A cognitive account in which feared evaluation promotes self-focused attention and an internally generated threatening impression of the self. Safety behaviors can distort an interaction and prevent disconfirmation; anticipatory and post-event processing can maintain the threat. Developed by David M. Clark and Adrian Wells, the account generates separate experimental questions about attention, behaviour and interpretation. Adolescent applicability requires developmentally valid measures, rather than assuming an adult self-report vocabulary.[ref]
Understanding Social Anxiety Disorder in Adolescents and Improving Treatment Outcomes: Applying the Cognitive Model of Clark and Wells (1995) by Eleanor Leigh and David M. Clark. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review 21, 388–414; cognitive model and developmental qualifications
Leigh and colleagues compared counterbalanced conversations under combined internal-focus/safety behavior instructions versus external-focus/safety-reduction instructions. Self, partner and independent ratings in a symptom-selected sample provided experimental evidence for the combined manipulation. Because two processes changed together, this experiment does not by itself identify their separate causal effects or establish treatment efficacy in diagnosed patients.[ref]
Self-focused attention and safety behaviours maintain social anxiety in adolescents: An experimental study by Eleanor Leigh and others. PLOS ONE 16, e0247703; counterbalanced conversations, 57 participants, partner and independent ratings
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