Terror mismanagement: evidence that mortality salience exacerbates attentional bias in social anxiety
- Publication Type:
- Journal Article
- Citation:
- Cognition and Emotion, 2016, 30 (7), pp. 1370 - 1379
- Issue Date:
- 2016-10-02
Closed Access
| Filename | Description | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Terror mismanagement: evidence that mortality salience exacerbates attentional bias in social anxiety.pdf | Published Version | 789.27 kB |
Copyright Clearance Process
- Recently Added
- In Progress
- Closed Access
This item is closed access and not available.
© 2015 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis. Death anxiety is a basic fear underlying a range of psychological conditions, and has been found to increase avoidance in social anxiety. Given that attentional bias is a core feature of social anxiety, the aim of the present study was to examine the impact of mortality salience (MS) on attentional bias in social anxiety. Participants were 36 socially anxious and 37 non-socially anxious individuals, randomly allocated to a MS or control condition. An eye-tracking procedure assessed initial bias towards, and late-stage avoidance of, socially threatening facial expressions. As predicted, socially anxious participants in the MS condition demonstrated significantly more initial bias to social threat than non-socially anxious participants in the MS condition and socially anxious participants in the control condition. However, this effect was not found for late-stage avoidance of social threat. These findings suggest that reminders of death may heighten initial vigilance towards social threat.
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: