A Comparison of Attentional Bias in Socially Anxious, Subclinical, and Normal University Students in Tabriz in 2022: A Descriptive Study

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is the most common anxiety disorder. The majority of individuals with social anxiety have a bias toward threatening signs. The present study was designed aiming to compare attentional bias in socially anxious, subclinical, and normal university students in Tabriz universities.

The present study is descriptive and the statistical population included all university students in Tabriz in the academic year 2021-2022. Among the participants, 90 individuals were selected via purposive sampling. The measurement tools in this study were Connor's Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN), Beck's Depression Inventory, Spitzer's Generalised Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7), Attentional Task (Dot-probe Task), and Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Data analysis was conducted using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA).

The results of MANOVA on attentional bias toward emotional faces showed that the members of socially anxious group spent significantly more time paying attention to emotional faces of sadness, anger, disgust, and fear compared to the normal group (P<0.001). Also, subclinical individuals spent more time paying attention to the emotional face of anger than the normal group (P<0.001).

The results obtained from the present study showed that socially anxious and subclinical individuals show attentional bias towards emotional faces. Knowledge about attentional bias in socially anxious individuals can lead to an increase in understanding and awareness of their behavior for counseling and psychotherapy.