Background and objectives

Negative beliefs about other's judgments play an important role in the development and maintenance of social anxiety disorder. The present experiment examined the effects of role-playing followed by role reversal compared to role-playing twice on altering these negative cognitions.

Methods

Thirty-six adult social anxiety patients were randomized into two conditions: a role-playing condition in which 18 participants role-played an anxiety-provoking social situation twice, or a role reversal condition in which 18 participants role-played an anxiety-provoking social situation followed by enacting the same situation using role reversal. Before the start of the experiment, patients were asked to report their negative cognitions about the other's judgments. Next, they were asked to rate the believability of these negative cognitions, as well as the probability and cost estimates of negative judgments by the other person, at three time-points: before the first block of role-playing, after the first block of role-playing, and after the second block of the experiment.

Results

Results demonstrated that role-playing followed by role reversal had a stronger effect on the most negative cognitions than role-playing twice.

Limitations

The most important limitation of the present study is that there was no control group to assess the effects of role-playing alone. Moreover, the second block of the experiment was repetitive in role-playing, however, it was a new task in role reversal.

Conclusions

The results support the hypothesis that role reversal is an effective technique that can be used to correct negative cognitions about other's judgments in SAD.

中文翻译：

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与角色扮演相比，角色逆转对他人对社交焦虑障碍判断的负面认知的有益影响。

背景和目标

关于他人判断的负面信念在社交焦虑症的发展和维持中起着重要作用。本实验检验了角色扮演后角色逆转与角色扮演两次对改变这些负面认知的影响。

方法

36 名成年社交焦虑患者被随机分为两种情况：一种是角色扮演条件，其中 18 名参与者扮演了两次引发焦虑的社交场合，或者角色转换条件，其中 18 名参与者扮演了一种引发焦虑的社交场合。然后使用角色反转来制定相同的情况。在实验开始之前，患者被要求报告他们对对方判断的负面认知。接下来，他们被要求在三个时间点对这些负面认知的可信度以及其他人负面判断的概率和成本估计进行评分：在角色扮演的第一个区块之前，在角色扮演的第一个区块之后。角色扮演，并在实验的第二块之后。

结果

结果表明，与角色扮演两次相比，角色扮演后角色转换对最消极的认知有更强的影响。

限制

本研究最重要的限制是没有对照组来评估单独角色扮演的效果。此外，实验的第二个区块在角色扮演方面是重复的，但在角色转换方面是一项新任务。

结论

结果支持这样的假设，即角色转换是一种有效的技术，可用于纠正 SAD 中对他人判断的负面认知。