Self-centered attention and safety behaviors maintain social anxiety in adolescents: an experimental study

Release date: February 26, 2021

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247703

Explanation

In this study, adolescents with high and low social anxiety (N = 57) were asked to engage in conversations under a variety of conditions.

In some conversations, they were instructed to focus on themselves and use safety behaviors; in other conversations, they were instructed to focus on the external world and not use safety behaviors.

From these conversations, self-reports, conversation partner reports, and an independent rater's evaluation were conducted.

Results showed that self-focus and safety behaviors increased anxiety and insecurity and decreased performance for all participants, but only participants with high social anxiety reported habitual use of self-focus and safety behaviors.