(PS9-B29) Experiential Avoidance Predicts Social Anxiety Symptom Severity in Jobseekers with SAD

Background: Experiential avoidance (EA), the unwillingness to endure aversive internal experiences, is a robust maintenance factor of anxiety disorders. For individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD), EA is a commonly-used coping strategy and posited risk factor for worsened symptom severity longitudinally. EA is crucial to study in populations with SAD given the concurrent and prospective nature of the EA-social anxiety relationship. While EA predicts social anxiety symptoms across studies, effects in the opposite direction are mixed. Further, the EA-social anxiety relationship during periods of persistent social rejection and evaluation (e.g., job-seeking) remains under-explored. The current secondary analysis examines EA as a predictor of social anxiety symptoms in job-seeking individuals with SAD within the context of a randomized controlled trial for mental health and employment outcomes. We hypothesized that higher EA at baseline would significantly predict heightened social anxiety severity a month later. Additionally, we explored whether higher social anxiety at baseline would significantly predict higher EA a month later. Method: Individuals with SAD seeking vocational services (N = 206; Mage= 44.99, age range 21-60) were randomized to either work-based CBT intervention alongside vocational services or vocational services alone. EA and social anxiety symptom severity were assessed at baseline and one month later. Linear regression analyses tested the relationships between EA and social anxiety a month apart, controlling for baseline levels and treatment group. EA and social anxiety symptoms were assessed using the Acceptance and Commitment Questionnaire (AAQ-II) and Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN), respectively. Results: EA at baseline significantly predicted social anxiety one month later (b = 0.404, SE = 0.0990, p < .001). Conversely, social anxiety at baseline did not significantly predict EA a month later (b = 0.005, SE = 0.0391, p = 0.895). Discussion: These data corroborate prior work implicating EA as a risk factor for future social anxiety severity. Additionally, our results suggest the EA-social anxiety relationship is unidirectional such that social anxiety does not predict EA prospectively. EA may precede and exacerbate social anxiety symptom severity in individuals with SAD. Future work is needed to explore the mechanistic nature of the EA-social anxiety relationship, its persistence across different timescales, and how EA impacts employment outcomes and behaviors in individuals with SAD.