Psychometric evaluation of a controlled social affiliation paradigm: Findings from anxiety, depressive disorder, and healthy samples
Open accessAbstract
Social impairments are common across many psychiatric conditions. Standardized dyadic assessments intended to elicit social affiliation between unacquainted partners are used to elucidate mechanisms that disrupt relationship formation and inform possible treatment targets; however, the psychometric properties of such paradigms remain poorly understood. This study evaluated the psychometric properties of a controlled social affiliation paradigm intended to induce connectedness between a target participant and trained confederate. Individuals with an anxiety or depressive disorder diagnosis (clinical group; n = 132) and those without (control group; n = 35) interacted face-to-face with a trained confederate; partners took turns answering a series of increasingly intimate questions about themselves. Social connectedness, affect, and affiliative behavior measures were collected during the interaction. Participant symptom and social functioning measures were collected to examine validity. The paradigm elicited escalating social connectedness throughout the task for both participants and confederates. Parallel forms (i.e., different question sets) elicited similar affiliation outcomes. Self-reported (but not behavioral) affiliation differed across some demographic variables (e.g., participant gender, Hispanic ethnicity). Within-task affiliation measures were associated with one another and with global social connectedness and social anxiety symptom measures, but not with somatic anxiety measures. Clinical participants reported lower social affiliation and positive affect reactivity and higher negative affect reactivity than healthy participants. These findings provide initial psychometric support for a standardized and controlled dyadic affiliation paradigm that could be used to reliably probe social disconnection mechanisms across psychopathology.
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The social affiliation task reliably induces connectedness between unacquainted partners.
“This task reliably induces connectedness between unacquainted partners.(47)”
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- Authors
- Hoffman, S. N., Thomas, M. L., Pearlstein, S. L., Kakaria, S., Oveis, C., Stein, M. B., & Taylor, C. T.
- Affiliations
- San Diego State University (US)
- Colorado State University (US)
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Corresponding author
- Taylor, Charles T.
- Venue
- Behavior Therapy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-11
- Volume
- 52
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1464-1476
- ISSN
- 0005-7894 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8812488
- OpenAlex
- W3159840176
- Cited by
- 11
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3
- FWCI
- 1.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Behavior Therapy (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (21695)
- University of California, San Diego
- National Institute of Mental Health (R00MH090243, R61MH113769, UL1TR001442)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
- Keywords
- social affiliation, social connectedness, social anxiety, depressive disorders, psychometric properties, positive affect, negative affect, confederate interaction, social disconnection, relationship formation
- MeSH terms
- Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders, Depressive Disorder, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Psychometrics
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