The Most Common Anxiety Disorders - Dissertation Example

? Effect of Social Anxiety On Autobiographical Memories Of Friendship Experiences 0 Introduction 1.1 Introduction Social anxiety which entails emotional and social apprehension, fear and discomfort in socially interactive relations (Heidenreich, Junghanns-Royack, and Stangier, 2007) is one of the most common anxiety disorders faced by a wide array of people. It is noted that various expressions of anxiety are a common factor in socially anxious individuals (Wittchen & Fehm, 2003; Furman & Wittchen, 2005). Clark and Wells (1995) indeed posit in their social anxiety framework that various biographical memories and experiences of socially anxious individuals often form the basis upon which such persons view themselves in the various social encounters that they come across. Furthermore Harris, Sharman, Barnier and Moulds (2010) in their study found that various past events impact the level at which socially anxious individuals are able to recall with clarity such events. This view would tend to imply that autobiographical memories which were more emotionally intense for instance intense friendships would tend to be remembered more by highly socially anxious as compared to those who are less socially anxious. Indeed, studies show that socially conscious individuals tend to detail the specific aspects of the daily social interactions based on recollections of past experiences, whether good or bad (Woody & Rodriguez, 2000; Wells & Papageorgiou, 1998; Hofman, 2000). Most of the previous research though tend to focus on how negative autobiographical memories influence social anxiety in socially conscious and anxious persons (Wells, et al, 1995; Roth, Anthony & Swinson, 2001; Heidenreich, Jughnns-Royack, & Stangier, 2007; King et al, 2010), or have focused on how social anxiety impacts the ability of an individual to recall autobiographical memories concerning a certain event (Clark and Wells, 1995; Furman & Wittchen, 2005; Field & Morgan, 2004; Dickson, 2004). So far no study in my knowledge has sought to derive a relation between social anxiety and positive autobiographical memories from childhood and adolescence. This current study seeks to so, and by doing so analyze the effect that social anxiety has on autobiographical memories of friendship experiences recalled from childhood and adolescence. 1.2 The background of the Research Over the past two decades there have been numerous studies that have related social anxiety to autobiographical memories. These studies have generally noted that the socially anxious pay greater attention to certain aspects of their environment based on their past autobiographical experiences and often tend to magnify smaller aspects within an environment that may be a potential threat to them (Clark and Wells, 1995). Key assumptions in these theories are that socially anxious individuals tend to have been impacted by autobiographical experiences and memories that they faced in the past (Wenzel, Jackson, and Holt, 2002; Field, Psychol and Morgan, 2004; Clark and Wells, 1995). This impact points to the fact that indeed autobiographical memories that are more emotionally intense tend to be easy recalled, and associated with current occurrences in a person’s life. Previous researches have differentiated between anxiety, fear and depression, even though most of the research studies which focus on autobiographical memories and social anxiety tend not to draw the line between the three, especially between social anxiety and social fear (Woody & Rodriguez, 2000; Wenzel, Jackson, and Holt, 2002; Field, Psychol and Morgan, 2004). In this study, social anxiety is viewed differently from social fear. Based on Craske et al (2009) view of anxiety, social anxiety is viewed as futuristic state associated with preparation for negative occurrences in upcoming social interactions. This is as compared to social fear which is defined as an alarm response to imminent or present social interaction threat whether real or imagined. The symptoms of anxiety in this sense as noted by Lang (Craske et al, 2009) are avoidance, worry, and muscle tensions. Highly anxious persons may exhibit symptoms such as trembling, sweating, and heart palpitations. In accordance to the various models for social anxiety which operate under the assumption that socially anxious individuals tend to appraise social interactions as over threatening, such models have provided evidence that socially anxious persons magnify the dangers that would possibly occur in a social interaction and tend to give this negative emotion priority (Clark and Wells, 1995; Field, Psychol and Morgan, 2004). Indeed, studies show that socially conscious individuals tend to detail the specific aspects of the daily social interactions based on recollections of past experiences, whether good or bad (Woody & Rodriguez, 2000; Wells & Papageorgiou, 1998; Hofman, 2000). Studies such as Perez-Lopez and Woody (2001) and Foa, Gilboa-schechtman, Amir and Freshman, 2000) show that individuals with high social phobia tend to have higher memory recollections of intense experiences down to the facial expressions of such memory. Highly socially anxious persons though tend to recollect more of negative expressions and experiences that tend to be more critical than accepting (Lundh & Ost, 1996; Coles & Heimberg, 2005). Such research results imply that socially anxious individuals would tend to recall less of accepting gestures such as friendships but rather focus more on critical experience. Surprisingly, few research studies has examined whether intense experiences of past friendships, especially during childhood and adolescent, are highly recollected by socially anxious persons. In one research, social phobic persons and non social phobic persons responded to cue words responding to social scenes in order to recollect their memories on past events. The findings show that those who were highly socially anxious did not recall specific memories events which had negative cues though they recalled those with positive cue, while the non-anxious persons fully recalled and described negative memories and events in their past lives (Wenzel, Jackson, and Holt, 2002). Wenzel, Jackson and Holt’s conclusion though is contrasted by Field, Psychol and Morgan (2004) who shows that non clinically high social anxious individuals tend to recall more memories that were negative than positive. However in a succeeding research study, Wenzel, Wener, Cochran and Holt (2004) found that even individuals who were not socially anxious would tend to have lower memories in with negative connotations as compared to positive ones, and thus showed no significant difference with those who were socially anxious. In overall therefore, research tends to point to mixed conclusions with regard to memory recollections in social anxiety, whether positive or negative. However subjective factors that influence memory recollections such as intensity of the memory, vividness or contextual factors that stimulate the memory, especially friendships, have not been investigated in these past studies. Yet research shows that the subjective factors that impact memory recall is an important factor in understanding autobiographical memory experiences (Rubin, Schrauf, & Greenberg, 2003; Conway, 2001). Indeed research findings show that while recalling social situations, individuals with social anxiety tend to do it from an observer perspective, where they view themselves from an external or third party perspective or view point. This observer perspective is noted to play a key role in either increasing anxiety thereby affecting performance, or in reducing anxiety as more positive memories is remembered, thereby improving performance (Spurr & Stopa, 2003; Wells & Papageorgiou, 1998). These findings are significant as they point to the importance of subjectivity in autobiographical memories and the important role it plays social anxiety. This research seeks to fill the gap in knowledge with regard to using subjective factors such as friendship and intensity of the friendship, to study the effect of social anxiety on autobiographical memories of friendship experiences recalled from childhood and adolescence. 1.3 Problem Statement Given the mixed research conclusions that have been arrived at in previous studies regarding memory recollections in socially anxious individuals, as shown in section 1.2 of this research study, a different approach is taken in understanding how social anxiety impacts autobiographical memories. This is mainly done by focusing more on subjective factors that influence memory recollections such as intensity of the memory, vividness or contextual factors that stimulate the memory. In this view, the present study seeks to research and study the effect that social anxiety has on autobiographical memories of friendship experiences recalled from childhood and adolescence. Friendship factor and how intense the friendships were are the subjective components in this study. Unlike any other study completed, which tend to focus more on negative connotations that impact social anxious behavior, or which focus on social anxiety impact on autobiographical in general, this study narrows its focus to past friendship experiences and memories during childhood and adolescent stages in life to understand the effect of social anxiety on autobiographical memories of friendship experiences recalled from childhood and adolescence. In this sense, the study seeks to solve the problem of how social anxiety and autobiographical memories of these friendship relationships relate. 1.4 Research hypothesis and objectives Based on the problem statement, this research objective of this research study is to succinctly assess whether social anxiety has an effect on autobiographical memories of friendship experiences recalled from childhood and adolescence. The research study will therefore address the following hypothesis and predictions: Null hypothesis: High socially anxious individuals will recall friendship experiences that are more emotionally intense, more vivid, less likely to be shared with others and viewed from an observer perspective and these types of memories will tend to be recalled from mid adolescence (12-14yrs). Alternate hypothesis: high socially anxious individuals will not recall friendship experiences that are more emotionally intense, more vivid, less likely to be shared with others and viewed from an observer perspective, and these types of memories will tend to be recalled from mid adolescence (12-14yrs). These hypotheses are used to predict the expected result of the research study, whereby using the t-statistics on the sample population, the null hypothesis can be accepted or not based values statistical values obtained. Rejecting the null hypothesis would imply accepting the alternate hypothesis and accepting it would imply rejecting the alternate hypothesis. In this regard the study predicts that high socially anxious individuals will recall friendship experiences that are more emotionally intense, more vivid, less likely to be shared with others and viewed from an observer perspective and these types of memories will tend to be recalled from mid adolescence (12-14yrs). 1.5 Importance and Value of the research This research is important as it adds new knowledge to the already overflowing research on the psychology of autobiography memory. The research study shows the effect of social anxiety on autobiographical memories of friendship from the childhood to the adolescent stages. In this sense, it therefore plays a great role in enabling further research in this field, and providing a basis through which other psychologists and scholars can make inferences or can use as the base for their research. In addition, aside for these research findings being used to formulate a validly stronger perspective as to how socially anxious people view friendships, and can also be used to identify the relation between past friendships and a person’s social anxiety levels, thereby noting whether past friendships have any role to play in the social anxiousness experienced by a person. In essence therefore this research produces knowledge tat is applicable both in the learning abstract environment and also beyond the research setting as it has implications that can be used to draw inferences to a wider population, beyond the sample used and would be of value to psychology practice, especially in understanding how social phobias respond to past friendships and if such past friendship memories can be used to help a socially anxious person be able to overcome their anxiety. By being practicable therefore, this research reduces the disconnection or gap between those who develop research evidence and those who use them or are positioned to implement them. 1.6 Methodology 1.61 Data Collection and Design In completing this research study information was gathered from secondary data sources which include empirical analysis of past research study which analysis the relationship between social anxiety and autobiographical memories. This provided important information on other studies that have already been done in this area and provided well synthesized data that can be used in this research study to identify gaps in research that was being addressed by this research study. In addition, primary data is also gathered through questionnaires from participants. The research design was done both qualitatively and quantitatively, with the qualitative part mainly comprising the literature review that not only seek to expand the view point of the research question under study, but also seeks to support the deductions arrived at in the paper. The quantitative component mainly involves the study of the primary data gathered, coded and analyzed for deeper discussion based on this on ground data. This study used cuing methodology as presented by Williams and Broadbent that is the autobiographical memory test (AMT) (Williams et al, 2007). In this methodology the participants were presented with cue words concerning childhood and adolescent friendship experiences which would vary in emotional intensity and valence. In this test, the participants responded to each of the cues with a memory that such a word reminds them from their childhood to adolescent years. Half a minute was given for each cue in order to retrieve the memory. 1.62 Participants of the study The participants in the study were 29 individuals: 19 females and 10 males aged between 19 to 27 years of age and sourced from the undergraduate population at a higher institution of learning. These participants were categorized as high anxious (HA), low anxious (LA) and non anxious (NA) based on the shorter version of Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale as developed by Bendig (TMAS; Bendig, 1956). In this Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, the high anxious scored 13 or over on the scale, while low anxious scored 5 or below on the scale. The non anxious scored between 10 and 12 in the scale. The non anxious individuals were the control group in this research study. 1.63 Materials and procedure All participant were provided with worksheets that had 10 words with specific emotional valence related to social situation and most importantly friendship, and were asked to think of their childhood and adolescent friendships, and write a memory that first came to mind and rate their pleasantness on a five point Likert scale (from 1= unpleasant to 5 = pleasant), and their intensity on a five point Likert scale from 1= not intense to 5 = intense. Specific memories were those that encompassed a day while generalized were those that took place over a lengthy period of time. The participants were also asked to think back to childhood and adolescent friendships and write phrases that came to mind or reminded them of the memories. This second procedure was done under free conditions with no cues, and individuals had a minute to write down as many memories as possible, and the age they were in during the memory. Afterwards they were asked to rate these memories on a Likert scale of 1 to 5 on their pleasantness from 1= unpleasant to 5 = pleasant, and their intensity on a five point Likert scale from 1= not intense to 5 = intense. 1.64 Data Analysis Data collected is analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Measures of central tendency such as mean and median are be used to analyze the attributes of the sample under study such as mean age of participants and their stand deviations. Qualitative data analysis will mainly be based on constant comparison and grounded theory where data is analyzed and indicators of categories identified and compared (Strauss, 1987: Balnaves & Caputi, 2001), followed by an analytical induction which seeks to make sense of the comparisons deducted and linking them to the research questions and hypothesis to find the answers to the questions (Katz, 1983). In analyzing the data collected in using cue methodology where 10 words with specific emotional valence related to social situation and most importantly friendship are used, t-statistics is used to analyze whether the mean values of the socially anxious, whether high low or non anxious relate to the means of observed pleasantness and intensity of childhood and adolescent friendships at 5% significant level. The p values of the data gather is then be able to explain the validity of the null hypothesis, where if the p value is less than the 5% significant level, the null hypothesis is rejected. The acceptance or rejection of the null hypothesis is further strengthened and validated by the free recall memories data where cues are not used. In analyzing the free recall memories which had no cues, the one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used to analyze the group differences in means of the degree of intensity and pleasantness of the friendship memories. Since it is hypothesized that high socially anxious individuals will recall friendship experiences that are more emotionally intense, more vivid, less likely to be shared with others and viewed from an observer perspective, and these types of memories will tend to be recalled from mid adolescence, then one way analysis would be the appropriate tool of analysis (Balnaves & Caputi, 2001), to understand the differences between the high anxious participant, low anxious participants and non anxious one concerning the intensity with which they recall friendship memories from childhood to adolescent years. In this sense, this measure is used to analyze the group differences in means of the degree of intensity and pleasantness of the friendship memories. 1.7 Scope and limitations of Study The scope of this study covers the research are of social anxiety and autobiographical memoires even though the research rather than being more general on autobiographical memories, seeks to focus specifically on friendship memories that the research participants. Within this narrowed scope, the research can be able to draw stronger conclusions with regard to specific memory categories as compared to generalized memory categories. Directing the participants to think about friendships in their past experiences will provide stronger memories on such autobiographical information and therefore help in formulating a validly stronger perspective as to how socially anxious people view friendships, and may even be used to identify the relation between past friendships and a person’s social anxiety levels. This study covers a single geographical area’s data rather than data obtained randomly across the nation or internationally. This is because it focuses on a smaller scope of age range and mainly focuses on undergraduate students. In this sense the scope of the study is narrower, and this could potentially be cause for the various limitations that will be faced in the study. The limitations of the study therefore would be that the data captured cannot be used to make inferences to all people across all nationalities, education levels, and across age groups. This is because the uses people aged between 19 to 27 years of age, who are pursuing their Undergraduate studies from one university, and the sample is limited to persons in the university and mostly to students pursuing psychology. The use of the healthiest of all ages, and the people who are educated may though cancel out some of these limitations. This is because it is conventionally expected that people in this age group are not only the ones who tend to healthiest both physically and mentally, but also who tend to express various social anxiety or disturbance in physical ways such as violence or avoidance (American Psychology Association, 1998; Chapter 4, 2009), and that the educated level enables them to correctly express their memories. 1.8 Outline structure of the dissertation This dissertation paper is structured into six sections. Chapter one introduces the research topic and looks at the background overview to the study of social anxiety and autobiographical memories. This establishes that gap in research that the present study seeks to fill and thereby develops the problem statement to the present research as one which seeks to include the friendship factor as a component in studying the intensity of autobiographical memories in social anxious individual. In this sense the objective developed for this study is to investigate whether the effect of social anxiety on autobiographical memories are high. The hypothesis developed therefore is that high socially anxious individuals will recall friendship experiences that are more emotionally intense, more vivid, less likely to be shared with others and viewed from an observer perspective and these types of memories will tend to be recalled from mid adolescence (12-14yrs). The chapter also provides an overview in the importance and value of this research study, and briefly elucidates the methodology used in this study from the sources of the sample data, the sample size, methods of collecting data, measuring instrument, and how data analysis would be completed in this research study. It also looks at the scope of the research study and its various limitations, the structure that the research study takes and finally a conclusion to chapter one. Chapter two of this dissertation presents the literature review of past done qualitative and empirical studies on social anxiety and autobiographical memories. Notably the literature review also presents the various cognitive models and theoretical underpinnings concerning social anxiety, with a greater emphasis on the empirical findings of the relationship between social anxiety and retrieval of autobiographical memories, and their vividness or intensity. Through the review of these past research studies, this chapter also identifies the gap in research study that this paper is focusing on. Chapter three of the thesis is a research design and methodology section. In this chapter, the justification for the various methodological elements used in the paper is provided with each methodical component succinctly described. This ranges from method of data collection, population sample, measuring tools, and key variables under study. This section also elucidates the statistical techniques to be used, the method of analysis and research procedures used in the study. In addition, it gives ethical considerations for the methodology employed in this research and the limitations of the methodology and research design employed to resolve the research question. Chapter four of the thesis provides the research results of the study. In this sense it the representativeness of the sample of respondents, and analyses the collected data. This section uses supporting figures such as tables to present findings and uses statistical tools to analyze data and interpret the findings, their reliability and validity. Chapter five is the discussion section which discusses the implications of the results obtained in chapter 4, its relation to the stated research hypothesis and connects this in relation to existing studies and in relation to theory and cognitive models that exist. In this sense it provides the main idea on what the research results imply and how they are interpreted. Chapter six is the final sections which summaries the whole research study paper and draws conclusions obtained from the research study based on the hypothesis of the research topic and based on the discussions in chapter five, and provides an overall general conclusion on the research topic of the research paper. This section also highlights various implications of the research findings and provides the limitations of the research study as a whole and the recommendations for future research in this area on the various limited areas. 1.9 Conclusion In this section, the paper has introduced the research topic under study and provided a background on this research topic defining the research problem and hypothesis. In essence therefore it is therefore concluded that a background review on studies done on social anxiety and autobiographical memory reveals that there is a gap that is yet to be researched: that which looks at the effect of social anxiety on autobiographical memories of friendship experiences. While studies show that socially conscious individuals tend to detail the specific aspects of the daily social interactions based on recollections of past experiences, whether good or bad, most of the previous research though tend to focus on how negative autobiographical memories influence social anxiety in socially conscious and anxious persons or focus on how social anxiety impacts the ability of an individual to recall autobiographical memories concerning a certain event. This leaves a gap in study that would relate social anxiety to positive autobiographical memories of friendship from childhood and adolescence. In essence therefore this research has hypothesized that high socially anxious individuals will recall friendship experiences that are more emotionally intense, more vivid, less likely to be shared with others and viewed from an observer perspective and these types of memories will tend to be recalled from mid adolescence. The study focuses on the friendship factor as a component in studying the intensity of autobiographical memories in social anxious individual. Though research study has a number of limitations where the sample used may not used to make general inferences to all people across all nationalities, education levels, and across age groups, the research study is of great importance and value to future research and to giving inside to new knowledge that would stimulate further interests in this topic. 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Retrieved from http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/research/emotion/cemhp/documents/williams%20et%20al%20amt%20review.pdfs Woody, S. R., & Rodriguez, B. F. (2000). Self-focused attention and social anxiety in socially anxious individuals and normal controls. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 24(4), 473–488. Read More