Social anxiety undermines prosocial behaviors when required effort

IF 5.3 1区 心理学 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY, CLINICAL International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology Pub Date : 2024-10-01 DOI:10.1016/j.ijchp.2024.100533
Ye Yang , Yan Zhou , Huijuan Zhang , Hui Kou , Jia Zhao , Jiangli Tian , Cheng Guo
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Abstract

Social anxiety impairs interpersonal relationships, which rely heavily on prosocial behaviors essential for healthy social interactions. The influence of social anxiety on the dynamics of helping others, through stages of prosocial choice stimulus presentation and effort, is not well understood. This study combines two experiments that integrate effort-based decision-making tasks with electroencephalography to distinguish between the choice stimulus presentation and effort phases of prosocial behavior. We examined the prosocial intention and motivation of 36 individuals with high social anxiety (HSAs) and 36 with low social anxiety (LSAs). Participants exerted effort for personal or others’ gain, as well as to avoid losses. Participants chose whether to exert effort and then completed a designated number of key presses within a time limit, either to accumulate rewards or to avoid losses for themselves or others. Findings reveal that social anxiety indeed diminishes prosocial intention and effort motivation for gain. Interestingly, once HSAs decide to engage in prosocial efforts for gain, evaluative anxiety helps them reduce prosocial apathy and redirect their attentional resources from threatening stimuli to the task at hand, bringing their level of prosocial effort on par with LSAs. Moreover, HSAs exhibit prosocial apathy toward both gains and losses, with more pronounced prosocial apathy observed in loss tasks. However, evaluative anxiety does not help reduce HSAs’ prosocial apathy in loss tasks. Notably, when striving to avoid losses for others, even without evaluative anxiety, HSAs demonstrated prosocial behavior indistinguishable from that of LSAs, suggesting that the goal of avoiding loss promotes prosociality among HSAs. Overall, while social anxiety diminishes individual prosocial behavior, evaluative anxiety and sensitive action goals can mitigate its impact to some extent. These findings are critical for developing strategies to enhance psychological health and promote healthier social interactions.
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当需要付出努力时,社交焦虑会破坏亲社会行为。
社交焦虑会损害人际关系,而人际关系在很大程度上依赖于健康的社交互动所必需的亲社会行为。社会焦虑对助人动力的影响,通过亲社会选择、刺激、呈现和努力的阶段,尚未得到很好的理解。本研究结合两个实验,将基于努力的决策任务与脑电图相结合,以区分亲社会行为的选择刺激呈现和努力阶段。本研究对36名高社交焦虑(HSAs)和36名低社交焦虑(LSAs)个体的亲社会意向和动机进行了研究。参与者为个人或他人的利益以及避免损失而努力。参与者选择是否付出努力,然后在规定的时间内完成指定的按键次数,要么是为了积累奖励,要么是为了避免自己或他人的损失。研究结果表明,社交焦虑确实会削弱亲社会意图和努力获取动机。有趣的是,一旦高技能人群决定参与亲社会努力以获得收益,评估性焦虑帮助他们减少亲社会冷漠,并将他们的注意力资源从威胁性刺激转移到手头的任务上,使他们的亲社会努力水平与低技能人群持平。此外,hsa对收益和损失都表现出亲社会冷漠,在损失任务中观察到更明显的亲社会冷漠。然而,评估性焦虑并不能降低高情商者在损失任务中的亲社会冷漠。值得注意的是,当努力避免他人损失时,即使没有评估性焦虑,hsa也表现出与lsa没有区别的亲社会行为,这表明避免损失的目标促进了hsa的亲社会性。总体而言,社交焦虑会削弱个体亲社会行为,而评价性焦虑和敏感行动目标能在一定程度上缓解其影响。这些发现对于制定增强心理健康和促进更健康的社会互动的策略至关重要。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
10.70
自引率
5.70%
发文量
38
审稿时长
33 days
期刊介绍: The International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology is dedicated to publishing manuscripts with a strong emphasis on both basic and applied research, encompassing experimental, clinical, and theoretical contributions that advance the fields of Clinical and Health Psychology. With a focus on four core domains—clinical psychology and psychotherapy, psychopathology, health psychology, and clinical neurosciences—the IJCHP seeks to provide a comprehensive platform for scholarly discourse and innovation. The journal accepts Original Articles (empirical studies) and Review Articles. Manuscripts submitted to IJCHP should be original and not previously published or under consideration elsewhere. All signing authors must unanimously agree on the submitted version of the manuscript. By submitting their work, authors agree to transfer their copyrights to the Journal for the duration of the editorial process.
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