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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 15, 2026

Social Threat-Safety Test Uncovers Psychosocial Stress-Related Phenotypes

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Does Cognitive Control Help or Hurt Social Anxiety? Conditional Effects of Response Inhibition on Safety Behavior Use

Alexandra Marie Adamis¹, John Sanford Gardner¹, Bunmi Olatunji¹

¹Vanderbilt University, Nashville, United States.

Cognitive Therapy and Research

|May 14, 2026

Summary

Cognitive control, specifically response inhibition, impacts social anxiety. Better inhibition may worsen safety behaviors and post-event processing in those with high social anxiety, contrary to expectations.

Keywords:

Cognitive control Inhibition Post-event processing Safety behaviors Social anxiety

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Reducing State Anxiety Using Working Memory Maintenance

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Area of Science:

Psychology
Cognitive Neuroscience
Clinical Psychology

Background:

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is maintained by maladaptive strategies like safety behaviors (SBs) and post-event processing (PEP).
Individual differences in cognitive control, such as response inhibition, may influence the use of these strategies.
Limited research exists on how response inhibition moderates the relationship between social anxiety and these maintenance factors.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if response inhibition moderates the association between social anxiety severity and engagement in SBs and PEP.
To explore the role of cognitive control in the maintenance of social anxiety symptoms.

Main Methods:

Adults with varying social anxiety levels completed a stop-signal task to assess response inhibition.
Participants also completed self-report measures of SBs and PEP after a laboratory speech task.
Moderation analyses were conducted to examine interaction effects.

Main Results:

Social anxiety levels significantly interacted with response inhibition to predict both SBs and PEP.
Higher response inhibition was linked to lower SBs and PEP in individuals with low social anxiety.
Conversely, higher response inhibition was associated with increased SBs and PEP in individuals with high social anxiety.

Conclusions:

Response inhibition's effect on SBs and PEP is not uniformly protective and depends on social anxiety severity.
Findings suggest that cognitive control may be utilized differently based on symptom severity and individual goals in social situations.
These results have implications for refining cognitive-behavioral models of social anxiety disorder.