Behar. Res. Ther. Vol. 33, No. 2, pp.

193-196, 1995

Pergamon

O005-7967(94)EOOI9-F

Copyright a~ 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd

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Social anxiety, fear of negative evaluation and the detection of negative emotion
in others
E M M A C. W I N T O N , t D A V I D M. C L A R K ~ a n d R O B E R T J. E D E L M A N N 2

1Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, OX3 7JX, U.K. and
:Department of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 5XH, U.K.
(Received 5 January 1994)
Summary--The present study sought to investigate whether social anxiety is associated with enhanced
ability to detect negative emotion in others. Subjects scoring high and low on Fear of Negative Evaluation
(FNE) performed two tasks before and after a social threat induction. The first task involved identifying
the affect (negative vs neutral) in briefly presented (60 msec) slides of faces. The second involved rating
the overall emotion conveyed in brief video clips of an actor and detecting discrepancies in the affect
conveyed by the visual and auditory channels of the video. Overall the results suggest that high social
anxiety subjects have a bias towards identifying others' emotional expressions as negative in the absence
of an enhanced ability to discriminate between different emotional states in others. Implications and
limitations of the results are discussed.

INTRODUCTION

It has frequently been suggested that enhanced processing of threat cues plays a role in the maintenance of anxiety disorders.
Studies investigating selective attention to words denoting threat cues have provided some support for this hypothesis (see
Williams, Watts, Macleod & Mathews, 1988 for a review). However, few studies have directly investigated the processing
of actual threat cues. A notable exception is a study of panic disorder patients reported by Ehlers and Breuer (1992). Panic
disorder is characterised by marked interoceptive fears (Clark, 1986) and these investigators found that panic disorder
patients were more accurate than controls at detecting their own heart beats. The present study attempts to extend the
findings of Ehlers and Breuer to social anxiety by investigating the detection of negative, neutral and positive social cues
in high and low social fear Ss. As it was considered possible that enhanced processing may be particularly evident when
Ss are currently anxious, the detection tasks were performed both before and after a social threat induction.
METHOD

Experimental design and subjects

Students scoring high and low on the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (FNE: Watson & Friend, 1969) performed two
tasks. In the first task, slides showing negative and neutral emotional expressions were briefly (60 msec) presented and Ss
were asked to identify the emotion being displayed. In the second task, brief video clips of an actors' face or body were
shown and Ss were asked to give an overall rating of the emotion conveyed in the clip, plus a rating of the degree to which
visual and auditory channels conveyed discrepant emotional information. Each task was performed both before and after
a public speaking threat induction. The high FNE group (n = 13; 4 men and 9 women) consisting of individuals scoring
above 17 on FNE and the low FNE group (n = 11; 5 men and 6 women) consisted of individuals scoring below 9 on FNE.

Materials
Facial expression slides. 40 slides of facial expressions displaying negative emotions (anger, sadness, disgust, contempt
and fear) and 40 matched slides displaying neutral expressions were taken from Matsumoto and Ekman's (1988) Japanese
and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion. These were divided into two sets each containing 20 negative (a female and
a male Caucasian and a female and a male Japanese model for each of the five negative expressions) and 20 neutral slides.
Order of presentation (pre/post threat induction) was counter-balanced across Ss within each group.
Nonverbal Discrepancy Test (DePaulo, Rosenthal, Eisenstat, Rogers & Finkelstein, 1978). This test consists of a series of
2-sec video clips. In each clip two aspects of affective information (positive-negative; submissive~lominant) about the sender
are conveyed in the visual (face or body) and auditory (tone of voice) channels. In one quarter of the clips the auditory
and visual channels convey exactly the same affective message (not discrepant); in one quarter of the clips the two channels
convey the opposite message (discrepant), whilst the messages are partially discrepant in the remaining clips. The first 64
clips in the test were used and they were further divided into two parallel sets. Order of presentation was again
counter-balanced within groups.
The Brief PONS test (Rosenthal, Hall, Archer, DiMatteo & Rogers, 1979). This consists of 20 face only and 20 body only
video clips with exposure time between 1/24 and 27/24 sec. It assesses accuracy in identifying the situation in which a social
interaction occurred. No significant effects were observed in this test and it will not be discussed further.
Questionnaires and mood scales. Subjects completed the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale and Social Avoidance and
Distress Scale (SADS: Watson & Friend, 1969) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI: Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock
& Erbaugh, 1961). In addition instantaneous mood (anxiety, depression, happiness and anger) was rated on 0-I00 point
scales.
193

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CASE HISTORIESAND SHORTERCOMMUNICATIONS

Procedure
Subjects were pre-screened on the FNE. Upon arrival at the laboratory, Ss filled in the BDI and SADS and after
introducing the instantaneous mood scales they were asked to rate their mood at that moment. Thereafter, they were
required to rate their momentary mood at the end of each task. The first set of slides were then shown, each slide being
presented for 60 msec followed by a 1 sec presentation of a pattern mask (made from face fragments) and a 7 sec response
period (a sequence found in piloting to reduce the likelihood of ceiling and floor effects). Slides were presented via a Kodak
Carousel 2-AV 2050 Projector connected to a two-field tachistoscope driven by Forth Instruments FI 171 and FI 272
generators. Subjects marked whether they thought the expression was negative or neutral on a forced choice response sheet
(they were requested to guess if they were unsure). Subjects then re-rated their mood and were presented with the first set
o f clips from the Nonverbal Discrepancy Test. Subjects were asked to rate the overall emotion and the degree of affective
discrepancy in each clip using nine point scales ranging from "negative" to "positive" and from "not discrepant" to
"discrepant", respectively. Mood ratings were again taken followed by a social threat induction in which Ss were instructed
that they may be chosen at random to give a short presentation to the experimenter and two observers. Subjects were then
told that, whilst waiting for the observers to arrive, they would repeat the tasks that they had just completed in order to
provide sufficient data for analysis. The parallel slide set and Discrepancy Test clips were then administered each followed
by rating scales. Lastly, the Brief PONS Test was administered. This was followed by another mood rating scale, after which
Ss were debriefed.
RESULTS

Group characteristics
Means and standard deviations are shown in Table 1. The two groups did not differ in age. Selection criteria guaranteed
that they differed in FNE [F(1,22) = 173.4, P < 0.001]. In addition, the high FNE group scored higher than the low FNE
group on the SADS [F(1,22) = 5.8, P < 0.05] and BDI [F(1,22) = 6.2, P < 0.05].

Mood ratings
Separate two-way (group x time) ANOVAs were performed on each mood measure. Significant group main effects
indicated that throughout the experiment the high FNE group were more anxious [F(1,21)= 4.45, P <0.05], angry
[F(1,21) = 5.05, P < 0.05] and depressed [F(1,21) = 9.76, P < 0.01], and were less happy [F(I,21) = 6.0, P < 0.05] than the
low FNE group. There were no significant main effects of time or significant group by time interactions, indicating that
the mood manipulation was ineffective. For this reason the pre- and post-induction data were combined in all subsequent
analyses.

Accuracy of identification of briefly presented facial expressions

Numbers of correctly identified slides were subjected to a two-way ANOVA (group x valence). A significant main effect
of valence indicated that neutral slides were identified correctly significantly more often than negative slides [means and
SDs; neutral = 33.39 _+ 5.20; negative = 24.30 + 4.77; F(1,21) = 43.28, P < 0.001]. There was also a significant interaction
between FNE group and valence o f the expression [F(I,21) = 9.46, P < 0.01]. This interaction is illustrated in Fig. 1. Paired
comparisons indicated that high FNE Ss were more accurate (P <0.05) than low FNE Ss at identifying negative
expressions and were less accurate (P < 0.05) at identifying neutral expressions. This result could have arisen either because
high FNE Ss were genuinely better at detecting negative cues in the slides, or because they have a bias towards giving a
negative response in the absence of having abstracted more affective information from the slides. To distinguish between
these two possibilities the data was subjected to a signal detection analysis. For the purpose of this analysis the task was
conceptualised as one involving detection of negative facial expression. Following MacMillan and Creelman (1991),
sensitivity (d') was computed using the formula: d'= z(hit r a t e ) - z ( f a l s e alarm rate) and response bias (criterion) was
computed using the formula: d' = - 0.5[z(hit rate) + z(false alarm rate)]. One-way ANOVAs indicated that the two groups
did not differ in sensitivity [F(1,22)= 0.9, P = 0.35], but the high FNE group had a significantly lower criterion for
identifying negative expressions [F(1,22)= 7.2, P < 0.05]. In other words, the high FNE groups' greater accuracy in
identifying negative expressions and poorer accuracy at identifying neutral expressions was a result of a negative response
bias, rather than a consequence of enhanced ability to detect negative facial cues.

Nonverbal discrepancy test

Mean overall emotion ratings for the video clips where the visual and auditory messages were congruent (either both
negative or both positive) were subjected to a three-way ANOVA (group x valence x body part). A significant main effect
of valence [F(1,22) = 196.5, P < 0.001] indicated that positive and negative items could be discriminated (means and SDs:
positive = 5.30 + 0.51; negative = 3.17 + 0.65). A significant main effect o f body part [F(1,22) = 68.69, P < 0.001] indicated
that clips portraying the face were rated as more positive than clips portraying the body (means and SDs: body =
3.71 _+ 0.60; face = 4.75 + 0.52]. There was a significant interaction between valence and body part [F(1,22)= 186.33,

Variable

Table I. Group characteristics

High FNE
group

Fear of Negative
Evaluation (FNE)
Social Avoidance and
Distress (SADS)
Beck Depression
Inventory (BDI)
Age (yr)

Low FNE
group

22.5 (3.6)

5.3 (2.5)

8.5 (8.2)

2.3 (2.7)

8.0 (5.2)
20.6 (1.9)

3.2 (4.1)
22.7 (6.6)

CASE H I S T O R I E S AND SHORTER C O M M U N I C A T I O N S

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35

O
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1

L.
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30

o
O
N

High FNE
2S

.Q

Low FNE

20
Neutral

Negative

Facial Expression
Fig. 1. Mean number of correct identifications of neutral and negative facial expression slides for high
FNE and low FNE Ss.

P < 0.001]. Inspection of means indicated that positive and negative affect could be reliably discriminated in clips of the
face alone but not in clips of the body alone. Finally, consistent with brief slide presentation data suggesting a negative
response bias, there was a main effect of FNE group [F(1,22) = 5.35, P < 0.05]. The high FNE group gave the video clips
significantly less positive emotion ratings than the low FNE group (Means and SDs; high FNE = 3.96 + 0.25; low
FNE = 4.33 _ 0.51).
Accuracy at detecting affective discrepancy was calculated using the equation provided by DePaulo et al. (1979). A
one-way ANOVA indicated that high and low FNE Ss did not differ in accuracy of detecting discrepant affect
IF(I,16) = 1.79, P = 0.20].

DISCUSSION
The main aim of this study was to investigate whether high FNE Ss have an enhanced ability to detect negative social
cues. At first sight the finding that high FNE Ss were more accurate at detecting negative facial expressions and less accurate
at detecting neutral expressions would appear to be consistent with this hypothesis. However, signal detection analysis
revealed that this pattern of results occurred because the high FNE Ss had a negative response bias. That is to say, they
were more likely to rate briefly presented facial expressions as negative in the absence of having abstracted more affective
information from the expressions. An essentially similar result was obtained with the overall emotion ratings for the video
clips.
The high FNE Ss in the present study scored higher than the low FNE Ss on measures of social anxiety and distress.
However, the absolute level of social anxiety in the high FNE group was less than would be expected in a sample of clinically
diagnosed social phobics. It is therefore possible that higher levels of social anxiety might be associated with enhanced ability
to detect negative emotion in others as well as a negative response bias. A replication of the present study with clinically
diagnosed social phobics would be required to investigate this issue,
Enhanced processing of threat cues could arise as a result of enhanced detection and/or as a result of selective attention.
In contrast to our negative findings for detection, two studies have reported results suggesting an attentional bias towards
social threat cues in social phobia (Hope, Rapee, Heimberg & Dombeck, 1990; Asmundson & Stein, 1993). Both studies
focused on the processing of words denoting social threat. It will be interesting to see whether similar results are obtained
when actual threat cues are studied.
Although enhanced processing of social cues in others has a prominent role in many cognitive models of social phobia,
the main processing bias may lie elsewhere. In particular, social phobics may give relatively more weight to their own
impressions of themselves than to negative cues from others when making judgements about how others view them (see
Clark and Wells, 1994).
Acknowledgements--This research was part of a larger study submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the Masters
Degree in Clinical Psychology at the University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 5XH. Requests for reprints should be sent to
David M. Clark, Wellcome Principal Research Fellow, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford
Hospital, Oxford, OX3 7JX, U.K.

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CASE HISTORIES AND SHORTER COMMUNICATIONS

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