NEGATIVE INTERPRETATION BIAS IN SOCIAL PHOBIA

We examined the hypothesis that, compared to non-anxious controls (NAC s) and individuals with other anxiety disorders (e.g., individuals wit h obsessive compulsive disorder, OCs), individuals with generalized so cial phobia (GSPs) would tend to interpret ambiguous social scenarios as negative when provided with various alternative interpretations. Pa rticipants were presented with 22 ambiguous scenarios each followed by three possible interpretations: positive, negative, and neutral. Fift een scenarios were socially relevant and the remaining 7 were nonsocia lly relevant. Participants were asked to rank order the three interpre tations according to the likelihood that each would come to their mind and to a 'typical person's' mind in similar situations. Results revea led that GSPs (but not NACs or OCs) tended to choose a negative interp retation for ambiguous social scenarios even when a positive interpret ation was available. This bias was specific to self-relevant scenarios . These results support the hypothesis that a specific negative interp retation bias may be involved in the maintenance of social phobia. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.