The Effect of the Decreased Safety Behaviors on Anxiety and Negative Thoughts in Social Phobics

In order to examine the effect of the decreased safety behaviors on social anxiety and negative thoughts and explore the mechanism underlying this effect, this study compared three types of exposure namely, exposure with decreased safety behaviors under cognitive rationale, exposure with decreased safety behaviors under extinction rationale, and exposure with no change in safety behavior. Forty-five social phobics were randomly assigned to one of three exposure groups. Results showed that exposure with decreased safety behaviors under cognitive rationale produced significantly greater reductions in anxiety and belief ratings for feared outcomes than exposure with decreased safety behaviors under extinction rationale and exposure with no change in safety behaviors. These results imply that exposure could be more effective if social phobics are encouraged to drop their safety behaviors in the feared social situation, and that the cognitive process of disconfirmation of negative thoughts is the critical element in determining effectiveness of decreased safety behaviors.