety-related physiologicalsensations and anxiety-related behaviors during the time 1 interaction. The questionnaires werecompleted in a di�erent research room than at time 1.

2.4. Experimental manipulation of social anticipation

Prior to completion of the questionnaires at time 2, the experimenter delivered instructionsthat indicated the subject either would or would not participate in a second interaction.Because some work suggests that memory biases are more likely to emerge when subjects arein a state of heightened a�ect (e.g., Mathews & MacLeod, 1994), these instructions weredesigned to heighten anxious apprehension.

2.4.1. Social apprehension condition

In a few moments we will move to our large conference room where you will interact withyour partner again. This interaction will take place in front of an audience who will be


rating your performance. Just before you go in, I would like you to think back to theconversation you had with your partner yesterday and answer these questions.

2.4.2. Control condition

There is one last part to the study. As soon as you ®nish this part of the study, you mayleave. Just before you leave, I would like you to think back to the conversation you hadwith your partner yesterday and answer these questions.

2.5. Deception

During the debrie®ng, the experimenter assessed subject suspicion about the confederate.Two subjects expressed suspicion and were dropped from the analyses.

2.6. Measures: focus of attention, rumination and apprehension

2.6.1. Focus of attentionFocus of attention was measured immediately after the interaction with the Focus of

Attention Questionnaire (FAQ; Woody, 1996). This 10-item scale includes two 5-itemsubscales: self-focused attention (sample item: `Ì was focusing on what I would say or donext'') and other-focused attention (sample item: `Ì was focusing on the other person'sappearance or dress''). Five additional self-focused attention items pertaining to anxiety wereadded for this study2. Each item was rated on a 5-point scale ranging from not at all (one) tovery much (®ve). Items were averaged to yield two focus of attention scores.Research suggests that the two scales are independent and they display distinct patterns of

correlations (Woody, Chambless & Glass, 1997). High internal consistency is reported for thescale (Woody et al., 1997). In this sample, Cronbach's alpha was 0.87 for the self-focussubscale and 0.49 for the other-focus subscale.

2.6.2. Rumination questionnaire (RQ)At time 2, subjects were asked to report the extent to which they had engaged in post-event

processing of information about the interaction on a measure developed for this study. TheRQ scale consisted of ®ve items that asked subjects how much they had thought about theinteraction over the previous day3. Ratings were made on 7-point Likert-type scales. The ®ve

2 The added self-focused attention items included the following: `Ì was focusing on my internal bodily reactions''(for example, heart rate); `Ì was focusing on past social failures''; `Ì was focusing on my feelings of discomfort''; `Ìwas focusing on my shaking or trembling''; `Ì was focusing on my shaky speech''.3 The Rumination Questionnaire asked subjects to ``consider how much you thought about the last conversation in

the time since that interaction and answer the following questions''. Speci®c items were as follows: To what extentdid you think about the conversation with your partner in the time since you had the conversation? Were your thoughts

about the interaction positive, negative or neutral? To what extent did you criticize yourself about not handling the in-teraction well? How much did you think about other past conversations or interactions? To what extent did you thinkabout the anxiety you felt during the interaction?


items were summed to yield a total rumination score. Cronbach's alpha was 0.70 for the totalscore.

2.6.3. State trait anxiety inventory (STAI; Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg & Jacobs, 1983)The State Anxiety Scale of the STAI was given to check on the e�ectiveness of the social

apprehension manipulation. The State Anxiety Scale is a twenty-item questionnaire thatevaluates the subject's current level of anxiety. Research suggests that the scale has goodinternal consistency and reliability (Spielberger et al., 1983).

2.7. Measures: social judgment and memory

2.7.1. Anxiety-related behavior (self-rating)Subjects rated three anxiety-related behaviors, (a) pauses, (b) eye contact and (c) ®dgeting,

on three 7-point Likert-like scales. Ratings were made immediately after the interaction (time1) and at delayed recall (time 2). At time 2, subjects were instructed to rate their behaviorduring the initial interaction. These ratings measure their recall of their earlier anxiety-relatedbehavior. At each time point, behavior ratings were averaged to yield a total anxiety-relatedbehavior score. Cronbach's alpha was 0.51 for time one ratings and 0.56 for time two ratings.This moderate level of agreement is typical for ratings of anxiety-related micro-behaviors.

2.7.2. Anxiety-related behavior (objective rating)Experimenters and observers rated subjects on the same three scales of anxiety-related

behavior immediately following the interaction (time 1). Pearson correlations computedbetween the experimenter and observer ratings revealed good interrater reliability, r= 0.93,p < 0.001. Cronbach's alpha for the total score was 0.50, which again indicated moderateagreement between the three ratings.

2.7.3. Open-ended recallAt time 2, subjects were asked to provide a written description of the interaction. These

descriptions were content analyzed for references to: (a) negative self-related feelings, (b)negative self-behavior, (c) negative partner observations and (d) negative setting-relatedobservations. Two measures were derived from this information: proportion of negative self-related comments and proportion of negative partner and setting-related comments. Theprotocols were rated by two trained judges who assigned each sentence to one of the fourcategories. Percent agreement on category assignment was high (98%).

2.7.4. Structured recallAt time 2, subjects completed a structured measure that assessed their memory for external

information about the interaction. The measure was based on Hope et al. (1990) and consistedof 16 questions asking for factual information related to the partner and the setting (e.g.,``What was your partner's major?'' or ``How many lamps were in the room?''). Two scoreswere calculated: total partner-related items correctly recalled (total partner recall) and totalsetting-related items correctly recalled (total setting recall). Interrater reliability was established


by having two raters score each subject's response yielding good interrater reliability(kappa=0.99).

2.7.5. Body Sensations Questionnaire (BSQ; Chambless, Caputo, Bright & Gallagher, 1984)The BSQ was completed at time 1 and again at time 2, when subjects were asked to recall

their anxiety-related body sensations during the time 1 interaction. The BSQ is a 17-itemquestionnaire measuring the experience of autonomic arousal. Each item is rated on a 9-pointscale ranging from ``not at all'' (one) to ``very much'' (nine). The BSQ has been shown to havegood internal consistency and reliability (Chambless et al., 1984). In the current study, threeitems of sensations typically experienced by social phobics (e.g. muscle tension, feeling hot inthe face (blushing) and trembling hands) were added. Data were analyzed with these itemsincluded and not included and there were no di�erences in the results, therefore, only theanalyses using all 20 items are reported here. Total scores were calculated at each time point.Cronbach's alpha for the current sample was 0.95.

2.8. Supplemental measure

2.8.1. Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck, Rush, Shaw & Emery, 1979)The revised BDI is a 21-item inventory that measures the severity of depression for

adolescents and adults during the past week. Research has shown that the BDI has goodinternal consistency, reliability and validity (Beck, Steer & Garbin, 1988). Dysphoric mood hasbeen linked to judgmental and memory biases. The BDI was included to determine if anyresults in the current study were due to dysphoria rather than social anxiety.

3. Results

3.1. Preliminary analyses

3.1.1. Confederate behaviorThe experimenter and observer rated confederate behavior on two scales assessing

friendliness and percentage of speech. Pearson correlations revealed adequate interraterreliability (friendliness r = 0.68, p < 0.001; percentage of speech r = 0.94, p < 0.001). A one-way (group) multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) conducted on these ratings revealedno signi®cant di�erences in confederate behavior between the high and low social anxietygroups, F(2,97)=2.61, p > 0.05. This suggests that confederates engaged in consistent behavioracross subjects and conditions. The experimenter also checked that confederates includednecessary information in each session.

3.1.2. Social apprehensionTo examine the e�ectiveness of the experimental manipulation, total scores on the State

Anxiety Scale were analyzed in a 2 (group) � 2 (condition) analysis of variance (ANOVA). Thegroup by condition interaction was signi®cant, F(1,112)=3.96, p < 0.05. Follow-up analysesrevealed a signi®cant di�erence between the two conditions for socially anxious subjects,


F(1,112)=22.42, p < 0.001, but not for control subjects, F(1,112)=3.69, p> 0.05. Thus, onlythe socially anxious subjects became apprehensive about the second interaction (See Table 2).

3.1.3. DepressionTo control for the potential e�ects of depression on the results, all analyses were repeated

using analyses of covariance with BDI scores as the covariate. The results indicated thatdepression scores did not in¯uence the results, so only the original analyses are reported here.

3.2. Main analyses

Means and standard deviations for the relevant dependent measures can be seen in Tables 1and 2. The signi®cance level for all analyses was set at 0.05.

3.2.1. Self-focused attentionThe two scores from the FAQ were analyzed in a one-way (group) MANOVA. The group

e�ect was signi®cant, F(2,113)=23.14, p < 0.001. Univariate analyses of variance revealed that,as expected, socially anxious subjects endorsed signi®cantly more self-focused attention items,

Table 1Means and standard deviations for dependent measures. N = 58 in each group

Variable High socially anxious Low socially anxious

Focus of Attention Questionnaire

Other-focused attention 2.60 (0.55) 2.69 (0.58)Self-focused attention 2.48 (0.71) 1.79 (0.48)Rumination

Total rumination 18.90 (5.37) 14.80 (4.28)Anxiety-related behaviorsTime 1 subject ratings 4.06 (0.99) 3.10 (0.80)Time 1 experimenter ratings 3.31 (1.02) 2.76 (0.59)

Time 2 subject recall ratings 3.85 (0.95) 2.98 (0.98)Open-ended recallProportion of negative self-related information 0.49 (0.12) 0.45 (0.14)

Structured recallTotal partner recall 7.04 (1.27) 7.76 (1.20)Total setting recall 3.55 (1.68) 4.04 (1.96)

Judgmental Bias ScoresTime 1 bias score 1.13 (1.05) 0.73 (1.04)Time 2 bias score 0.91 (1.09) 0.61 (1.17)Body Sensations Questionnaireta

Time 1 score 52.74 (24.04) 31.38 (10.15)Time 2 score 50.62 (25.10) 30.55 (10.73)

a A second analysis was conducted in which four outliers (2 anxious, 2 nonanxious), who scored three standard de-viations from the mean, were eliminated. The results of this analysis were the same as the original one. Therefore,original means and standard deviations are reported.


F(1,114)=37.61, p< 0.001, than nonanxious subjects. There was no signi®cant between-groupdi�erence for other-focused attention, F(1,114)=0.80, p > 0.10.

3.2.2. RuminationThe total rumination score was analyzed in a 2 (group) � 2 (condition) ANOVA. Compared

to nonanxious subjects, the socially anxious subjects reported signi®cantly more post-eventprocessing in the period between time 1 and 2, F(1,112)=20.18, p < 0.001. The condition,F(1,112)=2.28, p> 0.05 and group by condition interaction e�ects, F(1,112)=0.09, p > 0.05,were not signi®cant, which indicated that anxious apprehension had no e�ect on self-reportedrumination. This indicates that subjects responded to this measure as intended, i.e., in terms oftheir thoughts about the previous event, not in preparation for the upcoming interaction.

3.2.3. Judgmental biasJudgmental bias was assessed by comparing subjects' self-rated behavior at time 1 with the

objective behavioral ratings at time 1. A 2 (group) � 2 (self versus other rater) between-withinANOVA conducted on the behavioral rating scores revealed a signi®cant main e�ect for group,F(1,97)=25.99, p < 0.001 and for rater, F(1,97)=38.96, p < 0.001. These main e�ects weremodi®ed by a signi®cant group by rater interaction, F(1,97)=4.41, p < 0.05. Follow-upanalyses revealed that all subjects overestimated their anxiety-related behavior relative toobjective observers and that the socially anxious subjects displayed signi®cantly larger biasesthan nonanxious subjects.

3.2.4. Recall

3.2.4.1. Open-ended recall. The distribution of scores for both the negative self-related andnegative partner/setting-related comments displayed a signi®cant positive skew. To correct this,a proportion score was created by dividing the number of negative self-related comments bythe total number of negative comments. This score, which was normally distributed, re¯ectedthe extent to which subjects preferentially recalled negative self-related information. A 2(group) � 2 (condition) ANOVA conducted on this measure revealed a trend toward signi®-cance between groups, F(1,112)=2.85, p < 0.10. An examination of group means revealed thatsocially anxious subjects tended to report more negative self-related information than did non-anxious subjects. The condition, F(1,112)=1.19, p > 0.05 and group by condition interactione�ects, F(1,112)=1.70, p > 0.05, were not signi®cant. The absence of condition e�ects indi-

Table 2Means and standard deviations for scores on the state anxiety inventory. Groups with di�erent subscripts di�ered

signi®cantly. N = 29 in each group

Variable High socially anxious Low socially anxious

high state low state high state low state

State Anxiety InventoryTotal score 48.93 (10.24)a 36.45 (10.54)b 37.72 (10.15)b 32.66 (9.15)b


cated that anxious apprehension did not in¯uence subjects' freeform recollections of the inter-action.

3.2.4.2. Structured recall. The two total scores re¯ecting partner and setting-related informationwere analyzed in a 2 (group) � 2 (condition) MANOVA. The group e�ect was signi®cant,F(2,111)=5.10, p < 0.01. Follow-up ANOVA's revealed that anxious subjects recalled signi®-cantly less partner-related information, F(1,112)=9.98, p< 0.01, than nonanxious subjects.The e�ect for total setting recall, F(1,114)=2.05, p > 0.05, was not signi®cant. The condition,F(2,111)=1.90, p > 0.05 and the group by condition interaction e�ects, F(2,111)=0.42,p > 0.05, were not signi®cant. The absence of condition e�ects indicated that anxious appre-hension did not in¯uence subjects' recollections of external information about the interaction.

3.2.4.3. Recall of anxiety-related behaviors. To assess whether distortions in judgment werereduced, maintained, or increased at time 2, a 2 (group) � 2 (condition) � 2 (rater) between-within ANCOVA was conducted comparing subjects' time 2 behavior ratings with the time 1objective ratings, using the subjects' time 1 behavior ratings as covariate. As before, this analy-sis revealed a signi®cant e�ect for rater, F(1,94)=10.85, p < 0.001, which indicated that sub-jects rated their behavior more negatively than the observers. However, there were nosigni®cant e�ects for group, F(1,94)=0.50, p > 0.05, condition, F(1,94)=0.07, p > 0.05, or forany of the interactions (group by condition, F(1,94)=1.35, p > 0.05, group by rater,F(1,94)=0.33, p> 0.05, condition by rater, F(1,94)=1.53, p > 0.05, group by condition byrater, F(1,94)=2.23, p > 0.05). This indicates that no changes occurred in judgmental biasesover the delay period and that anxious apprehension did not a�ect these biases.

3.2.4.4. Recall of anxiety-related sensations. We assessed recall of anxiety-related symptomsbetween time 1 and time 2 on the BSQ by conducting a 2 (group) � 2 (time ) � 2 (condition)between-within ANOVA. The group e�ect was signi®cant F(1,112)=38.38, p < 0.01. Asexpected, socially anxious subjects reported signi®cantly more anxiety-related symptoms bothimmediately following the social interaction and at delayed recall. The time, condition, groupby time, condition by time and three way interaction e�ects were not signi®cant,Fs(1,112)=3.75, 1.98, 0.72, 0.05 and 0.09, respectively, all ps > 0.05. This indicated that sub-jects' self-reported anxiety-related sensations did not change between time 1 and time 2 andthat anxious apprehension had no e�ect on subjects' recollections of their anxiety-related sen-sations during the interaction.

3.2.5. Self-focused attention and cognitive biasA judgmental bias index was calculated by subtracting objective ratings of subject behavior

from subjects' self-ratings of their own behavior both at time 1 and at time 2. Pearsoncorrelation coe�cients, computed between the self-focused attention subscale of the FAQ andthese judgmental bias scores, revealed that self-focused attention during the interaction wasassociated with a negative bias in self-related judgments at both time 1 and time 2. Pearsoncorrelation coe�cients computed between self-focused attention and the open-ended andstructured recall measures revealed that subjects who displayed greater self-focused attention


recalled less partner-related factual information. The correlation between self-focused attentionand the open-ended recall measure was not signi®cant. (See Table 3.)

3.2.6. Post-event processing and recall biasPearson correlation coe�cients, computed to examine the association between the RQ and

the time 2 dependent variables, revealed that rumination predicted open-ended recall ofnegative self-related information, negative bias in self-judgments at time 2 and time 2 recall ofanxiety-related sensations on the BSQ. However, rumination did not predict recall on eitherscale of the structured recall measure. (See Table 3.) To examine whether post-event processingcontributed to biases in recall, partial correlation coe�cients were computed between therumination scores and the time 2 judgmental bias index and time 2 recall of anxiety-relatedsensations on the BSQ, controlling for time 1 scores. These correlations failed to reachsigni®cance.

4. Discussion

Our goal was to determine the extent to which three cognitive operations contributed tobiased processing of social information. The results suggested that selective attention tonegative self-related information during the interaction led to biased judgments about andrecollections of the event, a pattern that was more pronounced among socially anxious thannonanxious subjects. Post-event processing also contributed to the tendency to recall negativeself-related information. Overall, these results pointed to the pivotal role of selective attention,rather than selective retrieval, in social anxiety. They also provide an explanation forinconsistencies between previous studies of memory bias in socially anxious individuals.Consistent with previous studies, socially anxious individuals focused their attention more on

themselves than on their partners during the social interaction and displayed larger negativebiases in their self-related judgments than did control subjects (Rapee & Lim, 1992; Stopa &Clark, 1993; Alden & Wallace, 1995; Woody, 1996). As predicted, socially anxious subjectsalso displayed biases in their recollections of the interaction on the following day. Relative tocontrol subjects, they recalled less partner-related information on the structured recall task andtended to recall more negative self-related information on the unstructured recall task,

Table 3Pearson correlation coe�cients between self-focused attention, rumination and the social judgment and memory

measures. N= 116. Bias=judgmental bias index. BSQ=Body Sensations Questionnaire

Time 1 bias Time 2 bias Open-ended recall Factual recall Time 2 BSQ

partner setting

Self-focused attention 0.37�� 0.32�� 0.10 ÿ0.26� ÿ0.11 0.71��

Rumination 0.39�� 0.20� ÿ0.07 0.02 0.58��

� p< 0.05; ��p< 0.01; ��p< 0.001.


although this latter ®nding was modest. Thus, relative to nonanxious individuals, sociallyanxious individuals' memories for social events displayed biases that appeared to favornegative self-related, as opposed to external, information.The unique contribution of this research was to establish that biases in social judgment and

memory were related to self-focused attention and post-event-processing. Subjects who focusedmore on themselves displayed larger biases in their self-related judgments and recalled lessinformation about their partner. This was true for both socially anxious and nonanxioussubjects. However, because the socially anxious subjects directed more of their attention to self-related information, their judgments displayed more bias and their store of partner-relatedinformation was less complete than that of nonanxious subjects. It is possible that greaterattention to self-related phenomena limited the availability of cognitive resources necessary toprocess partner-related information. The overall pattern of results is consistent with thehypothesis that self-monitoring increases the salience of anxiety-related behaviors at theexpense of external information, so that this information weighs more heavily in judgmentsabout and recollections of social events.As predicted, compared to nonanxious subjects, socially anxious subjects engaged in more

post-event processing in the day following the interaction. One of the more notable ®ndingswas that frequency of post-event rumination, not self-focused attention, predicted recall ofnegative self-related information on the open-ended memory task. Thus, it appeared thatruminative thinking in the period following the interaction may have increased the salience ofnegative self-related information so that this information was more likely to come to mindwhen subjects described the event. Frequency of ruminative thinking was also associated with acontinuation of the biases in judgment and factual memory observed at time 1, but did notcontribute further distortion to either of these measures. Taken together, these resultssuggested that post-event processing not only perpetuated existing cognitive biases, but mayhave contributed to a bias in recall that favored negative self-related information.There was no support for the notion that social anticipation activated selective retrieval of

negative information about previous social events. No di�erences emerged between sociallyanxious subjects who anticipated a second interaction and those who did not in terms of theirrecollections of anxiety-related sensations and behaviors or other types of information. Thissuggested that encoding bias, along with post-event processing, was responsible for anycognitive distortions in the socially anxious subjects' recollections of social events, not selectiveretrieval of negative information about the previous interaction. This pattern of results isconsistent with writings arguing that selective attention plays a greater role than selectiveretrieval in anxiety states (e.g., Mathews & MacLeod, 1994).The results also suggested an explanation for inconsistencies among earlier memory studies.

As noted previously, several studies found evidence of memory bias (e.g., Hope et al., 1990),whereas others did not (Rapee et al., 1994). To reconcile these ®ndings, it is important toconsider the time at which bias enters the cognitive system and the complexity of theinformation being encoded. The Rapee studies explicitly focused on selective retrieval, whereasHope and her colleagues made no attempt to distinguish between distortions that might occuras the information was being encoded versus distortions that might arise later as a result ofselective retrieval. Several of Rapee's studies involved semantic memory tasks in which subjectsread lists of words (Rapee et al., 1994). Hope, on the other hand, studied memory in the


context of a social interaction. It seems likely that the latter task presented subjects withcomplex, potentially competing pieces of social information and that subjects were forced toselect, not necessarily consciously, which information to consider and which to ignore. Thecurrent study found evidence to support both of these positions. Like Hope and her colleagues,we found that socially anxious individuals were less able to recall partner-related informationand like Rapee, we found no evidence for selective retrieval of negative social information oncethat information had been encoded. Taken together, these studies indicate that socialinteraction tasks may lend themselves to encoding biases in socially anxious individuals,whereas semantic memory tasks may not. Once social information is entered into memory,however, selective retrieval of negative information does not appear to further distortrecollections of the social event.These results must be tempered with a reminder that the study had some limitations. First,

subjects were selected on the basis of a single measure of social distress and avoidance, whichmay have included subjects whose social distress stemmed from problems other than socialanxiety. However, one signi®cant source of social avoidance, depression, was measured and didnot a�ect the results. Second, generalization to patients with social phobia remains to beestablished. These patients would be expected to experience higher levels of anxiety and thismight result in more extensive rumination and higher levels of anticipatory anxiety. At higherlevels, these processes might add more distortion to judgmental and recall biases than wasobserved here. It has also been suggested that social phobics may be less able to overridemaladaptive cognitive processes than nonclinically anxious individuals. Work examiningpatients with social phobia is currently underway.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by an SSHRC grant to the second author and an UBCUniversity Graduate Fellowship to the ®rst author. We appreciate the assistance provided byMichaela Gelin, Cameron Weynaus, and Kam Brar in conducting this research. We would alsolike to thank S.J. Rachman, Ph.D. and E. Eich, Ph.D. for their input.

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