Facilitating a benign interpretation bias in a high socially anxious population
Abstract
Previous research has shown that high socially anxious individuals lack the benign interpretation bias present in people without social anxiety. The tendency of high socially anxious people to generate more negative interpretations may lead to anticipated anxiety about future social situations. If so, developing a more benign interpretation bias could lead to a reduction in this anxiety. The current study showed that a benign interpretation bias could be facilitated (or 'trained') in a high socially anxious population. Participants in the benign training groups had repeated practice in accessing benign (positive or non-negative) interpretations of potentially threatening social scenarios. Participants in the control condition were presented with the same social scenarios but without their outcomes being specified. In a later recognition task, participants who received benign interpretation training generated more benign, and less negative, interpretations of new ambiguous social situations compared to the control group. Participants who received benign training also predicted that they would be significantly less anxious in a future social situation than those in the control group. Possible implications of the findings for therapeutic interventions in social phobia are discussed.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
People with anxiety commonly exhibit an interpretation bias, a tendency to automatically interpret ambiguous information in a negative manner.
“People with anxiety, on the other hand, commonly exhibit an 'interpretation bias,' which is a tendency to automatically interpret ambiguous information in a negative manner (e.g., that a yawn from a conversation partner indicates boredom; Amir et al., 2005; Murphy et al., 2007).”
From Acceptability and Co-Development of an Online Cognitive Bias Modification Intervention for Emerging Adults With Hazardous Alcohol Use and Social Anxiety: A Mixed Methods Study (2020) · cites this paper as Murphy et al., 2007
IBM can lead to a subsequent shift in social anxiety levels.
“which can lead to a subsequent shift in social anxiety levels (Bowler et al., 2012; Murphy et al., 2007; Salemink et al., 2009).”
From Acceptability and Co-Development of an Online Cognitive Bias Modification Intervention for Emerging Adults With Hazardous Alcohol Use and Social Anxiety: A Mixed Methods Study (2020) · cites this paper as Murphy et al., 2007
Cites
Kessler, R. C., Berglund, P., Demler, O., Jin, R., Merikangas, K. R., & Walters, E. E. (2005) · Archives of General Psychiatry · doi:10.1001/archpsyc.62.6.593 · Cited by 20,391 · see citing works
A cognitive-behavioral model of anxiety in social phobia
Rapee, R. M., & Heimberg, R. G. (1997) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/s0005-7967(97)00022-3 · Cited by 2,987 · see citing works
The conditioning theory of fearacquisition: A critical examination
Rachman, S. (1977) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/0005-7967(77)90041-9 · Cited by 1,191 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Alternatively, the development of a benign interpretative bias may have been due to a process similar to conditioning via informational acquisition (Rachman, 1977).”
BackgroundInduced emotional interpretation bias and anxiety.
Mathews, A., & Mackintosh, B. (2000) · Journal of Abnormal Psychology · doi:10.1037/0021-843x.109.4.602 · Cited by 739 · cited 7× · see citing works
“Mathews and Mackintosh (2000) were also able to train both positive and threatening interpretation biases in a community population.”
BackgroundMethodResultInfluentialSelf-citationClark, D. M., Ehlers, A., Hackmann, A., McManus, F., Fennell, M., Grey, N., Waddington, L., & Wild, J. (2006) · Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-006x.74.3.568 · Cited by 603 · see citing works
Self-citationCognitive biases in generalized social phobia
Foa, E. B., Franklin, M. E., Perry, K. J., & Herbert, J. D. (1996) · Journal of Abnormal Psychology · doi:10.1037/0021-843x.105.3.433 · Cited by 416 · see citing works
Positive Interpretation Training: Effects of Mental Imagery Versus Verbal Training on Positive Mood
Holmes, E. A., Mathews, A., Dalgleish, T., & Mackintosh, B. (2006) · Behavior Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.beth.2006.02.002 · Cited by 391 · see citing works
Negative interpretation bias in social phobia
Amin, N., Foa, E. B., & Coles, M. E. (1998) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/s0005-7967(98)00060-6 · Cited by 386 · see citing works
The causal role of interpretive bias in anxiety reactivity
Wilson, E. J., MacLeod, C., Mathews, A., & Rutherford, E. M. (2006) · Journal of Abnormal Psychology · doi:10.1037/0021-843x.115.1.103 · Cited by 262 · cited 3× · see citing works
“Participants were given an unrelated set of filler tasks to complete for the duration of 10 minutes after the training task: the Wechsler Symbol Search subtest (Wechsler, 1997) and Wechsler Digit Symbol - Symbol Copy subtest (Wechsler, 1997), both subsets of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, and a letter cancella…”
MethodInducing a benign interpretational bias reduces trait anxiety
Mathews, A., Ridgeway, V., Cook, E., & Yiend, J. (2007) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2006.10.011 · Cited by 171 · see citing works
Self-citationEnduring consequences of experimentally induced biases in interpretation
Yiend, J., Mackintosh, B., & Mathews, A. (2005) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2004.06.007 · Cited by 135 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Walusinski, O. (2018) · Georges Gilles de la Tourette · doi:10.1007/bf01535092 · Cited by 1,052
“Other studies have also found results concerning the effect of CBM-I on anxiety and other emotional outcomes to be more mixed than interpretation bias (Amir et al., 2010; Beard & Amir., 2008; MacDonald et al., 2013; Murphy et al., 2007; Steinman & Teachman, 2010).”
InfluentialA meta-analysis of the effect of cognitive bias modification on anxiety and depression
Hallion, L. S., & Ruscio, A. M. (2011) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/a0024355 · Cited by 891 · see citing works
Cognitive bias modification approaches to anxiety.
MacLeod, C., & Mathews, A. (2012) · Annual Review of Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032511-143052 · Cited by 617 · see citing works
“Murphy et al. (2007) selected participants with pre-existing high levels of social anxiety and exposed them to a single session of an auditory CBM-I procedure based on Mathews & Mackintosh’s (2000) task.”
MethodSelf-citationEfficacy of cognitive bias modification interventions in anxiety and depression: Meta-analysis
Cristea, I. A., Kok, R. N., & Cuijpers, P. (2015) · British Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.114.146761 · Cited by 553 · see citing works
“…C2 Lang et al (2012)44 Lester et al (2011)45 S1 Lester et al (2011)45 S2 Li et al (2008)46 Mackintosh et al (2006)47 S2 Mathews et al (2007)48 Murphy et al (2007)49 C1 Murphy et al (2007)49 C2 Najmi & Amir (2010)50 Neubauer et al (2013)51 Rapee et al (2013)52 Salemink et al (2007)53…”
A review of current evidence for the causal impact of attentional bias on fear and anxiety
Van Bockstaele, B., Verschuere, B., Tibboel, H., De Houwer, J., Crombez, G., & Koster, E. H. W. (2014) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/a0034834 · Cited by 485 · see citing works
A cognitive model of pathological worry
Hirsch, C. R., & Mathews, A. (2012) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2012.06.007 · Cited by 400 · see citing works
“…Baccus, Sakellaropoulo, & Pruessner, 2007; MacLeod, Rutherford, Campbell, Ebsworthy, & Holker, 2002; Mathews & MacLeod, 2002) and interpretation (Grey & Mathews, 2000, 2011; Mathews & Mackintosh, 2000; Murphy, Hirsch, Mathews, Smith, & Clark, 2007; Wilson, MacLeod, Mathews, & Rutherford, 2006).”
Self-citationHolmes, E. A., Lang, T. J., & Shah, D. M. (2009) · Journal of Abnormal Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0012590 · Cited by 400 · see citing works
Positive emotion regulation in emotional disorders: A theoretical review
Carl, J. R., Soskin, D. P., Kerns, C., & Barlow, D. H. (2013) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2013.01.003 · Cited by 391 · see citing works
Resolving Ambiguity in Emotional Disorders: The Nature and Role of Interpretation Biases
Hirsch, C. R., Meeten, F., Krahé, C., & Reeder, C. (2016) · Annual Review of Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-021815-093436 · Cited by 331 · see citing works
Self-citationBeard, C., & Amir, N. (2008) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2008.05.012 · Cited by 319 · see citing works
“With the exception of Murphy et al. (2007), researchers have only modified interpretation bias in non-anxious or generally anxious individuals.”
BackgroundResultKashdan, T. B., Weeks, J. W., & Savostyanova, A. A. (2011) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2011.03.012 · Cited by 258 · see citing works
“Following training, participants in the benign conditions (positive and non-negative) showed less negative interpretations of new ambiguous social situations and expected to be less anxious in future social situations compared to the untrained control group (Murphy et al., 2007).”
BackgroundMenne-Lothmann, C., Viechtbauer, W., Höhn, P., Kasanova, Z., Haller, S. P., Drukker, M., van Os, J., Wichers, M., & Lau, J. Y. F. (2014) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0100925 · Cited by 235 · see citing works
Brosschot, J., Verkuil, B., & Thayer, J. (2016) · Journal of Anxiety Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2016.04.012 · Cited by 226 · see citing works
“An often proposed cognitive bias explanation (e.g. Murphy et al., 2007) of this failure to learn social safety cues suffers from the shortcomings explained above: this explanation leaves the question unanswered where the bias itself comes from.”
BackgroundCognitive bias modification for anxiety: current evidence and future directions
Beard, C. (2011) · Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics · doi:10.1586/ern.10.194 · Cited by 222 · see citing works
Testing the efficacy of theoretically derived improvements in the treatment of social phobia.
Rapee, R. M., Gaston, J. E., & Abbott, M. J. (2009) · Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0014800 · Cited by 221 · see citing works
Foland-Ross, L. C., & Gotlib, I. H. (2012) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00489 · Cited by 197 · see citing works
“Further, positive CBM-I has been found to be effective in reducing negative interpretative biases in individuals who report high levels of anxiety (Mathews et al., 2007; Murphy et al., 2007; Salemink et al., 2009).”
BackgroundSocial anxiety and the interpretation of positive social events
Alden, L. E., Taylor, C. T., Mellings, T. M. J. B., & Laposa, J. M. (2008) · Journal of Anxiety Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2007.05.007 · Cited by 177 · see citing works
Looking on the bright side: Accessing benign meanings reduces worry
Hirsch, C. R., Hayes, S., & Mathews, A. (2009) · Journal of Abnormal Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0013473 · Cited by 175 · see citing works
“The 90 scenarios originally designed to induce an interpretive bias were presented to participants over headphones (following the method used by Holmes & Mathews, 2005; Holmes et al., 2006; and Murphy et al., 2007).”
MethodResultSelf-citationThe effects of modifying interpretation bias on worry in generalized anxiety disorder
Hayes, S., Hirsch, C. R., Krebs, G., & Mathews, A. (2010) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2009.10.006 · Cited by 167 · see citing works
Self-citationInterpretation in Social Anxiety: When Meaning Precedes Ambiguity
Beard, C., & Amir, N. (2009) · Cognitive Therapy and Research · doi:10.1007/s10608-009-9235-0 · Cited by 165 · see citing works
“Interpretation modification paradigms have shown positive effects on anticipated anxiety for a social interaction ( Murphy et al. 2007 ) and social anxiety symptoms (Beard and Amir 2008) in SA individuals.”
Bowler, J. O., Mackintosh, B., Dunn, B. D., Mathews, A., Dalgleish, T., & Hoppitt, L. (2012) · Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0029932 · Cited by 164 · see citing works
“Murphy, Hirsch, Mathews, Smith, and Clark (2007) reported that highly socially anxious individuals were trained to interpret novel stimuli benignly, interpreted new situations less negatively, and self-reported less anxiety about upcoming social events, compared with a control group.”
BackgroundSelf-citationGrafton, B., MacLeod, C., Rudaizky, D., Holmes, E. A., Salemink, E., Fox, E., & Notebaert, L. (2017) · British Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.115.176123 · Cited by 160 · see citing works
Amir, N., Bomyea, J., & Beard, C. (2009) · Journal of Anxiety Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2009.10.005 · Cited by 143 · see citing works
Brosan, L., Hoppitt, L., Shelfer, L., Sillence, A., & Mackintosh, B. (2011) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2010.12.006 · Cited by 139 · see citing works
Vassilopoulos, S., Banerjee, R., & Prantzalou, C. (2009) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2009.07.018 · Cited by 139 · see citing works
Amir, N., & Taylor, C. T. (2012) · Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0026928 · Cited by 136 · see citing works
“Previous studies have demonstrated that computerized CBM paradigms can induce selective interpretive biases of ambiguous material in non-clinical and analogue samples (e.g., Grey & Mathews, 2000; Mathews & Mackintosh, 2000; Murphy et al., 2007; Wilson et al., 2006).”
BackgroundResultCognitive bias modification training in adolescents: effects on interpretation biases and mood.
Lothmann, C., Holmes, E., Chan, S., & Lau, J. Y. F. (2011) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines · doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02286.x · Cited by 127 · see citing works
Perle, J. G., Langsam, L. C., Randel, A. B., Lutchman, S., Levine, A. B., Odland, A. P., Nierenberg, B. P., & Marker, C. D. (2012) · Journal of Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1002/jclp.21912 · Cited by 118 · see citing works
Morphed emotional faces: emotion detection and misinterpretation in social anxiety.
Heuer, K., Lange, W.-G., Isaac, L., Rinck, M., & Becker, E. (2010) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2010.04.005 · Cited by 109 · see citing works
Hirsch, C. R., Krahé, C., Whyte, J., Loizou, S., Bridge, L., Norton, S., & Mathews, A. (2018) · Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1037/ccp0000310 · Cited by 108 · see citing works
Self-citationMobini, S., Reynolds, S., & Mackintosh, B. (2013) · Cognitive Therapy and Research · doi:10.1007/s10608-012-9445-8 · Cited by 105 · see citing works
“So far, a few published studies (Beard and Amir 2008; Murphy et al. 2007; Turner et al. 2011) have used CBM procedures to modify interpretation biases in participants who have social anxiety.”
BackgroundModifying interpretations among individuals high in anxiety sensitivity
Steinman, S. A., & Teachman, B. (2010) · Journal of Anxiety Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2009.08.008 · Cited by 97 · see citing works
“This adds to the mounting evidence that interpretation-based CBM can change interpretations, even in highly anxious samples (e.g., Murphy et al., 2007; Teachman & Addison, 2008), and suggests that the interpretation styles of people with AS are not inflexible.”
BackgroundInfluentialTraining Implicit Social Anxiety Associations: An Experimental Intervention
Clerkin, E. M., & Teachman, B. (2010) · Journal of Anxiety Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2010.01.001 · Cited by 94 · see citing works
“Consistent with Murphy et al. (2007) , we hypothesized that creating healthier implicit associations would lead to fewer social anxiety symptoms associated with the speech.”
BackgroundInterpretation Bias in Social Anxiety as Detected by Event-Related Brain Potentials
Moser, J., Hajcak, G., Huppert, J., Foa, E., & Simons, R. (2008) · Emotion · doi:10.1037/a0013173 · Cited by 94 · see citing works
“A recent study by Murphy et al. (2007), however, showed that priming or “training” a positive interpretation bias through repeated exposure to positively resolved ambiguous scenarios resulted in a positive interpretation bias on a subsequent task and lower predicted anxiety ratings for a future…”
InfluentialDo anxious parents interpretive biases towards threat extend into their child's environment?
Lester, K., Field, A., Oliver, S., & Cartwright-Hatton, S. (2009) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2008.11.005 · Cited by 89 · see citing works
Happy but not so approachable: the social judgments of individuals with generalized social phobia
Campbell, D., Sareen, J., Stein, M. B., Kravetsky, L. B., Paulus, M. P., Hassard, S. T., & Reiss, J. (2009) · Depression and Anxiety · doi:10.1002/da.20474 · Cited by 85 · see citing works
“For example, a recent treatment protocol study([37]) demonstrates that facilitating benign or positive interpretations for high socially anxious individuals increased non-negative and positive recognition interpretations, decreased negative recognition interpretations, and reduced their predicted levels of anxiety abo…”
BackgroundResultInfluentialControversy clarified: an updated review of clinical psychology and tele-health
Perle, J. G., Langsam, L. C., & Nierenberg, B. (2011) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2011.08.003 · Cited by 83 · see citing works
Magnitude of negative interpretation bias depends on severity of depression.
Lee, J.-S., Mathews, A., Shergill, S., & Yiend, J. (2016) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2016.05.007 · Cited by 81 · see citing works
Self-citationModifying Threat-related Interpretive Bias in Adolescents
Salemink, E., & Wiers, R. (2011) · Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology · doi:10.1007/s10802-011-9523-5 · Cited by 80 · see citing works
“In adults, it has been shown that training individuals with high levels of anxiety to interpret ambiguous information in a positive way using CBM-I reduced their negative interpretive bias and associated self-reported anxious feelings (Mathews et al. 2007; Murphy et al. 2007; Salemink et al. 2009).”
Effects of cognitive bias modification on social anxiety: A meta-analysis
Liu, H.-N., Li, X.-W., Han, B.-X., & Liu, X. (2017) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0175107 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
“The potential moderating effects of the three categorical variables could not be explored: for type of bias and feedback, it was because only two studies examined the effects of CBM-I and feedback [65, 67], while for training setting, it was because only one study was delivered by the Internet [68].”
BackgroundTraining interpretation biases among individuals with symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder
Clerkin, E. M., & Teachman, B. (2011) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2011.01.003 · Cited by 76 · see citing works
“Indeed, past research using only one interpretation training session has often produced mixed findings tied to post-training emotional vulnerability (e.g., Murphy et al., 2007; Steinman & Teachman, 2010; Teachman & Addison, 2008).”
MethodResultMuris, P., Huijding, J., Mayer, B., Remmerswaal, D., & Vreden, S. (2009) · Journal of Anxiety Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2009.01.004 · Cited by 74 · see citing works
Muris, P., Huijding, J., Mayer, B., & Hameetman, M. (2008) · Child Psychiatry and Human Development · doi:10.1007/s10578-008-0103-z · Cited by 73 · see citing works
“Recent studies with adults have demonstrated that the training of a benign interpretation bias was effective in reducing trait anxiety [35] and social anxiety [36], and it would be interesting to study whether similar positive results can be achieved in high-anxious youths.”
ResultBlackwell, S., Woud, M., & MacLeod, C. (2017) · The Spanish Journal of Psychology · doi:10.1017/sjp.2017.41 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
Cognitive bias modification of interpretations: A viable treatment for child and adolescent anxiety?
Lau, J. Y. F. (2013) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2013.07.001 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
Chen, J., Milne, K., Dayman, J., & Kemps, E. (2018) · Cognition & Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699931.2018.1476323 · Cited by 80 · see citing works
Angry-happy interpretations of ambiguous faces in social anxiety disorder
Maoz, K. B., Eldar, S., Stoddard, J., Pine, D. S., Leibenluft, E., & Bar‐Haim, Y. (2016) · Psychiatry Research · doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2016.04.100 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
“, with feedback or repeated exposure to positive or benign resolutions of ambiguity) is associated with reduced anxiety levels (e.g., Amir and Taylor, 2012; Beard and Amir, 2008; Murphy et al., 2007).”
Fu, X.-X., Du, Y.-S., Au, S., & Lau, J. Y. F. (2013) · Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2012.11.003 · Cited by 66 · see citing works
Validation of the "recognition task" used in the training of interpretation biases.
Salemink, E., & van den Hout, M. (2010) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2009.11.006 · Cited by 65 · see citing works
“Pre- and post-measurement of anxiety showed that the positive training resulted in a reduction in anxiety (Mathews et al., 2007;Murphy et al., 2007; Salemink, van den Hout, & Kindt, 2009).”
BackgroundCognitive mechanisms underlying the emotional effects of bias modification
Hoppitt, L., Mathews, A., Yiend, J., & Mackintosh, B. (2010) · Applied Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1002/acp.1678 · Cited by 64 · see citing works
Self-citationNegative Interpretation Bias Mediates the Effect of Social Anxiety on State Anxiety
Beard, C., & Amir, N. (2010) · Cognitive Therapy and Research · doi:10.1007/s10608-009-9258-6 · Cited by 64 · see citing works
Biased interpretation in perfectionism and its modification
Yiend, J., Savulich, G., Coughtrey, A., & Shafran, R. (2011) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2011.10.004 · Cited by 59 · see citing works
Moser, J., Huppert, J., Foa, E., & Simons, R. (2012) · Biological Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2011.12.001 · Cited by 57 · see citing works
“, 2007; Stopa and Clark, 2000) and rate negative and ambiguous scenarios as being similar to each other (Amir et al., 1998; Huppert et al., 2003; Murphy et al., 2007).”
BackgroundChange Processes During Cognitive Bias Modification for Obsessive Compulsive Beliefs
Beadel, J. R., Smyth, F. L., & Teachman, B. (2014) · Cognitive Therapy and Research · doi:10.1007/s10608-013-9576-6 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
“…reduce interpretation biases and/or emotional vulnerability to anxiety-relevant stressors in various anxious samples (e.g., Mathews et al. 2007; Murphy et al. 2007; Steinman and Teachman 2010; Teachman and Addison 2008), including persons high in OCD symptoms (Clerkin and Teachman 2011).”
BackgroundModifying cognitive errors promotes cognitive well being: a new approach to bias modification.
Lester, K., Mathews, A., Davison, P., Burgess, J., & Yiend, J. (2011) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2011.01.001 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
Self-citationInterpretation Biases in Paranoia
Savulich, G., Freeman, D., Shergill, S., & Yiend, J. (2015) · Behavior Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.beth.2014.08.002 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
Mobini, S., Mackintosh, B., Illingworth, J. L., Gega, L., Langdon, P., & Hoppitt, L. (2014) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2013.12.002 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
“CBM-I method was a text-based computerised task in which participants were trained during a number of trials to consistently resolve ambiguous social situations in favour of either positive or neutral outcomes via completion of word stems (Mathews & Mackintosh, 2000; Murphy et al., 2007).”
MethodResultIs manipulation of mood a critical component of cognitive bias modification procedures?
Standage, H., Ashwin, C., & Fox, E. (2010) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2009.08.005 · Cited by 52 · see citing works
Cognitive Biases in Social Anxiety Disorder
Amir, N., & Bomyea, J. (2010) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-375096-9.00014-6 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Face value: eye movements and the evaluation of facial crowds in social anxiety.
Lange, W.-G., Heuer, K., Langner, O., Keijsers, G., Becker, E., & Rinck, M. (2011) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2011.02.007 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
The effects of social evaluation and looming threat on self-attentional biases and social anxiety.
Haikal, M., & Hong, R. (2010) · Journal of Anxiety Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2010.01.007 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Cognitive bias modification training in adolescents reduces anxiety to a psychological challenge
Lau, J. Y. F., Belli, S. R., & Chopra, R. (2013) · Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1177/1359104512455183 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
Savulich, G., Shergill, S., & Yiend, J. (2012) · Journal of Experimental Psychopathology · doi:10.5127/jep.016711 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
Generalisation of modified interpretive bias across tasks and domains
Salemink, E., van den Hout, M., & Kindt, M. (2010) · Cognition & Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699930802692053 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
“Note, however, that differential emotional responses to video fragments have been observed following CBM-I (Mackintosh et al., 2006; Murphy et al., 2007; Wilson et al., 2006).”
BackgroundResultYoon, K. L., Yang, J.-W., Chong, S., & Oh, K. (2014) · Cognitive Therapy and Research · doi:10.1007/s10608-014-9619-7 · Cited by 46
“In this regard, interpretation bias training paradigms in which socially anxious individuals are trained to adopt more benign interpretations (e.g., Murphy et al. 2007) might shift socially anxious individuals’ response criterion for threat information.”
BackgroundLester, K., Seal, K., Nightingale, Z. C., & Field, A. (2010) · Journal of Anxiety Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2009.09.004 · Cited by 46 · see citing works
The Plasticity of Adolescent Cognitions: Data from a Novel Cognitive Bias Modification Training Task
Lau, J. Y. F., Molyneaux, E., Telman, M. D., & Belli, S. R. (2011) · Child Psychiatry and Human Development · doi:10.1007/s10578-011-0244-3 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
“high trait anxiety/depression) has yielded similar beneficial effects on mood [19], negative thought intrusions [20, 21] and anxiety [22–27], presumably through modification of cognitive biases.”
BackgroundNaim, R., Kivity, Y., Bar-Haim, Y., & Huppert, J. (2018) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2017.10.006 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
Telman, M. D., Holmes, E., & Lau, J. Y. F. (2013) · Child Psychiatry and Human Development · doi:10.1007/s10578-013-0386-6 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
“A wide range of stressors has been used, from insolvable anagrams [36], emotional videos [30], imagined feared situations [38, 39] and negative mood inductions [40].”
BackgroundResultSocial Interaction Anxiety and the Discounting of Positive Interpersonal Events
Vassilopoulos, S., & Banerjee, R. (2010) · Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy · doi:10.1017/s1352465810000433 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
Future directions for child anxiety theory and treatment
Field, A., Cartwright-Hatton, S., Reynolds, S., & Creswell, C. (2008) · Cognition & Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699930701842270 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
“For example, recent research has shown that information-processing biases can be trained and that once trained these biases have a causal effect on anxiety (eg, Mathews & MacLeod, 2002 ); this has in turn led to interventions that reduce anxiety by training benign information-processing biases in place of ones that ma…”
BackgroundTransmission of Cognitive Bias and Fear From Parents to Children: An Experimental Study
Remmerswaal, D., Muris, P., & Huijding, J. (2016) · Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology · doi:10.1080/15374416.2014.987378 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Lester, K., Field, A., & Muris, P. (2011) · Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology · doi:10.1080/15374416.2011.618449 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
“This discrepancy in findings also mirrors the inconsistent picture seen in the adult CBM-I literature, with several studies reporting increases in state anxiety following negative bias modification and/or decreases following positive modification (Mackintosh et al, 2006 ; Mathews & Mackintosh, 2000 ; Salemink et al, 2…”
ResultMacdonald, E. M., Koerner, N., & Antony, M. (2013) · Cognitive Therapy and Research · doi:10.1007/s10608-012-9519-7 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
“Participants who received either positive or nonnegative CBM training endorsed significantly more positive interpretations on a subsequent interpretation task compared with individuals in a no-training condition (Murphy et al. 2007).”
BackgroundMethodPositivity impairment as a broad-based feature of social anxiety.
Gilboa‐Schechtman, E., Shachar, I., & Sahar, Y. (2014) · The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Social Anxiety Disorder · doi:10.1002/9781118653920.ch19 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
Effects of modifying the interpretation of emotional ambiguity
Mathews, A. (2012) · Journal of Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1080/20445911.2011.584527 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
“Building on an earlier finding with unselected volunteers that interpretation training influenced anticipated anxiety about a stressful social situation (Hirsch, Mathews, & Clark, 2007), Murphy, Hirsch, Mathews, Smith, and Clark ( 2007 ) tested the effects of an adapted form of this training with selected participants…”
BackgroundSelf-citationSteinman, S. A., & Teachman, B. (2014) · Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0036023 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Specificity Effects in the Modification of Interpretation Bias and Stress Reactivity
Mackintosh, B., Mathews, A., Eckstein, D., & Hoppitt, L. (2013) · Journal of Experimental Psychopathology · doi:10.5127/jep.025711 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
“Similarly, in a study involving socially anxious individuals (Murphy et al., 2007), training items were all ambiguous social descriptions that were either resolved in a benign manner or (in a control condition) left ambiguous.”
BackgroundResultInfluentialSelf-citationCognitive bias modification of interpretation in children with social anxiety disorder
Orchard, F., Apetroaia, A., Clarke, K., & Creswell, C. (2017) · Journal of Anxiety Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2016.10.012 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Internet-based interpretation bias modification for social anxiety: A pilot study
Brettschneider, M., Neumann, P., Berger, T., Renneberg, B., & Boettcher, J. (2015) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2015.04.008 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Comparing visual and auditory presentation for the modification of interpretation bias
Standage, H., Ashwin, C., & Fox, E. (2009) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2009.07.006 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Multi-session online interpretation bias training for anxiety in a community sample
Ji, J. L., Baee, S., Zhang, D., Calicho-Mamani, C., Meyer, M. J., Funk, D. H., Portnow, S., Barnes, L. E., & Teachman, B. A. (2021) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2021.103864 · Cited by 45 · see citing works
Huppert, J., Kivity, Y., Cohen, L., Strauss, A. Y., Elizur, Y., & Weiss, M. (2018) · Journal of Anxiety Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2018.08.002 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
Is cognitive bias modification training truly beneficial for adolescents?
Chan, S., Lau, J., & Reynolds, S. (2015) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines · doi:10.1111/jcpp.12368 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
Grynberg, D., Gidron, Y., Denollet, J., & Luminet, O. (2011) · Journal of behavioral medicine · doi:10.1007/s10865-011-9351-7 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
“These cognitive interventions could be based on the ones already validated for socially anxious participants (Beard & Amir, 2008; Murphy et al., 2007 ).”
BackgroundLange, W.-G., Allart, E., Keijsers, G., Rinck, M., & Becker, E. (2012) · Cognitive Behaviour Therapy · doi:10.1080/16506073.2012.666563 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
“Hirsch & Mathews, 2000 ; Joormann & Gotlib, 2007 ; Murphy, Hirsch, Mathews, Smith, & Clark, 2007 ).”
Bowler, J. O., Hoppitt, L., Illingworth, J. L., Dalgleish, T., Ononaiye, M., Perez-Olivas, G., & Mackintosh, B. (2017) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2016.08.011 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
“This appears to be in contrast to previous studies that have shown successful use of CBM to reduce high anxiety in non-clinical populations (e.g., Beard & Amir, 2008; Murphy et al., 2007; Salemink et al., 2009).”
ResultSalemink, E., de Jong, S. R. C., Notebaert, L., MacLeod, C., & van Bockstaele, B. (2022) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2022.101727 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Does Modified Interpretation Bias Influence Automatic Avoidance Behaviour
Lange, W.-G., Salemink, E., Windey, I., Keijsers, G., Krans, J., Becker, E., & Rinck, M. (2010) · Applied Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1002/acp.1679 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Examining the Relationships Among Social Anxiety, Fears of Evaluation, and Interpretation Bias
Dryman, M., & Heimberg, R. (2015) · Cognitive Therapy and Research · doi:10.1007/s10608-015-9694-4 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
“Additionally, training high SA individuals to make more positive interpretations of ambiguous social situations resulted in reductions of SA and predictions of lower SA in the future (Beard and Amir 2008; Murphy et al. 2007).”
BackgroundSteinman, S. A., & Teachman, B. (2014) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2014.12.004 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Lau, J., & Pile, V. (2015) · Clinical Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/2167702614549596 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Butler, E., Mobini, S., Rapee, R., Mackintosh, B., & Reynolds, S. (2015) · Cogent Psychology · doi:10.1080/23311908.2015.1011905 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
“…anxiety in non-clinical or clinical social anxiety (e.g. Amir & Taylor, 2012; Beard & Amir, 2008; Beard, Weisberg, & Amir, 2011; Bowler et al., 2012; Khalili-Torghabeh, Salehi Fadardi, Mackintosh, Reynolds, & Mobini, 2014; Mobini et al., 2014; Murphy, Hirsch, Mathews, Smith, & Clark, 2007).”
ResultRomano, M., Moscovitch, D., Saini, P., & Huppert, J. (2020) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2020.103651 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Impact of imagery-enhanced interpretation training on offline and online interpretations in worry
Feng, Y.-C., Krahé, C., Meeten, F., Sumich, A. L., Mok, C. L. M., & Hirsch, C. R. (2019) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2019.103497 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Self-citationComorbid Interpretation and Expectancy Bias in Social Anxiety and Alcohol Use
Chow, P. I., Portnow, S., Zhang, D., Salemink, E., Wiers, R., & Teachman, B. (2018) · Anxiety, Stress, & Coping · doi:10.1080/10615806.2018.1521958 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
“…that those high (vs. low) in social anxiety are quicker to recognize visual cues that convey social threat (e.g., faces displaying anger; Mogg, Philippot, & Bradley, 2004), and assign more negative interpretations to ambiguous social contexts (e.g., Murphy, Hirsch, Mathews, Smith, & Clark, 2007).”
Clerkin, E. M., Magee, J. C., & Parsons, E. M. (2014) · Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.jocrd.2014.07.002 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Valence weiGhtinG aS a Predictor oF eMotional reactiVity to a StreSSFul Situation
Pietri, E. S., Fazio, R., & Shook, N. J. (2012) · Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1521/jscp.2012.31.7.746 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Prior, K., Salemink, E., Wiers, R. W., Teachman, B. A., Piggott, M., Newton, N. C., Teesson, M., Baillie, A. J., Campbell, S., & Stapinski, L. A. (2020) · Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research · doi:10.1111/acer.14452 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
“A recent review of meta-analyses on CBM training paradigms showed that single- or multi-session IBM can successfully modify negative interpretations of ambiguity (Jones and Sharpe, 2017), which can lead to a subsequent shift in social anxiety levels (Bowler et al., 2012; Murphy et al., 2007; Salemink et al., 2009).”
BackgroundFeng, Y.-C., Krahé, C., Sumich, A. L., Meeten, F., Lau, J. Y. F., & Hirsch, C. R. (2019) · Biological Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2019.107746 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Murphy, R., Hirsch, C. R., Mathews, A., Smith, K., & Clark, D. M.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Davis (US)
- University College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Murphy, Rebecca
- Venue
- Behaviour Research and Therapy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2007-07
- Volume
- 45
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 1517-1529
- ISSN
- 0005-7967 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2025777566
- Cited by
- 198
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 17.49
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Behaviour Research and Therapy (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (069777)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychological Treatments and Assessments
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Keywords
- social anxiety, interpretation training, social anxiety disorder, cognitive bias modification, ambiguous social situations, anxiety prediction, therapeutic interventions
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Anxiety, Cognition, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Interview, Psychological, Learning, Male, Phobic Disorders, Self Concept, Social Behavior, Social Perception, Time Factors
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
