Adolescent SAD - Development and Maintenance

Question 1

Information from Adolescence in General

Answer 1

Increase in self-consciousness in adolescence (Steinberg, 2005), including increased awareness of self as social object, thought to peak in early adolescence, perhaps necessary precursor implicated in SAD

Focus on peer relationship but increased susceptibility to it (Gardner & Steinberg, 2005) may bring about vulnerability for emergence of social fears

Question 2

Clark and Wells (1995) in Adults

Answer 2

(1) inter-linked psychological processes that reinforce SA
(2) those with SA hold firm beliefs about importance of appearing socially competent but hold unconditional beliefs of poor social competence that evoke negative interpretations of self
(3) model suggests when individuals enter social situation, attention shifts to mainly internal focus to monitor social appearance, increasing awareness of feared situations
(4) use internally generated info to create impression of social appearance, often involving negative imagery of self from observer perspective
(4) use of safety behaviours, motivated by desire to prevent/minimise consequences of feared outcomes, further maintain SA and negative social beliefs and heighten self-focus and monitoring
(5) anticipatory worry (pre-event processing) contributes to heightened baseline negative self-appraisals
(6) post-event processing, despite some relief at end of social situation, involves ‘post-mortem’ where ambiguous social events revisited and labelled as a ‘social fail’, further maintaining negative self-appraisals

Question 3

Clark and Wells (1995) in Adolescents - Leigh and Clark (2018)

Answer 3

Theoretically, self-focused attention in model parallels self-consciousness which is heightened during adolescence

Systematic review of several studies for each process showing overall support for applicability to adolescents - self-focused attention, negative self-imagery, safety behaviours, and pre- and post-event processing common psychological mechanisms reinforcing SA in adolescents with higher SA levels, relative to controls and low-to-medium SA adolescents (perhaps not applicable to all SA adolescents, then)

However (1) most studies cross-sectional and questionnaires, (2); lack of longitudinal prevents causality for which model prized for in adults (therefore inspiring treatments like CT); (3) questionnaire studies often single measure but need multiple

Question 4

Clark and Wells (1995) in Adolescents - Chiu et al (2021)

Answer 4

Built on Leigh and Clark (2018) criticisms by having more varied questionnaire measures at two time points (followed over 4-6mo) assessing model processes in 11-14-year-olds (large sample size), showing supportive evidence, and independent association of same processes when in regression model

Question 5

Clark and Wells (1995) in Adolescents - Halldorsson and Creswell (2017)

Answer 5

In pre-adolescents, high SA significantly associated with processes of model such as self-focused attention and safety behaviours, and knowing that SAD chronic, able to tackle SAD early

Question 6

Clark and Wells (1995) in Adolescents - Leigh et al (2021)

Answer 6

Self-focused attention and safety behaviours experimental study: 60 (11-14) either high or low SAD on recruitment, with 5m conversation with stranger either using safety behaviours or losing selves in conversation

High SAD group thought did worse, were more anxious, and regardless of group, use of safety behaviours increased self-reported anxiety (fear of looking more anxious)

Conversation partner ratings showed fears realised, with safety behaviours increased ratings of expressed anxiety

Question 7

Clark and Wells (1995) in Adolescents - Leigh et al (2020)

Answer 7

Negative self-imagery experimental study

High SA, either holding negative or benign social image in mind when engaging in conversation with stranger, and fear of looking anxious heightened when holding negative social image in mind, as well as using spontaneous safety-seeking behaviours

Cannot control/ensure quality of social image in mind

Question 8

Parenting Factors in Applying Model (Leigh & Clark, 2018)

Answer 8

Parental overcontrol and overprotection associated with adolescent anxiety in > general (Waite et al., 2014), association with SAD in pre-adolescence (Halldorsson & Creswell, 2017), and three questionnaire studies reveal close relationship between this and adolescent SA > could be addressed by having parent sessions focus on managing adolescent anxiety, focusing on parenting behaviours, studies should assess this

Likely relationship between parent and child anxiety, beliefs, and behaviour is interactive, with parental beliefs likely motivating certain parental behaviours e.g., parents believe adolescent vulnerable in social situations, so overcontrol/protection, but this perpetuates perception of social threat, and behaviours may become proxy safety behaviours for CYP

Question 9

Social Media Use (Leigh & Clark, 2018)

Answer 9

Almost all adolescents go online daily, with social media highly used and important in communication, in contrast with adults, allowing less-anxious social situations, but potential link between social media use and SA due to possibly engaging in safety behaviours more frequently and intensively e.g., repeatedly editing posts and spending time preparing responses