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Flynn Dissertation Final .pdf (2.61 MB)

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Daily Fear in Social Anxiety Disorder

Flynn, Jessica Jane
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1470046109

Abstract Details

2016, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Psychological Sciences.
Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is a chronic mental illness that affects a large number of people and is difficult to treat. There is a wealth of research identifying cognitive, behavioral, and biological mechanisms that contribute to the development and maintenance of this disorder. However, the phenomenology of fear, the emotion central to this disorder, is less well studied. It is assumed that individuals with SAD experience more fear than non-anxious individuals, but the empirical support stems primarily from self-report and laboratory studies. In fact, studies of physiological responses associated with fear (e.g., sympathetic nervous system arousal) have not consistently shown elevated fear. Although emotions are recognized as multi-dimensional response systems, fear has not yet been examined in more than one dimension at a time across contexts in daily life in SAD. This study measured fear in two dimensions (self-report and sympathetic nervous system arousal) over five days using experience-sampling and ambulatory monitoring equipment. Social context was also measured. Both the relative frequency of fear and concordance across fear dimensions were compared in individuals with SAD and healthy controls (HC). Findings reveal that individuals with SAD exhibit a higher relative frequency of fear as compared to HC and this finding was moderated by social context. Additionally, when compared to HCs, individuals with SAD did not exhibit greater concordance, or positive association between response dimensions. These findings support the dominant theoretical assumptions that individuals with SAD experience more fear, however, there are several caveats that have important implications for theories of fear in this disorder.
Karin Coifman, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
David Fresco, Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair)
Jeffrey Ciesla, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
John Updegraff, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Tom Hollenstein, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Clare Stacey, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
75 p.
Clinical Psychology
Social anxiety disorder; fear; experience sampling

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Flynn, J. J. (2016). Daily Fear in Social Anxiety Disorder [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1470046109

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Flynn, Jessica. Daily Fear in Social Anxiety Disorder. 2016. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1470046109.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Flynn, Jessica. "Daily Fear in Social Anxiety Disorder." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1470046109

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1470046109
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© 2016, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Daily Fear in Social Anxiety Disorder by Jessica Jane Flynn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.