UNCONCIOUS AUTONOMIC RESPONSES TO THREATENING STIMULI IN SOCIALLY ANXIOUS PARTICIPANTS

Abstract

In social phobia, ambiguous social stimuli can be perceived as threatening, which causes both psychological and bodily responses. The irrational and involuntary nature of social phobia lies in the unconscious processing of threatening stimuli and activation of fear responses. Expanding on prior research, the present study sought to compare autonomic responses to masked and visible threatening stimuli in socially anxious individuals. 31 socially anxious participants and 32 non-socially anxious participants were identified by two validated questionnaires, The Social Interaction Anxiety Scale and the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale. Each participant received two series of stimuli: a masked run and visible run. Each run consisted of two blocks of masked faces, a block of disgusted faces and a block of neutral faces. Skin conductance was continuously recorded throughout presentation of the stimuli to measure autonomic arousal. Immediately after each run (masked and visible), the participants were given an awareness test and asked to rate the level of valence and arousal of the stimuli. As predicted, socially anxious individuals and non-anxious individuals responded differently to the stimuli, regardless of face and masking. More importantly, the results showed that socially anxious participants responded more to masked disgust faces compared to masked neutral faces, whereas this pattern was not shown for visible faces. There were no effects in the non-anxious group. Collectively, these findings suggest that socially anxious participants have automatic and unconscious mechanisms for identifying social threat cues.