Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-07T11:25:19.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Three Systems Model of Fear and Anxiety: Implications for Assessment of Social Anxiety

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2009

Anne R. Douglas ,
William R. Lindsay  and
D. Neil Brooks
Anne R. Douglas
Affiliation:
Gartnavel Royal Hospital, Glasgow
William R. Lindsay
Affiliation:
Royal Dundee Liff Hospital, Dundee
D. Neil Brooks
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It has been argued that verbal reports and questionnaire data may be constrained by cultural and social demands to the extent that they are unlikely to show concordance with more direct measures of behavioural and physiological anxiety. The present report investigates this hypothesis with reference to social anxiety. It was found that physiological and cognitive questionnaires were good predictors of physiological anxiety and cognitions in a social interaction test. A behavioural questionnaire, however, was a poor predictor of actual behaviour. In the social interaction test, which was designed to produce anxiety, there was a high degree of concordance on all the measures except non-verbal behaviour and heart rate. Because behaviour ratings showed least concordance and the poorest predictive validity, it was suggested that a behavioural assessment alone may give an erroneous picture of a person's overall social anxiety.

Type
Research Article
Information
Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , January 1988 , pp. 15 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Argyle, M. (1975). Bodily Communication. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Bryant, B. and Trower, P. (1974). Social difficulty in a student sample. British Journal of Educational Psychology 44, 13–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodgson, R. and Rachman, S. (1974). Desynchrony in measures of fear. Behaviour Research and Therapy 12, 319–326.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hugdahl, K. (1981). The three systems model of fear and emotion—a critical examination. Behaviour Research and Therapy 19, 75–85.Google Scholar
Lang, P. J. (1968). Fear reduction and fear behaviour: problems in treating a construct. Research in Psychotherapy, Volume 3. Shilen, J. M. (Ed.). Washington D.C.; American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Lang, P. J. (1971). The application of psychophysiological methods to the study of psychotherapy and behaviour change. In Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behaviour Change, Bergen, A. and Garfield, S. (Eds). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Lang, P. J. (1978). Anxiety: towards a psychophysiological definition. In Psychiatric Diagnosis: Exploration of Biological Predictors, Akiskal, H. and Webb, W. (Eds). New York: Spectrum Publications.Google Scholar
Lang, P. J. and Lazovik, A. D. (1963). Experimental desensitisation of a phobia. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 66, 519–525.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lang, P. J., Rice, D. G. and Sternbach, R. A. (1972). The psychophysiology of emotion. In Handbook of Psychophysiology, Greenfield, N. S. and Sternbach, R. A. (Eds). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Lick, J. R. and Katkin, E. S. (1977). Assessment of Anxiety and Fear. In Ciminero, A., Calhoun, K. and Adams, H. (Eds). New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Main, G. J. (1983). The modified somatic perception questionnaire, Journal of Psychosomatic Research 27(6), 503–514.Google Scholar
Main, G. J. and Waddell, G. (1982). Chronic pain, distress and illness behaviour. In Clinical Psychology and General Medicine, Main, C. (Ed.). New York and London: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Marzillier, J., Lambert, C. and Kellet, J. (1976). A controlled evaluation on systematic densensitisation and social skills training for socially inadequate psychiatric patients. Behaviour Research and Therapy 14, 22–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mandler, G., Mandler, J. and Uvillier, E. (1958). Autonomic feedback: the perception of autonomic activity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 56, 367–373.Google ScholarPubMed
Ost, L. G., Jerremalm, A. and Johansson, J. (1981). Individual response patterns and effects of different behaviour methods in the treatment of social phobia. Behaviour Research and Therapy 19, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rachman, S. (1976). The conditioning theory of fear acquisition: a critical examination. Behaviour Research and Therapy 15, 375–387.Google Scholar
Rachman, S. and Hodgson, R. (1974). Synchrony and desynchrony in fear and avoidance. Behaviour Research and Therapy 12, 311–318.Google Scholar
Richardson, S. C. and Tasto, D. J. (1976). Development and factor analysis of a social anxiety inventory. Behaviour Therapy 7, 453–462.Google Scholar
Trower, P., Bryant, B. and Argyle, N. (1978). Social Skills and Mental Health. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Wolpe, J. and Lang, P. J. (1974). A fear survey schedule for use in behaviour therapy. Behaviour Research and Therapy 2, 27–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.