The phobic applying for a job: Differential efficacy of reappraising or faking on subjective states, physiological reactions and performance

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Abstract

Background

It is known that social anxiety disorder (SAD) interferes in a great deal of life areas, ranging from social and private relationships to work related environments. We aimed to investigate the comparative efficacy of three emotion-regulation strategies in a job interview task for individuals with SAD. We considered both different categories of emotion-regulation strategies (reappraisal vs. suppression) but also different types of the same strategy (functional vs. positive reappraisal).

Methods

92 participants diagnosed with SAD were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental groups and a no strategy control group. Participants were required to present themselves in front of external observers who would rate their performance and decide if they are suited for the job. We measured subjective mood, rated performance, EEG asymmetries, and autonomic flexibility at three different phases: while anticipating the discourse, after the statement (when emotion regulation strategy was offered), and when recovering.

Results

The functional reappraisal strategy was found to be superior to no strategy for anxiety, confidence, and coded performance. We found a higher level of left side PFC activity for the functional reappraisal group at the statement phase, with a moderation effect for PFC asymmetry of SAD severity.

Introduction

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) or social phobia is the marked fear about one or more social situations in which the individual is exposed to possible scrutiny by others (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). SAD interferes in a great deal of life areas ranging from social and private relationships to work related environments, and involves emotion regulation difficulties (Jazaieri et al., 2015). In the light of the documented impact of SAD on occupational functioning and the twofold chances of these individuals to be unemployed (Moitra et al., 2011), it becomes particularly important to investigate how effectively individuals with SAD can use various strategies to regulate their emotions during job interviews.

Gross (2008) conceptualized emotion-regulation (ER) as a process by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience or express their emotions. There are ER strategies used by individuals that have been found (see Aldao et al., 2010) more helpful (i.e., cognitive reappraisal) than others (i.e., suppression) in producing adaptive responses to the environment. Socially anxious individuals however consistently make use of maladaptive strategies and suppress their emotions (Kashdan & Breen, 2008), engage in post event rumination (Clark, 1999), and avoid social situations. Moreover, in spite of the positive outcomes documented in experimental contexts for specific emotion-regulation strategies, it was shown that individuals fail to use the same strategies in stressful situations, such as everyday life, due to impaired cognitive flexibility, goal-directed behavior, working memory etc. (Chen et al., 2018; Raio et al., 2013). Aldao (2013) suggested that context plays an essential role in the success of processes involved in regulating affect, so that the same strategy could have beneficial or detrimental outcomes depending on what is required by the context. Recent research suggests that individuals presenting anxiety have lower emotion-regulation flexibility and this is associated with higher distress (Conroy et al., 2020).

Section snippets

Cognitive change strategies

Cognitive reappraisal (CR) is the most well investigated ER strategy in various experimental settings, being in line with techniques used in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT; Ellis, 1962). In Gross's (1998) view, CR involves generating benign or positive perspectives on a stressful situation as a way of reducing distress. It was shown that reappraisal can reduce the negative emotional experience in the context of stressful events, like giving a public speech, in both clinical samples with

Objectives and hypotheses

The primary purpose of the present study was to extend the literature on the efficacy of various ER strategies in a job interview context in the case of individuals with SAD. More specifically, we aimed to identify differential effects of close-related and contrasting ER strategies on various outcomes, such as subjective variables, public speaking performance, and physiological variables (EEG alpha band asymmetries, heart rate variability, and autonomic flexibility) during a job interview task.

Participants

Participants were recruited by posting the official call of the study in various online organizational groups. We estimated the necessary sample size using G*Power 3.1 and taking into account a small to medium effect size of an f = 0.20 for the interaction effect in a mixed between-within analysis of variance (ANOVA) with four groups and three time points, a power of 0.95 and a correlation for repeated measures of 0.5, we obtained a necessary total sample size of about 92 participants. A total

Randomization

We did not find differences between the groups at baseline in terms of the LSAS-SR, F(3,88) = 2.03, p = .115 and the PRCS F(3,88) = 0.67, p = .57. The four groups were comparable at baseline in terms of all the others subjective outcomes (all ps > .05), except for relaxed SUDS [F(3,89) = 3.18, p = .028, suppression versus FR Bonferroni corrected MD = −20.06, p = .015]. No differences were found between the groups in terms of the physiological outcomes at baseline (ps > .05). Thus, in order to

Discussion

We aimed at establishing the differential efficacy of three ER strategies for individuals with SAD in a job interview task. We predicted that the CR strategies will be more effective than control and SF, and all strategies will work better than control (no instructed strategy), in terms of subjective outcomes, public speaking performance, and physiological outcomes considered (EEG alpha band asymmetries, heart rate, and autonomic flexibility). More specifically, we expected that FR will be more

Conclusion and clinical research implications

Our results have important clinical implications for informing the psychological approach of individuals with SAD in work related contexts. We documented that FR strategy can enhance performance under stress for socially anxious individuals, offering thus a feasible alternative to folk psychology techniques (i.e., positive thinking), which are widely promoted in organizational settings. Since the FR strategy was found to bring the most generalized benefits, this is in line with the notion that

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Oana A. David: Project administration, Resources, Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Alexandra Canta: Resources, Investigation. Ioana Salagean: Resources, Investigation. Gaetano Valenza: Formal analysis, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Douglas S. Mennin: Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by a grant awarded to Oana DAVID from the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, CNCSUEFISCDI, Romania Grant number PN-II-RU-PD-2011-3-0131.

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    The work was performed at the Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca.

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