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Memory bias against threat in social phobia
1Department of Psychology, University of North Dakota, PO Box 8380, Grand Forks, ND 58202-8380, USA.
Objectives:
The present study examined whether social phobia is an anxiety disorder associated with a memory bias toward threat.
Design:
Social phobic (N = 16) and non-anxious (N = 17) individuals were compared on their recall of evaluative threat and neutral prose passage content.
Method:
Participants were presented with two evaluative threat and two neutral prose passages and completed an immediate free recall task after each trial.
Results:
Contrary to expectation, individuals with social phobia recalled a smaller percentage of units from the evaluative threat passages than non-anxious individuals.
Conclusion:
Consistent with the vigilance-avoidance theory, it is suggested that social phobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by the avoidance of elaborate processing of threatening material.