Self-schemas in social phobia and panic disorder

A modified Stroop color-naming task was used to investigate whether social phobia and panic disorder are associated with a hypervigilance to social an d physical threat-related cues, respectively, as predicted by Beck's cognit ive theory of anxiety disorders. Color-naming latencies of 13 individuals w ith social phobia and 15 with panic disorder for words representing social and physical threats, respectively, were compared to matched neutral contro l words. The results did not support the hypothesis that the self-schemas o f individuals with panic disorder are hypersensitive to information associa tion with physical threat and that persons with social phobia are overly co ncerned with social threat.