@2024 Afarand., IRAN

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ISSN: 2228-5468    Education Strategies in Medical Sciences 2015;7(6):405-410

Background
…[1] Social anxiety disorder is a type of anxiety disorder [2]. … [3,4] This disorder is characterized by social phobia or efficiency positions [5]. Social anxiety is usually a major deterioration in the process of information, thoughts, attitudes and beliefs that trigger and maintain emotions and behaviors associated with social anxiety [6].
Previous Studies
Bias in attention plays an important role in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety disorders [7,8].According to the studies based on the tracking of eye movement in observing emotional images with regard to the level of state and trait anxiety, people with high level of anxiety pay more attention to the threatening images [9].People with high trait anxiety show bias toward the threatening information and have difficulty in interpretation of this type of information [10]. People with social anxiety have interpreted the ambiguous social information significantly more negative compared to the control group [11]. In social interaction, individual attention may be internal (self-aspects such as arousal, behavior, thoughts, emotions or appearance) or external (such as others, the movement of hand or the environment) [12]. Shifting the focus from the outside to the internal data is the central characteristics of social anxiety [13, 14]… [15-18] The importance of metacognitive beliefs in anxiety disorder has been shown [19, 20].
Aim(s)
The purpose of this study was to investigate the metacognitive processes (presence or absence of bias) for stimuli associated with anger and joy in normal individuals and those with social anxiety, using the Dot-probe.
Research type
This is a causal-comparative or retrospective study.
Research society, place and time
Normal students of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (Iran) and those referred to psychotherapy clinics of the university were studied in 2013.
Sampling method and number
The sample size was determined on the basis of customary causal-comparative studies. With Social Anxiety Scale, as available, in the end 30 people with high social anxiety and 30 with low social anxiety were selected. Then, based on clinical interviews, 18 people with high social anxiety were placed in the experimental group. Among those with low social anxiety 18 people matched with experimental group in terms of their age, gender and educational level and formed the control group.
Used devices&materials
To measure the social anxiety, the social phobia inventory (SPIN) [21] was used. This scale consists of 17 items based on Likert scale with 5 scales (very high, high, medium, low and very low).After extraction of responses and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with Varimax rotation on 17 items and a phase of PCA, three factors were identified. These factors and subscales included criticism and embarrassment, fear of authorities and talking in public and with alien. The reliability and internal consistency of the scale using Cronbach`s alpha was equal to 0.9 and for the subscales of criticisms and embarrassment, fear of authorities, and fears of talking in public and with alien were 0.86, 0.82 and 0.76 respectively [22]. Dot-probe test was used to measure the speed of reaction time (time of metacognitive processing) in the participants. 32 words including 8 words with happy theme, 8 words with angry subjects and 14 neutral words were shown to each participant. First, the participants look at the constant stimulus (+) at the middle of computer screen. After 500 milliseconds the stimuli is removed and instead of that the two words are placed, one in the left and one in the right (e.g. a threatening word and a neutral word). After 800 milliseconds, these two words are removed and a stimulus (*) is appeared which is placed either in the place of the neutral word or in the place of threatening word. If the subject presses the key as soon as the emergence of the light point in the place of threatening word, it shows that the subject has more attention to the threatening stimuli and vice versa [23]. Analysis of data was performed using the SPSS 19 software and independent T-test.
Findings by Text
There was a significant difference between subjects with social anxiety (220.9 ± 100.4) and normal subjects (237.4 ± 86.3) in terms of the time of reaction to the words associated with anger. Given that the average reaction time of the people with social anxiety was less than the average action time of normal people, people with high social anxiety traced the appeared point immediately after the stimulus words related to anger with shorter reaction time i.e. people with high social anxiety cognitively processed the words related to anger with vigilance. There was no significant difference in reaction time to stimulus words related to joy in people with social anxiety (222.8± 91.5) and normal people (224.2±88.7). As a result, people with social anxiety disorder and normal people show almost the same reaction time in tracking the point appeared immediately after the stimulus words related to joy.
Main comparison to the similar studies
In people with social anxiety, metacognitive processes in facing with words related to anger were associated with disorders. This means that in these people attention was associated with bias, and this bias was in form of vigilance i.e. the attention of people with social anxiety towards words associated with anger was quick and without any delay. This finding is consistent with findings of other studies [9-11] which have shown the vigilance of people with social anxiety toward the social threatening stimuli using dot-probe and track driving methods. … [24-27]
Suggestions
The brain function of anxious patients and especially those with social anxiety should be studied during metacognitive and attentive tasks.
Limitations
Lack of random access to all members of the research community was of the limitations of this study.
Conclusions
Through using metacognitive therapy for improving the structure of metacognitive process patients with social anxiety can be treated. Since metacognitive disorders affect social anxiety directly and learning indirectly, metacognitive treatments can be effective in the improvement of learners` learning.
Acknowledgments
Researchers appreciate the cooperation of the Faculty of Education and Psychology Clinic officials and all the participating students.
Conflict of interest
Non-declared
Ethical Permissions
Non-declared
Funding Sources
The cost of this study was paid by corresponding author.