Cognitive processes in social anxiety: the effects of self-focus, rumination and anticipatory processing

“Rumination has also been linked to self-reported symptoms of generalized anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and social anxiety (Fresco et al., 2002; Mellings & Alden, 2000; Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow, 1991), and it seems to work as a predictor of anxiety and depressive symptoms (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000).”

“The results of recent studies suggest robust association between rumination and stress (LeMoult 2013) and the impact of rumination on anxiety disorders in adults (McLaughlin & Nolen-Hoeksema 2011, Fresco et al. 2002, Harrington & Blankenship 2002, Mellings & Alden 2000).”

“The fear of negative evaluation curtails individuals’ motivation for social engagement, consequently diminishing opportunities to correct these fearful anticipations (Ottenbreit et al., 2014; Mellings et al., 2000).”

“Correspondingly, Mellings and Alden (2000) showed that the more a person’s attentional focus was on their own thoughts, the less they were able to process information about the partner.”

“It has been found to be present in all phases of bipolar disorder, associated with symptoms of depression, hypomania, and anxiety [16], and has been shown to have a higher level in social anxiety than in non-anxious subjects [17].”

“For example, highly socially anxious patients have been found to ruminate more often (Mellings & Alden, 2000) and the contents of their rumination are more negative (Abbott & Rapee, 2004).”

“…2013) – tend to interpret even typical social situations as potentially threatening (e.g., Amir, Foa, & Coles, 1998; de Jong, Merckelbach, Bögels, & Kindt, 1998; Mellings & Alden, 2000; Voncken, Bögels, & de Vries, 2003; Wells, Clark, & Ahmad, 1998; for a review see Heinrichs & Hofmann, 2001).”

“counters and failures (Mellings and Alden 2000).”

“The Rumination Questionnaire was adapted to make the questions relevant to the specific stressor used in this study (i.e., the arithmetic task).”

“…to a variety of psychopathologies, with elevated levels of self-focus being theorized to contribute to the etiology of both internalizing (Bögels & Mansell, 2004; Clark & Wells, 1995; Mellings & Alden, 2000; Watkins & Teasdale, 2001) and externalizing disorders (Hull, 1981; Hull et al., 1986).”

“A lot of studies have shown that patients with SAD appraise their own performance more negatively than ratings made by others (Alden & Wallace, 1995; Mellings & Alden, 2000; Abbott & Rapee, 2004).”

“Social anxiety is largely influenced by biased cognitive phenomena (Clark & Wells, 1995; Heinrichs & Hofmann, 2004; Mellings & Alden, 2000; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997).”

“In fact, PEP contributes to the tendency to recall negative self-related information and affect biased interpretations (Makkar & Grisham, 2013; Mellings & Alden, 2000).”

“…in social anxiety include attentional biases (Amir et al., 2003; Fox et al., 2002), memory biases (e.g. Hope et al., 1990; LeMoult & Joormann, 2012; Mellings & Alden, 2000), and perceptual biases in interpreting social cues, especially cues related to threat (e.g. Amin et al., 1998;…”

“…recol-lections of perceived flaws and mistakes during post-event processing generate increased anxiety in anticipation of an upcoming social event and reduce the desire to engage socially with others over time (Blackie & Kocovski, 2018; Brozovich & Heinberg, 2013; Mellings & Alden, 2000 ).”

“The RQ is another measure that has 5-items used to measure postevent rumination, specifically in relation to a social interaction task (Mellings & Alden, 2000).”

“Decreased connectivity between the limbic (GM4) and lateral temporal networks (WM6) Cognitive models propose that biases in information processing may contribute to the maintenance of SAD (Heimberg, 1995; Mellings and Alden, 2000).”

“Research has shown that rumination can lead to negative outcomes such as negative self-evaluation (Lyubomirsky et al., 2003), anxiety (Mellings & Alden, 2000), pessimistic thinking (Lyubomirsky & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1995), anger (Rusting & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1998), fatigue (Akerstedt et al., 2004), and…”

“As shown in clinical (e.g., Abbott and Rapee 2004; Kocovski and Rector 2008) and non-clinical student samples (e.g., Mellings and Alden 2000; Rachman et al.”

“Furthermore, research suggests that individuals high in social anxiety preferentially attend to internal threat cues such as one’s own arousal, behavior, thoughts, and emotions (Mansell, Clark, & Ehlers, 2003; Mellings & Alden, 2000).”

“Observational studies have found a positive association between elevated self-focused attention and PEP (Mellings & Alden, 2000; Rapee & Abbott, 2007), as well an indirect positive relationship between AB towards external threats (disgusted faces) and PEP, mediated by subjective emotional…”

“However, these mechanisms maintain disordered eating habits, exacerbate negative affect and are linked to psychopathology (Mellings and Alden, 2000; Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000; Gilbert and Irons, 2005; Verhaeghen et al., 2005; Dunkley and Grilo, 2007; Michael et al., 2007; Surrence et al., 2009; Barnes et…”

“…(e.g., avoidance behaviors, memory perspectives, Fehm et al., 2008; Rachman et al., 2000; whether thoughts were positive, negative or neutral, Mellings & Alden, 2000; experiencing shame, Fehm et al., 2008 ; reflecting on whether one has learned anything from a stressful event, forcing self…”

“People with high social anxiety have been shown to have a higher degree of self-focused attention than those with low social anxiety (Bögels et al., 1996; Mellings & Alden, 2000).”

“…hyperarousal and intrusive re-experiencing, especially in the form of distorted self-images linked to early socially aversive events (Bjornsson et al., 2020; Carleton et al., 2011; Edwards et al., 2003; Erwin et al., 2006; Hackmann et al., 2000; Mellings & Alden, 2000; Rachman et al., 2000).”

“…feelings as well as negative appraisals of the self, the perceived visibility of one’s anxiety, negative evaluations of one’s social performance, and memories of prior perceived social failures (Clark & McManus, 2002; Gilboa-Schechtman, Franklin, & Foa, 2000; Mellings & Alden, 2000; Wells, 1997).”

“…arose as a strong predictor of Study-holism among Italian college (Loscalzo & Giannini, 2019) and adolescent (Loscalzo, 2021) students, in line with previous literature about worry as a risk factor for internalizing disorders, including OCD (e.g., Comer et al., 2004 ; Mellings & Alden, 2000 ).”

“Indeed, several studies have found that higher levels of invol-untary responses to stress are associated with elevated levels of anxious and depressive symptoms among youth as well as adults (Abela & Hankin, 2011; Flynn & Rudolph, 2011; Mellings & Alden, 2000).”

“…of rumination to deplete an individual’s health and personal resources has been well featured in occupational and health psychology literature (Berset et al., 2011; Guastella & Moulds, 2007; Lyubomirsky et al., 1998; Mellings & Alden, 2000; Vahle-Hinz, Bamberg, Dettmers, Friedrich & Keller, 2014).”

“the findings of Segal et al. (2002), Baer (2003), Baer et al.”

“This study adds to the growing body of evidence that post-event processing is related to social anxiety (Edwards, Rapee, & Franklin, 2003; Mellings & Alden, 2000; Rachman et al., 2000), especially in the context of performance events (Makkar & Grisham, 2011).”

“Mellings and Alden (2000) found that the frequency of post-event rumination predicted the recall of negative self-related information in a social event.”

“As a result, the individual with SAD anticipates social mishaps and engages in avoidance and/or safety behaviors (Wells et al., 1995), followed by post-event rumination ( Mellings & Alden, 2000; Rachmann, Gruter-Andrew, & Shafran, 2000).”

“This biased cognitive style has been associated with heightened subjective perceptions of social incompetence, with some studies indicating that individuals high in social anxiety often evaluate their social performance more negatively than independent observers do [82, 94, 112].”

“This anxiety-driven vigilance intensifies nega - tive self-focus, lowers the threshold for perceiving external threats, and amplifies social anxiety, creating a vicious cycle (Hirsch et al., 2003; Mellings & Alden, 2000).”

“Cognitive theories suggest that distortions in how information is processed might influence the persistence of anxiety disorders (Mellings and Alden, 2000).”

“Similarly, associations with post-event processing (Cody & Teachman, 2010; Dannahy & Stopa, 2007; Mellings & Alden, 2000) should be studied.”

“, 1995] or obsessive “scrolling” of the same thoughts in the head [Mellings and Alden, 2000; Rachmann, et al., 2000] are inappropriate.”

“…studies examining aspects of CWM including self-report measures of negative evaluative cognitions (e.g. Wong and Moulds, 2009) and self-focus (e.g. Mellings and Alden, 2000), experimental tasks measuring degrees of post-event processing (Field, Psychol and Morgan, 2004) and attention bias (e.g.…”

“Because classroom mental and social climate is effective in quitting school or studying, skipping classes, sadness and depression, students resisting against teachers, lack of comradeship among students, lack of satisfaction and interest in studying and learning (19).”

“Greater recall of negative self-related information has been associated with post-event rumination in young adults (Mellings & Alden, 2000), although the direction of influence has not been well established.”

“Research has demonstrated that socially anxious individuals use negative self-related information to make overly negative judgments about how they appear to others (e.g., Alden & Mellings, 2004; Arntz et al., 1995; Mansell & Clark, 1999; McEwan & Devins, 1983; Mellings & Alden, 2000).”

“Prior to a social stressor (e.g., public speaking), socially anxious individuals anticipate negative outcomes, which elicits elevated distress levels compared to nonanxious individuals (Hinrichsen and Clark 2003; Mellings and Alden 2000; Vassilopoulos 2005).”

“…first place and instead show an inappropriate amount of attention to the self and their internal states (Adamis et al., 2025; Mansell et al., 2003; Mellings & Alden, 2000; Poole & Henderson, 2022; see also Crozier, 1979 and Melchior & Cheek, 1990) that can lead to slower reaction times and poorer…”

“This interpretation is consistent with previous research suggesting that cognitive and reflective activity tends to decrease during social events (Askari & Zia-Tohidi, 2023; Mellings & Alden, 2000; Wadsworth, 2014).”

“…across other mental health conditions, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, social anxiety disorder, and bipolar disorder (Hearn et al., 2017; Mellings & Alden, 2000; Moulds et al., 2020; Sarisoy et al., 2014; Silveira & Kauer-Sant’Anna, 2015; Tull et al., 2011), highlighting their potential…”