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Journal of Experimental Psychopathology JEP Volume 8 (2017), Issue 4, 443-454 ISSN 2043-8087 / DOI:10.5127/jep.061116

The Predictors of Anticipatory Processing Before a SocialEvaluative Situation Stephanos P. Vassilopoulos a,d Andreas Brouzos b and Nicholas J. Moberly c a

Department of Primary Education, University of Patras, Patras, 26 110, Greece

b

Department of Primary Education, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, 451 10, Greece

c

Mood Disorders Centre, Department of Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

d

Correspondence should be directed to Stephanos P. Vassilopoulos, Department of Primary Education, University of Patras, Patras, 26 110, Greece

Abstract Anticipatory processing is a repetitive thinking process that precedes social-evaluative events. The aim of this study was to examine factors that may predict the extent to which individuals engage in anticipatory processing. Perfectionistic beliefs, social interaction anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, anticipatory processing prior to a past social/performance situation, and positive beliefs about anticipatory processing were assessed in a large college student sample (N = 225). Anticipatory processing was greater prior to performance situations relative to social interaction situations. In addition, social interaction anxiety and anxiety sensitivity, but not perfectionistic beliefs or positive beliefs about anticipatory processing, significantly predicted the extent to which the participants engaged in anticipatory processing related to an anxiety-provoking event. Finally, there was preliminary evidence that factors impacting on the anticipatory processing may vary according to the nature of social situation. © Copyright 2017 Textrum Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: anticipatory processing, CBT, social anxiety, Clark & Wells model Correspondence to: Stephanos P. Vassilopoulos, Department of Primary Education, University of Patras, Patras, 26 110, Greece; e-mail: stephanosv@upatras.gr Received 24-Dec-2016; received in revised form 29-Jul-2017; accepted 02-Aug-2017

Table of Contents Introduction Anxiety Sensitivity The Type of Social Situation Perfectionism Positive Metacognitive Beliefs about Anticipatory Processing Method Participants Measures Anticipatory Processing Questionnaire (APQ; Vassilopoulos, 2004) Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS; Mattick & Clarke, 1989, 1998) Positive Beliefs about Anticipatory Processing Questionnaire (PB-APQ; Vassilopoulos et al., 2015)

Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, Volume 8 (2017), Issue 4, 443-454

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Perfectionistic Self-Presentation Scale (Hewitt et al., 2003) The Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI; Reiss, Peterson, Gursky, & McNally, 1986) Procedure Results Predictors of Anticipatory Processing Discussion References

Introduction According to the influential cognitive model put forward by Clark and Wells (1995), socially anxious individuals develop a series of problematic assumptions about themselves and their social world which are maintained by a series of vicious circles. Three stages of distorted processing can be distinguished: (1) the anticipatory processing phase, (2) the in-situation processing phase, and (3) the post-event processing phase. Although various cognitive and symptom correlates of in-situation and post-event processing have been extensively investigated (for a review see Penney & Abbott, 2015), the anticipatory processing phase has received surprisingly little attention. In this paper we sought to determine factors that predict the extent to which individuals engage in anticipatory processing. Anticipatory processing (AP) is a repetitive thinking process that precedes anxiety-provoking situations. In particular, before entering a social interaction, individuals with social anxiety tend to process and think about the interaction in a manner that is consistent with their biases. This process is particularly problematic, because it may actually enhance recollections of past failures, and may lead to formation of negative self-images and expectations of poor performance and rejection. Another negative consequence of AP is that it sometimes leads the socially anxious individual to avoid the event completely (Clark & Wells, 1995). Accumulating evidence shows robust associations between social anxiety symptoms and the frequency of engaging in anticipatory processing regarding self-reported and experimentally induced social situations (Grant & Beck, 2010; Hinrichsen & Clark, 2003; Mills, Grant, Lechner, & Judah, 2013; Vassilopoulos, 2004, 2005; 2008; Vassilopoulos, Brouzos, & Moberly, 2015; Wong & Moulds, 2011), even after controlling for depression and maladaptive perfectionism (Scott, Yap, Francis, & Shuster, 2014). However, there has been limited research examining what factors predict engagement in anticipatory processing prior to a social situation. According to the Clark and Wells (1995) model, social anxiety is a unique predictor of AP; however, social anxiety explains only moderate amounts of variance in negative thinking before a socially anxious event (with correlations between social anxiety and AP only in the .4 range; see Vassilopoulos, 2004), leaving a lot of variance still unexplained. Certain factors, processes, cognitions or behaviours that occur before entering the situation may alter the likelihood that socially anxious persons engage in AP. These may include, among others, anxiety sensitivity, the type of social situation encountered, the tendency to set unreasonably high performance standards and avoid displays of personal imperfection, and the presence of positive metacognitive beliefs about anticipatory processing. The potential contribution of each of these variables to AP will be outlined below.

Anxiety Sensitivity According to influential cognitive models (Clark & Wells, 1995; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997), when the socially anxious individuals perceive a situation as potentially dangerous, they begin to process the self as an object. This involves an increase in self-focused attention, which results - among other things - in greater awareness of anxious feelings and somatic sensations. The individuals then utilise this interoceptive information as evidence that they are about to perform poorly in the social situation, leading to increased social anxiety. Thus, it makes sense to assume that the more fearful one is of anxious symptoms, the more likely an individual will be to worry about the social situation that evoked the anxiety. In support of this, elevated fear and worry about anxiety symptoms has been implicated as a predictive factor in social anxiety research (Norton, Cox, Hewitt, & McLeod, 1997). Therefore, the present study investigated whether anxiety sensitivity predicts greater AP before a social-evaluative event.


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The Type of Social Situation Scholars investigating social anxiety generally distinguish between social interaction and performance type situations (e.g., Beazley, Glass, Chambless, & Arnkoff, 2001; Makkar & Grisham, 2011). It has been found that individuals (non-anxious college students) report engaging in greater negative thinking following performance situations (e.g., a presentation; Kocovski & Rector, 2007; Makkar & Grisham, 2011) than interpersonal situations (e.g., a party), although Fehm, Schneider, and Hoyer (2007) observed the opposite pattern of results. In addition, Kocovski and Rector (2007) demonstrated that factors predicting levels of post-event processing following an anxiety-provoking social event tend to differ according to the type of situation. However, no study has investigated the impact of the type of social situation on cognitive processes prior to a social event. Given that anticipatory and post-event processing are considered to be distinct but related cognitive processes (in the sense that each type of processing may feed into the other; Vassilopoulos, 2004), this increases the possibility that the type of social situation might also be a predictor of AP prior to a social event.

Perfectionism The tendency to set unrealistically high performance standards may be another factor that plays a role in the extent to which one engages in excessive negative thinking before a social-evaluative event (Clark & Wells, 1995). Maladaptive perfectionism has been implicated as a risk factor for depression and anxiety (Macedo, Marques, & Pereira, 2014), but have also been shown to positively correlate with both maladaptive anticipatory (Scott et al., 2014) and post-event processing (Brown & Kocovksi, 2014) in social anxiety research. It may be that the more concerned about appearing perfect to others one is, the more likely an individual will be to engage in a range of metacognitive processes and safety behaviours prior to entering a social-evaluative event, including anticipatory processing (Scott et al., 2014).

Positive Metacognitive Beliefs about Anticipatory Processing Another factor that may be relevant to the extent to which individuals engage in AP is positive beliefs about repetitive thinking. According to the Clark and Wells (1995) model and its metacognitive revision (Wells, 2000, 2007), anxious individuals use worry to cope with anticipated danger or threat. However, once activated, positive metacognitive beliefs about the worry process (e.g. “If I worry I will be prepared”, “my worrying helps me cope”) lead anxious individuals to continue the execution of worry sequences until potential strategies for dealing with perceived threat are generated. Given the commonalities observed in worry and AP (e.g. intrusiveness, perceived uncontrollability, contemplation of potentially dangerous situations, catastrophising thoughts, etc.; see also Vassilopoulos, 2004, 2008), Vassilopoulos et al. (2015) set out to investigate the extent to which the metacognitive theory applies to AP. The authors reported a psychometric study in which they developed a scale that measures the relationship between positive beliefs about AP and social anxiety. They found positive beliefs about AP to be associated with social anxiety and the tendency to engage in AP. Anticipatory processing was also found to partially mediate the relationship between positive beliefs about AP and social anxiety. Taken together, these results demonstrate that socially anxious individuals hold positive metacognitive beliefs about the advantages of repetitive thinking and provide a potential account of why socially anxious individuals engage in AP. The studies outlined before indicate a number of variables that may play a role in the extent to which individuals engage in maladaptive cognitive processing prior to social events. Consequently, the purpose of the current study was to examine in a non-clinical sample potential cognitive, behavioural, and situational correlates of AP, namely social anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, type of social situation, perfectionistic self-presentation, and positive metacognitive beliefs about PA.


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Method Participants Participants were 225 undergraduate students at the University of Ioannina, Greece, of whom 23 (10.2%) were male and 202 (89.8%) were female. On average, participants were 21.0 years old (SD = 2.7, range: 18-45), and single (94.2%). All students were White Europeans, and completed Greek-language versions of all measures. No exclusion criteria were used.

Measures Anticipatory Processing Questionnaire (APQ; Vassilopoulos, 2004) The APQ is a 17 item self-report questionnaire assessing the extent to which an individual engages in anticipatory processing, or a detailed review of what is going to happen during an impending anxiety-producing event together with recurrent images of the self and recollections of past similar events. In the current study, a 4-point Likert scale (1 = “none at all” to 4 = “very much”) was used rather than the original visual analogue scale (VAS), as the former is easier to administer and score. Furthermore, Kersten, Küçükdeveci, and Tennant (2012) provide evidence suggesting that VAS data are ordinal and the VAS should not be analyzed by using parametric statistics. The introductory paragraph of the questionnaire was the following: “According to recent research findings, most people experience anxiety before entering a social event-activity (such as a party, dating, performing a speech in front of an audience, etc.). Did you happen to experience anxiety before a social event during the past few months? If yes, then please describe briefly the event and answer the questions below”. Items are summed to give a total score for each individual. Sample items include: ‘Did you find it difficult to forget about the event?’ and ‘Did you try to stop thinking about the event?’. The APQ has been found to be reliable, showing high internal consistency (α = .91; Vassilopoulos, 2004). Principal components analysis confirmed the unidimensional structure of APQ (the scree plot indicated a single-factor solution with eigenvalue = 5.5, which accounted for the 32.6% of the variance). In addition, Cronbach’s alpha in the current sample was .80. Finally, two independent raters (postgraduate students), blind to the study hypotheses, classified the recalled events according to the type of the situation (social or performance event). Average intraclass correlation coefficient was .97 (p < .001), indicating “excellent” overall agreement between the two raters (Fleiss, 1986).

Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS; Mattick & Clarke, 1989, 1998) The SIAS is a 20-item measure used to assess distress when meeting and talking to others. Items are rated on a 5point Likert-type scale (0 = ‘not true of me’ to 4 ‘extremely true of me’). Sample items include: ‘I find it easy to think of things to talk about’ and ‘I have difficulty making eye-contact with others’. Past research has shown that the SIAS has good internal consistency and that it converges with other measures of social anxiety (Brown et al., 1997; Mattick & Clarke, 1998), especially when the three reverse-scored items are omitted (Rodebaugh, Woods, & Heimberg, 2007). Therefore, only the straightforwardly worded items were included in the calculation of the total score. The SIAS was reliable in the current sample (α = .89).

Positive Beliefs about Anticipatory Processing Questionnaire (PB-APQ; Vassilopoulos et al., 2015) The 21-item PB-APQ was designed to exclusively assess the positive beliefs that individuals hold about the benefits of engaging in anticipatory processing in general. Specifically, items assess recent social interactions, thoughts about the interaction before it occurred, and motivation for ruminating over the anticipated social interaction. However, participants did not have to recall a recent anxiety-provoking situation and complete the questionnaire with this specific event in mind, as with the APQ. Sample items include: ‘The recurrent thoughts I make before an impending social interaction help me know if others think I am weird or odd’ and ‘The recurrent thoughts I make before an impending social interaction help me know if I will make a fool of myself’. They are rated on a 4-point Likert-type


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rating scale, ranging from 1 (disagree) to 4 (agree). The PB-APQ has been found to be reliable, showing good internal consistency (Vassilopoulos et al., 2015) and Cronbach’s alpha was .85 in the current sample.

Perfectionistic Self-Presentation Scale (Hewitt et al., 2003) The PSPS is a measure of the interpersonal expression of perfectionistic behaviour including perfectionistic selfpromotion (e.g., “I need to be seen as perfectly capable in everything I do”), nondisplay of imperfection (e.g., “I will do almost anything to cover up a mistake”), and nondisclosure of imperfection (e.g., “I try to keep my faults to myself”). Each item is rated on a 7-point scale (1 = ‘absolutely disagree’ to 7 = ‘absolutely agree’). The PSPS has displayed well-established internal consistency (subscale alphas = .84 - .89) and construct and discriminant validity (Hewitt et al., 2003; McGee, Hewitt, Sherry, Parkin, & Flett, 2005). Cronbach’s alpha was .88 in the current sample.

The Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI; Reiss, Peterson, Gursky, & McNally, 1986) The ASI is a 16-item self-report scale designed to measure fear and worry about the physical, psychological, and interpersonal implications of anxiety-related symptoms. Sample items include: ‘When I cannot keep my mind on a task, I worry that I might be going crazy’ and ‘It scares me when I feel ‘shaky’’. Each item is rated on a 5-point scale (0 = ‘very little’ to 4 = ‘very much’). Research supports the internal consistency (α = .82–.91), test–retest reliability, and construct validity of the ASI (e.g., Peterson & Heilbronner, 1987). The scale was reliable in the current sample (α = .86). Apart from PSPS, all the measures described so far have been used successfully in at least one Greek study (Vassilopoulos & Banerjee, 2010; Vassilopoulos et al., 2015).

Procedure No ethics approval was obtained for this study since there is no system of ethical review of research in psychology in the Greek university system. However, all participants provided informed consent and the research practices followed in the current study were consistent with the Helsinki Declaration. Students were recruited from classes and volunteered to take part in the study. They were provided with questionnaire packets to complete at home and return. However, only participants able to recall a recent, anxiety-provoking social event (answered ‘yes’ in the APQ) were included in the final sample. Students were informed that the results of this research may be published, but that, as the data were collected anonymously, their names would not be made public.

Results Descriptive statistics for all measures are presented in Table 1. A series of Shapiro-Wilk tests suggested that all study variables were normally distributed (ps > .05). There were few missing values (< 2%) and these were replaced by the variable mean. Table 2 presents bivariate correlations among the study variables. There were low to moderate positive correlations between the AP and each of the other measures.


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Table 1: Descriptive statistics for study variables. Measure

M

SD

N

Range

Anticipatory Processing Questionnaire (APQ)

41.17

7.57

225

Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS)

25.04

10.14

225

2 - 54

Positive Beliefs about Anticipatory Processing (PB-APQ)

51.53

9.83

224

29-80

Perfectionistic self-presentation (PSPS)

86.91

20.25

222

36-136

Anxiety sensitivity (ASI)

28.30

10.68

224

5 - 55

20 - 62

Possible ranges for each scale; APQ (17 - 68); SIAS (0 - 68); PB.APQ (21 - 84); PSPS (27 - 189); ASI (0 - 64).

Table 2: Bivariate (Pearson product-moment) correlations among all variables. Measure

Gender

Age

APQ

SIAS

PB-APQ

PSPS

ASI

Gender

—

.05

.01

.04

–.01

–.01

–.09

—

–.10

–.10

–.15*

–.03

.00

.29

.30***

.21**

.34***

—

.28***

.36***

.27***

—

.29***

.36***

—

.28***

Age APQ

—

SIAS PB-APQ PSPS ASI

***

—

*

p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001. Ns = 222-225. APQ = Anticipatory Processing Questionnaire, SIAS = Social Interaction Anxiety Scale, PB-APQ = Positive Beliefs about Anticipatory Processing Questionnaire, PSPS = Perfectionism Scale, ASI = Anxiety Sensitivity Index.

Predictors of Anticipatory Processing In order to identify the factors that predict the extent to which participants engage in repetitive thinking in anticipation of a social event they reported on, a hierarchical regression analysis was performed with AP as the outcome variable. Age and gender were entered together in the first step. Two dummy variables representing the difference between types of social situation chosen in the APQ were entered in the second step. Social interaction situation was chosen as the reference category, such that the first dummy variable represented the difference in APQ score between social interaction and performance situations, and the second dummy variable represented the difference between social interaction and unclassified situations. Social interaction anxiety (as assessed by the SIAS) was entered in the third step. In order to examine the unique predictive ability of other variables over and above social anxiety (Vassilopoulos et al., 2015), positive beliefs about anticipatory processing (assessed with the PB-APQ), perfectionistic selfpresentation (assessed with the PSPS) and anxiety sensitivity (assessed with the ASI) were entered together in the


449

fourth step. Tolerance statistics were calculated for each regression coefficient, and were above .33 for all regression coefficients, suggesting that multicollinearity was not a problem. Table 3 summarizes the results of the hierarchical regression analysis. In the first step, gender and age together did not explain significant variance in anticipatory processing, F(2, 219) = 1.24, p = .29, f² = .01, with neither predictor being significant. In the second step, the inclusion of dummy variables representing type of social interaction significantly improved the model, F(2, 217) = 3.17, p = .04, f² = .03. The dummy variable representing the difference between social interaction situations and performance situations explained a significant additional 2.8% of variance in anticipatory processing. Participants who nominated a social performance situation reported significantly more anticipatory processing than participants who nominated a social interaction situation, after controlling for gender and age. However, there was no significant difference in anticipatory processing between participants who nominated an unclassified situation and those who nominated a social interaction situation, after controlling for gender and age. The entry of social interaction anxiety in the third step explained a significant additional 10.1% of variance in anticipatory processing, F(1, 216) = 25.42, p < .001, f² = .12. Higher levels of social interaction anxiety predicted more anticipatory processing, controlling for age, gender, and type of social situation. Furthermore, the entry of the other predictors in the fourth step explained a significant additional 7.5% of variance in anticipatory processing, F(3, 213) = 6.79, p < .001, f² = .10. However, only anxiety sensitivity explained significant unique variance, with participants scoring higher on anxiety sensitivity reporting more anticipatory processing after controlling for other variables. Neither perfectionism nor positive beliefs about anticipatory processing were significant unique predictors, with social interaction anxiety remaining a significant predictor. The inclusion of all two-way interactions between the type of social situation that participants nominated in the APQ and social interaction anxiety, perfectionism, anxiety sensitivity and positive beliefs about anticipatory processing explained 4.7% of additional variance in the fifth step, but this was not statistically significant, F(8, 205) = 1.62, p = .12, f² = .06. Only the interaction between perfectionism and social performance situation reached significance, indicating that participants who were high in perfectionism reported even higher levels of anticipatory processing in relation to social performance situations, compared to social interaction situations.


450

Table 3: Results of hierarchical regression analysis examining predictors of AP (Ν = 221) Variable

B

SE (B)

β

Step 1

∆R² .011

Gender

0.11

1.68

.00

Age

–0.29

0.19

.12

Step 2

.028*

Gender

0.43

1.66

.02

Age

–0.31

0.18

–.11

Performance situation

2.67

1.07

.17*

Unclassified situation

1.54

1.68

.06

Step 3

.101***

Gender

0.07

1.58

.00

Age

–0.23

0.18

–.08


3.08

0.98

.20**


2.19

1.60

.09

SIAS

0.24

0.05

.32***

Step 4

.075***

Gender

0.61

1.53

.02

Age

–0.20

0.17

–.07


2.73

0.98

.18*


*

SIAS

2.19

1.54

.09

PSPS

0.15

0.05

.21**

ASI

0.02

0.02

.05

PB-APQ

0.15

0.05

.21**

Step 5

.047

SIAS x performance situation

0.01

0.11

.12

PSPS x performance situation

0.12

0.05

.20*

ASI x performance situation

–0.20

0.10

–.16

SIAS x unclassified situation

0.08

0.11

.06

PSPS x unclassified situation

–0.22

0.17

–.12

ASI x unclassified situation

–0.00

0.09

–.00

PB-APQ x unclassified situation

–0.17

0.17

–.09

PB-APQ x performance situation

Note: SIAS = Social Interaction Anxiety Scale; PB-APQ = Positive Beliefs about Anticipatory Processing Scale; PSPS = Perfectionistic Self-Presentation Scale; ASI = Anxiety Sensitivity Index. Reference condition for APQ = social interaction situation. * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

Discussion Previous research has suggested that AP plays an important role in maintaining social anxiety symptoms (for a review, see Penney & Abbott, 2015). The research described in this paper was conducted to expand the body of knowledge in this area by examining the factors that may predict the extent of AP related to an anxiety-provoking social event. With respect to predictors of AP, social performance situations were associated with greater AP than social interaction situations, after controlling for age and gender. Next, social interaction anxiety predicted AP, over and above type of social situation. Participants with higher levels of social interaction anxiety reported greater AP


451

related to an anxiety-provoking social situation. This is consistent with past research in student samples (Vassilopoulos, 2004, 2008) and in samples of patients diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (Boehme et al., 2014). Finally, anxiety sensitivity predicted AP - over and above social interaction anxiety and type of social situation - in that participants with higher levels of anxiety sensitivity reported higher levels of AP prior to entering a socialevaluative event. This is also in line with previous studies implicating elevated fear and worry about anxiety symptoms in the prediction of social anxiety (e.g., Norton et al., 1997). Overall, social anxiety, type of situation and anxiety sensitivity jointly explained about one-quarter of the variance in AP in total, which is a large effect according to Cohen (1992) as well as consistent with previous studies (e.g., Kocovski & Rector, 2007). It should be noted, however, that perfectionistic self-presentation and positive metacognitive beliefs correlated with AP, but were not significant predictors of AP, beyond those of situation type, social anxiety and anxiety sensitivity. Further advancing the current literature, the present study began to investigate possible differences in AP related to the type of social situation. Past research has found differences in cognitions based on the type of social situation assessed (Beazley et al., 2001; Kocovski & Rector, 2007; Makkar & Grisham, 2011). In line with the results reported by Kocovski and Rector (2007), performance situations appear to evoke a greater degree of anticipatory processing compared with social interaction situations. This result may be accounted by the fact that public speaking is the most common and the most feared situation reported by socially anxious individuals (Holt, Heimberg, & Hope, 1992). Thus, individuals with moderate or higher levels of social interaction anxiety in the current sample might have chosen to respond to a performance situation rather than to a social interaction situation. Alternatively, performance situations such as giving a presentation in front of the class may trigger greater AP, because they are more evaluative situations than other social interaction events (e.g., party). This is particularly so when people know well in advance that they will become the center of attention and that they will be evaluated on their performance. Furthermore, people are more accustomed to having interpersonal interactions than giving presentations, and it is possible that the pressure to give a good performance may have led them to dwell on past failures, generate distorted self-images, or engage in mental problem-solving, in their attempt to avert the catastrophe or minimize loses (see Vassilopoulos, 2008). Finally, performance situations are more concretely planned compared to interpersonal interactions, thus resulting in higher levels of anticipatory processing. More research is needed on this point. There was also a difference based on the prediction of AP across the type of social situation. For performance situations only, perfectionistic self-presentation predicted higher levels of AP after controlling for social interaction anxiety, anxiety sensitivity and positive metacognitive beliefs. Thus, it seems that the tendency to strive for flawless performance and avoid displays of personal imperfection pertains to the perfectionistic aspects of social anxiety, tapped by the performance situations. This might indeed be the case if individuals perceive the performance situation to be a more evaluative situation than the social interaction event, and thus feel a pressure to perform well (and meet the performance standards of viewers) during the performance versus the social interaction situation. By understanding what predicts AP, interventions can be implemented to target these processes, thereby making anticipatory processing of an anxiety-provoking social event less maladaptive or intense. Thus the current findings highlight the importance of challenging the two types of maladaptive cognitive processes, namely anxiety sensitivity (in the case of both performance and social interaction situations) or perfectionistic self-presentation (in the case of performance situations only). Studies have shown that reductions in these processes are associated with reductions in social anxiety symptoms (Handley, Egan, Kane, & Rees, 2015; Hedman et al., 2011; Westra, Arkowitz, & Dozois, 2009). The current findings further suggest that targeting these problematic processes is beneficial because it may reduce engagement in excessive AP prior to a stressful event, with the result of making the experience of the encountered situation less negative. One limitation of the current study is that the results were obtained from a university student sample that was predominantly female and culturally homogeneous. Therefore, future research is required in order to ascertain whether the results generalize to individuals from a different cultural background. Further, future studies may also address other aspects of the cognitive model of social anxiety (Clark & Wells, 1995; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997) that might be relevant in the determination of the extent to which individuals engage in AP, such as self-focused attention and engagement in observer-perspective self-imagery.


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Another limitation is the use of SIAS to measure anxiety about social interactions. Although SIAS has served in previous studies as a proxy for social anxiety symptoms (e.g., Makkar & Grisham, 2011), future investigations should employ more established measures of social anxiety (e.g., Social Phobia Scale; Mattick & Clarke, 1998). Further, the APQ is a unifactorial scale mainly designed to measure the intensity or content of anticipatory processing and future studies should employ instruments that measure the frequency of anticipatory processing as well (e.g., Grant & Beck, 2010). In addition, only cross-sectional data were obtained and a longitudinal design would have been preferable for the study of factors that predict AP before a social event. Such a design would give us a better idea about the causes of maladaptive AP, which would inform interventions targeting anticipatory processing. Finally, only individuals with varying levels of social anxiety were recruited and future studies should include participants diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. However, studies using analogue and non-clinical samples are an important first step before replicating the results in individuals with clinical levels of social anxiety. Despite those limitations, this study provided important new insights into the cognitive, behavioural, and situational predictors of AP in a non-clinical sample. In summary, the results confirm that type of social situation, social anxiety symptoms and anxiety sensitivity are important determinants in the level of AP. However, the present study also cautions that factors that impact on the AP may vary according to the nature of social situation, which warrants further inquiry and nuanced approaches in counselling and clinical practice.

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