# Study on Social anxiety social incompetence and working memory, feedback welcome!



## Nyes (Feb 16, 2010)

Hi, im a 3rd year undergrad looking to set up a study on Social anxiety, 
I count myself in as one with has social anxiety. anyhow based on my own experiences i would like to explore the notion that those with S.A percieved by themselves or others as social incompetent\awkward do not inherently lack social awareness, but as a result of their condition display externally those behaviours assosiated with social incompetance.

Using the the Clark and Wells model. I would like to investigate the 
process whereby when in a social situation those with s.a percieve threat , as a result regulating behaviours take place - in particular exssesive self monitoring - that is an internal shift of attention to ones own behaviour, actions , and the percieved judgement of others.
This then limits the the space for working memory to deal with social processing, and thus we fail to remember names, respond fluently, ect ect. 

have a few ideas how i might go about this but any thoughts, comments , ideas very much appreciated. thankyou.


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## haikupoet (Feb 9, 2010)

The theory sounds good. I have good memory and am fluent in thoughts and speaking when I am not around people or recording my voice. If I try to, say read a poem I've written to record it, I begin fail. When I was in guitar class, I always failed when playing in front of the class. I notice these are very psychological, for example, if try to record my guitar playing, I can feel the slight tension, the slight loss of fluency, in the rhythm I was just playing. As soon as the recorder is running I'm less fluent and can hear a subtle change in the playing.

I've used silent mantras to push the negative or monitoring thoughts out of my conscious mind.

Most dating advice sites say men fear rejection, well, I don't like it, but that's not why I don't ask girls out, its because I fear public humiliation of asking the girl out in a public place. Not being rejected, but being socially awkward in public, not following the unwritten rules and offending the girl and her letting everyone know I'm a social idiot.


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## QuackQuack (Mar 18, 2008)

haikupoet said:


> but that's not why I don't ask girls out, its because I fear public humiliation of asking the girl out in a public place. Not being rejected, but being socially awkward in public, not following the unwritten rules and offending the girl and her letting everyone know I'm a social idiot.


That's what the Internet is for


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## fallingdownonmyface (Dec 3, 2006)

My memory is bad.


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## Star Zero (Jun 1, 2010)

Nyes said:


> Hi, im a 3rd year undergrad looking to set up a study on Social anxiety,
> I count myself in as one with has social anxiety. anyhow based on my own experiences i would like to explore the notion that those with S.A percieved by themselves or others as social incompetent\awkward do not inherently lack social awareness, but as a result of their condition display externally those behaviours assosiated with social incompetance.
> 
> Using the the Clark and Wells model. I would like to investigate the
> ...


My memory is awful, and when talking online i can express what my mind wants to say perfectly. Seeing it written, it comes out so much easier. With my voice i speak like a fumbling idiot, the words never come out the way i want them to. While i've been trying to look people in the eyes as we talk, i feel like my facial expression shows i'm in pain, like i'm staring into the sun. it's very uncomfortable, knowing someone is looking at you and feeling contorted, like all of your imperfections become amplified under a microscope as soon as you open your mouth. There's the giant words SOCIALLY AWKWARD written on my forehead, but they might be invisible to others...


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## QuackQuack (Mar 18, 2008)

Same here


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## BubbleKitty (Jul 11, 2012)

*Yes!*

Star Zero- No one has ever explained my own experiences so well, I guess this is not uncommon, I never knew, I never knew ... I can totally relate.Dunbar quality life center

Okay NYES - I have a suggestion: We all have certain behaviors that are common with this type of psychological behavior, if I'm using the right words, maybe you could measure these behaviors somehow? For instance excessive self monitoring allows us to describe in detail our experience as sufferers of S.A. which prevents us from retaining information about others. It is also correct that when I am comfortable with someone my social incompetence seems to disappear. Just because I can talk to this person and am comfortable with little to no social awkwardness does not reduce my inability to remember details about this person; why? because I am still self monitoring, I am either thinking or worrying about myself or I am talking about myself to this person. (It takes a lot of work to forget about myself and over my fears from s.a. and focus on someone else.) Well the test is: if you can interview S.A. sufferers, compared to non-sufferers, make both comfortable ( Both group-a, test-1), and have them talk about themselves (talk about the same subject or category). In the end ask them multiple option questions about the interviewer and see who remembered most details. compare both s.a.sufferers and non-sufferers. (in group a) scores to see if blabbing about themselves effects the ability to process memory about the interviewer. Then do the test (test-2) again with the same people (group-a, test-2), and also bring in a new group to interview (group-b, test-2), and tell them they have to remember details about the interviewer. Do not tell them which details, but make certain details about the interviewer obvious (like a red hat, mention name and other info. once inconspicuously, speaks differently) This interviewer has to be a different person from the first and new category for this. Then compare the three groups/test results of S.A. peeps with non-Sufferers (group-a, test-1 v.s. group-b, test-2 v.s. group-a, test-2). Remember each group has both sufferers and non-sufferers, essentially you only need two groups because you interview one group twice.


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## messyjess (Sep 2, 2012)

This is very interesting as my working memory seems to be horrible


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## Dylan2 (Jun 3, 2012)

Nyes said:


> This then limits the the space for working memory to deal with social processing, and thus we fail to remember names, respond fluently, ect ect.


I know this thread is long dead but... do people with social anxiety disorder really experience a lack of working memory_ space_ for social events, or are they simply not recording these events in the first place? You're suggesting a memory problem, but I would argue that an attention problem is more likely.

Also, I'll bet one of the more cognitively oriented social anxiety disorder researchers has already examined something like this. Maybe Lynn Alden.


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## Der Ubermensch (Oct 30, 2012)

Dylan2 said:


> I know this thread is long dead but... do people with social anxiety disorder really experience a lack of working memory_ space_ for social events, or are they simply not recording these events in the first place? You're suggesting a memory problem, but I would argue that an attention problem is more likely.
> 
> Also, I'll bet one of the more cognitively oriented social anxiety disorder researchers has already examined something like this. Maybe Lynn Alden.


I think he has a point, usually when I get into very anxious situations I lose all focus whatsoever and have trouble maintaining it. I get easily startled and distracted and if you tell me something trivial you can be sure in the next 5 minutes I will have forgoten it already unless I'm forcing myself to pay extra attention !


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## hoddesdon (Jul 28, 2011)

Actually, the point about social awareness was an issue during the CBT course I did. The organizers agreed with you, but I am not so sure. An exercise during an early session was to speak to someone while focussing on yourself, which sounds like the Clark and Wells model. It was hard to do that.


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## Chappy02 (Sep 27, 2012)

Have participants do a computer simulation task.


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## VII (Mar 10, 2009)

Makes me think of the fight-or-flight response and the cascade of hormones it brings on. Social awkwardness due to the flood of hormones putting you in a more energetic, protective state rather than rational state, and the loss of being able to think properly combined with self-monitoring definitely makes sense to describe what's going on.


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## Greenwick (Oct 12, 2012)

I have trouble remembering things in general, and I get confused about details (both big or small.). It just becomes worse in conversation. I'll assume I'm making sense, but then the other party to the conversation thinks something entirely different. This has happened to me in online conversations too, but it's easier for me to explain myself since I can make a big, long uninterrupted post if I need to and I can edit it so it makes sense. I can also put off answering until I'm ready, which takes off the usual pressure of face to face conversation.


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## pookashell150 (Sep 26, 2013)

Nyes said:


> This then limits the the space for working memory to deal with social processing, and thus we fail to remember names, respond fluently, ect ect.


Sometimes I feel like I almost black out when people say something to me because they ask me something and I remember hearing their voice but not what they said. Same goes for peoples names (and I even repeat their names so I'll remember and then as soon as I say it, I forget)


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## Worrywart123 (Jul 30, 2015)

This is so cool! You probably graduated by now but I am interested in your results


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