| Social interaction is significant for the sound development of personality and the successful socialization of undergraduates. A survey on undergraduates'social anxiety shows that about 16% participants reported serious social anxiety which exerted a negative impact on their studies and social interaction and brought them in pain.Clark and Wells (1995) proposed a cognitive model of social anxiety, their proposal that the negative interpretation bias plays an important role in the maintenance of the disorder, is wildly supported by studies later on. Some characteristics of the studies are:first, most studies used "off-line" method and text material paradigm and very few used "on-line" method and latency time paradigm; second, most studies focused on the interpretation bias of ambiguous information while only a few on positive or negative information. To obtain a further understanding on these points, this study used text material paradigm and latency time paradigm with theoretical support of cognitive psychology; examined the memory base of interpretation bias taking into account interpretation bias and memory bias, especially the autobiographical memory bias. On the basis of the above-mentioned, the clinical application of interpretation bias is examined with case study.The study contains five parts:Study 1, the IAS was used to survey the undergraduates'social anxiety status. Results showed:the undergraduates'social anxiety displayed a normal distribution. Shanghai undergraduates'anxiety degree is higher than that of Shandong and Wuhan undergraduates'. Gender and major seem to have no significant influence on the anxiety level, but grade does:grade 2 was the highest anxiety level and grade 3 is the lowest, grade 4 increases again in social anxiety.Study 2, the text material paradigm was used to explore the highly social anxious group's off-line interpretation bias. It was composed of 3 experiments:experiment 1 examined the interpretation bias of ambiguous information; experiment 2 of positive and negative information; experiment 3 examined the interpretation differences for self-referent and other-referent information. Results showed:compared to controlled group, highly social anxious group was more likely to interpret ambiguous social events in a negative fashion, and less likely in positive fashion. This interpretation bias also existed in the interpretation of positive and negative social events. Something interesting is this bias just appeared only with self-referent information, whereas, they interpreted other-referent information much more positively. There was significant positive correlation between negative interpretation bias and social anxiety; and significant negative correlation between positive interpretation bias and social anxiety.Study 3, the latency time paradigm was used to explore the highly social anxious group's on-line interpretation bias. It was composed of 2 experiments:experiment 1 explored the interpretation bias of ambiguous information; experiment 2 of positive and negative information. Results showed:the highly social anxious group made on-line negative interpretation bias of ambiguous and negative information; made on-line negative interpretation bias and positive interpretation bias of positive information; the low social anxious group made on-line positive interpretation bias of both positive and negative information, and made no on-line interpretation of ambiguous information.Taking both results from study 2 and study 3 into consideration, we come to conclusion that two phases need to be distinguished when highly social anxious undergraduates interpret external social information:phase 1, On-line interpretation, this stage was affected by the sorts of information, the highly social anxious group made on-line negative and positive interpretation bias according to the information character. (2) Fixation of negative interpretation, in this stage highly social anxious group stick to their fixed negative interpretation with all ambiguous, positive and negative events, difficult to adjust their way of cognition and produce positive interpretation.Study 4, the qualitative analysis was used to examine the interpretation bias from the angle of autobiographical memory. Results showed:compared to the low social anxious group, the highly social anxious group reported much more negative interpretation and less positive as well as blame on others; much more self-referent information in observers'perspective; and more sensory information; and more words expressing fears and anxiety etc.; and more avoidance of social occasions. Study 5, case analysis method was used to understand how interpretation bias functions in clinical application. Results showed that it exerted a positive effect in the traditional cognition-behavioral therapy if we shed more light on the link of interpretation bias. By adjusting negative interpretation bias and giving special trainings to enhance positive interpretation, the cognitive link of interpretation bias contributes to the positive outcome of clinical therapy.The innovation academic value of this study is that it examined the interpretation bias of different sorts of events-negative and positive information as well as the academically well researched ambiguous information; examined "off-line" as well as "in-line" interpretation bias using text material paradigm and latency time paradigm. The results supported the "two phases model" of interpretation bias, made a deeper understanding into interpretation bias in socially anxious group. Future studies are suggested to further enhance this interpretation bias study by using multi-angle methods to further improve its treatment outcome in clinical application. |
