Social Anxiety and Mental Imagery Processes.

objectiveMental imagery has featured prominently in several disorders. The recurrent and distressing imagery reported by individuals with social phobia is often that of a previously experienced event and such imagery is proposed to contribute to the maintenance of the disorder in contemporary cognitive models. The aims of the present study were to investigate which imagery processes (generation, maintenance, inspection and transformation) are most relevant to differentiate the performances of socially anxious individuals from those who are non-socially anxious, and that play a pivotal role in social phobia.

methodSixty-two undergraduate volunteer students were recruited from an Italian university, age range 18-23 (M 19.34, SD 1.27), 23 males and 39 females. We used a standardized battery, the

resultsResults shown that socially anxious students were impaired in MIT total score, and particularly in the imagined paths tasks and clock test, significantly more than non-anxious individuals. In overall group, total score was negatively associated with social anxiety, and the imagine paths test was the best predictor of social anxiety.

conclusionsThe current findings suggest that social anxiety is differently influenced by specific tasks of imagery based on the type of component involved in imaginative processes.