(PS9-B41) Stress Generation in Social Anxiety

Individuals play a role in evoking stressful life events (e.g., interpersonal conflicts; Hammen, 1991). These events are referred to as “dependent” because their occurrence depends, in part, on a person’s behaviors or characteristics. Most research focuses on how people with depression generate dependent stress. Surprisingly little research has examined if people with social anxiety also generate stress, given that the two are highly comorbid. Social anxiety may evoke stressors in ways distinct from depression (e.g., via social approach-avoidance conflicts). Across two studies, we tested whether participants with social anxiety/SAD generate a higher number of dependent events than those with lower social anxiety and psychologically healthy controls.

Community adults (Ns=345; 87) completed semi-structured interviews to assess recent stressful life events, surveys to assess social anxiety and depression symptoms, and diagnostic interviews (in Study 2) to assess SAD and major depressive disorder (MDD). We fit linear regression models to examine the relationship between social anxiety/SAD and the number of dependent events, controlling for depression/MDD. We fit exploratory multilevel models to examine whether dependent events were rated as more impactful than independent events and whether these relationships differed as a function of participants’ social anxiety symptoms.

Participants with higher social anxiety (b = 0.09, t = 2.86, p < .01) and SAD (b = 7.60, t = 4.69, p < .001) reported more dependent stressful life events than participants with lower social anxiety and healthy controls. This effect remained significant when controlling for MDD (Study 2) but not depression symptoms (Study 1). Participants rated dependent events as less impactful, on average, than independent events (b = –0.40, t = –4.22, p < .001). This relationship differed by SAD diagnostic group, such that healthy controls were less impacted by dependent events than independent events (b = –0.58, t = –4.38, p < .001), whereas participants with SAD were impacted similarly by dependent and independent events (p = .15).

Our findings suggest that social anxiety is associated with stress generation. However, when accounting for depression symptoms, we may only see social anxiety’s unique contribution to stress at clinical levels. It may be that depression mediates the relationship between social anxiety and stress generation. Indeed, developmental models suggest that features of social anxiety (e.g., low positive affect) may increase the future risk of depression symptoms (e.g., social anhedonia; Richey et al., 2019), which may predict stress generation. Understanding functional relationships between social anxiety and stressful events is critical to successful intervention.