UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSES IN SOCIAL PHOBIA

Abstract

Many studies have demonstrated that there are unconscious processes in specific phobias. Their focus has been studying phobias of objects like snakes and spiders. The current study sought to enlighten aspects of unconscious processes in social phobia, a far more common affliction. 33 phobics and 17 non-phobic participants were identified by two social anxiety questionnaires. Participants’ skin conductance was recorded during continuous presentation of facial stimuli. Participants were presented with two separate runs of stimuli: a masked run and a visible run. Masked runs were always presented first to avoid any priming by the visible stimuli. Within each run, there were two blocks of stimuli: pictures of the disgusted faces and pictures of the neutral faces. The phobic group nearly responded to the disgusted faces than the neutral faces, regardless of awareness (masked or unmasked). In both groups, visible stimuli caused higher skin conductance responses (SCRs) than masked faces regardless of type of face. These results show that phobics nearly respond to feared stimuli regardless of conscious awareness. These findings suggest that there are unconscious processes in social phobia, just like what has been found with specific phobias.