AUTOMATIC ACTIVATION AND STRATEGIC AVOIDANCE OF THREAT-RELEVANT INFORMATION IN SOCIAL PHOBIA

The authors examined the hypothesis that abnormalities in activation a nd inhibition of threat-relevant information may account for informati on-processing biases in social anxiety. Individuals with generalized s ocial phobia (GSP) and nonanxious controls were presented with sentenc es ending in homographs and in nonhomographs and were asked to make de cisions about a cue word that followed each sentence. Half of the homo graphs had a social-threat implication. Longer response latency to mak e decisions about sentences ending in homographs compared with sentenc es ending in nonhomographs is thought to reflect activation of the ina ppropriate meaning of the homographs. Results revealed that GSPs showe d initial activation of inappropriate meanings of socially relevant ho mographs followed by later inhibition of these meanings. These finding s are consistent with a vigilance-avoidance model of information proce ssing of threat-relevant information in social phobia.