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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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Posted by pseudoname on June 19, 2006, at 19:36:26
[from the BPS Research Digest]
People with social phobia experience extreme anxiety when they mix with other people. Now a study has shown their memories for social events tend to be experienced as if looking in on themselves from another person’s perspective. And they also contain more information about their own thoughts and behaviour at the expense of detail on what other people were saying or doing, and other sensory detail.
Arnaud D’Argembeau and colleagues made these observations after asking 17 sufferers of social phobia and 17 non-anxious controls to recollect four specific experiences from the last year: a positive and negative social event, and a positive and negative non-social event. The memory differences they observed applied to both negative and positive social events, but not to non-social events.
“As suggested by cognitive models of social phobia, people with social phobia may focus their attention on themselves both while experiencing social situations and while reviewing these situations afterwards, thus favouring the encoding and consolidation of self-referential information in memory”, the researchers concluded.
Speaking to the Digest, lead author Arnaud D’Argembeau explained the implications of these findings for treating social phobia: “Encouraging patients to remember their social experiences in a more balanced manner, by focusing less on themselves and more on how others actually behaved in the situation, may help them to reinterpret their experiences in a more positive manner and may therefore contribute to reduce negative beliefs and expectations regarding their social environment”.
• D’Argemeau, Van der Linden, d’Acremont, & Mayers (2006) “Phenomenal characteristics of autobiographical memories for social and non-social events in social phobia”. Memory 14:637-647 http://tinyurl.com/q5jhr
Posted by pseudoname on June 19, 2006, at 19:40:02
In reply to Social phobics’ memories focus on themselves, posted by pseudoname on June 19, 2006, at 19:36:26
> “Encouraging patients to remember their social experiences in a more balanced manner, by focusing less on themselves […] may therefore contribute to reduce negative beliefs and expectations regarding their social environment”.
Yeah, maybe. Worth a shot, surely. But cause-and-effect hasn't been established yet. Still, it's a very interesting observation.
Posted by curtm on June 19, 2006, at 21:52:06
In reply to Interesting… but…, posted by pseudoname on June 19, 2006, at 19:40:02
> > “Encouraging patients to remember their social experiences in a more balanced manner, by focusing less on themselves […] may therefore contribute to reduce negative beliefs and expectations regarding their social environment”.
>
> Yeah, maybe. Worth a shot, surely. But cause-and-effect hasn't been established yet. Still, it's a very interesting observation.Very interesting indeed. I could easily apply this to my own situations that I and others "suffer" from due to my own irrational behavior and actions in daily life. But, how do I go about doing such a thing?
more balanced manner? focusing less on themselves? reduce negative beliefs and expectations?
I could use some good insight. This hypothesis could fit me to a "t." Anything helps at this point. I don't think I've introduced myself to you before. I hope to get to know you better sometime.
Curt
Posted by Jost on June 19, 2006, at 22:38:55
In reply to Re: Interesting… but… » pseudoname, posted by curtm on June 19, 2006, at 21:52:06
One might want to distinguish what people foreground in telling a story from what they literally remember-- unless you use the word remember colloquially to mean the description when asked that question.
ie, if someone asks me what I remember, I'm going to tell them what's important about the situation, not literally what I remember. I might remember lots of stuff I wouldn't mention. It's question of what kind of narrative I'm interested in, not what I literally could regurgitate.
So they may have discovered that people with social phobia focus on, or are most affected by, the parts of a situation that involved their own imagined failings, unimportance, etc. Which would simply describe in other words what "social phobia" is-- rather than giving any causal or deeply explanatory, information.
Guess I'd have to know exactly what they did to know if I thought they had gotten at memory per se..
Jost.
Posted by curtm on June 19, 2006, at 22:50:12
In reply to Re: Interesting… but…, posted by Jost on June 19, 2006, at 22:38:55
Maybe not phobia related, but I remember the girl that kicked my nards in the fourth grade. I remember the kid that chipped my tooth in the second grade. I even remember things from when I was four years old!!
How do I relive those situations and sympathize with the other individual/s?
Posted by Dinah on June 20, 2006, at 0:24:00
In reply to Social phobics’ memories focus on themselves, posted by pseudoname on June 19, 2006, at 19:36:26
Of course they would, if their fears center around their behavior.
I'm afraid of vomit, and my memories of many events are focussed on vomit (even if no actual vomiting occurred).
It's like those scenes in movies where someone is asked to describe a traumatic event, and all they can remember is the gun, or other objects that arouse fear.
I'm not sure any cause and effect relationship can be established beyond the one that what is feared is remembered better than what is neutral.
Posted by pseudoname on June 20, 2006, at 9:28:40
In reply to Re: Interesting… but… » pseudoname, posted by curtm on June 19, 2006, at 21:52:06
> I could use some good insight. This hypothesis could fit me to a "t." Anything helps at this point.
Yeah. Like Jost & Dinah said, the authors' assumptions about their results are a little circular, but I think the connections in our minds often work in both directions, so (I think) attacking any one characteristic of a socially phobic mindset could have lots of good results. If you try it, please post about it.
> I don't think I've introduced myself to you before.
Pleased to meet you I'm sure. ;-)
> I hope to get to know you better sometime.
What a nice thing to say; likewise. I'll try to be at the Babble birthday party next year. (Don't know where or when it will be yet....) Going by the experiences I & others had at the previous ones, I think you'd enjoy it — and social phobia won't be a problem!
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