The effects of social anxiety and depression on the evaluation of facial crowds

Facial crowds of emotion connoting approval or criticism are linked to the fears of socially anxious individuals. We examined evaluation ratings and decision latencies of mixed facial displays by individuals with generalized social phobia (GSPs, n=18), individuals with comorbid depression and GSP (COMs, n=18), and normal controls (CONs, n=18). First, we postulated that GSPs will assign more negative ratings to predominantly disapproving audiences as compared to CONs, and that GSPs will be faster in their evaluation of these audiences (negative bias hypothesis). Second, we expected depression, but not social anxiety, to be associated with diminished positive evaluation of audiences containing predominantly happy expressions and with a slower processing of such positive cues (the impaired positivity hypothesis). Results supported the negative bias hypothesis, and provided partial support for the impaired positivity hypothesis. The importance of examining the processing of complex non-verbal cues in social anxiety and in depression is discussed.