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Social sensitivity: a shared feature of all phobias
A Stravynski1, M Basoglu, M Marks
1Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The British Journal of Clinical Psychology
|September 1, 1995
Summary
Social fears are prominent in phobias. Social sensitivity, a potential protective mechanism, overlaps between agoraphobics and social phobics, while specific phobics show lower social sensitivity.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
- Psychiatry
Background:
- Phobias encompass a range of anxiety disorders.
- Social fears are a significant component within various phobic conditions.
- Understanding the structure of these fears is crucial for diagnosis and treatment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the prominence of social fears across different phobia types.
- To investigate the factor structure of fear responses in individuals with agoraphobia, social phobia, and specific phobias.
- To determine the relationship between social sensitivity and other phobic factors.
Main Methods:
- Factor analysis of responses from 80 agoraphobics, 25 social phobics, and 35 specific phobics using the Fear Survey Schedule.
- Regression analysis to assess the contribution of diagnostic groups to extracted factors.
Main Results:
- Factor analysis revealed 'social sensitivity' as a major factor (24% of variance), followed by agoraphobia (7%) and blood-injury phobia (5%).
- Agoraphobics and social phobics showed overlapping scores on social sensitivity, with specific phobics scoring significantly lower.
- Agoraphobics scored significantly higher on agoraphobia than social and specific phobics.
Conclusions:
- Social sensitivity appears to be a distinct factor in phobic disorders, with varying prominence across diagnostic groups.
- Social sensitivity may represent a normal, evolutionarily protective mechanism in social interactions.
- These findings contribute to a nuanced understanding of the dimensional structure of phobias.