From professional meetings among colleagues and informal social gatherings to rides on a public bus and visits to the doctor's office, people are faced every day with situations that can elicit anxiety and distress. In turn, people must make decisions about whether they will engage in or avoid such situations and social interactions. Although engaging in these types of situations is often integral to healthy functioning, people suffering from forms of anxiety psychopathology (e.g., social anxiety disorder, panic disorder) commonly avoid such anxiety-provoking situations. This avoidance directly contributes to the maintenance of emotional distress and disability and can serve to perpetuate the presence of anxiety pathology. Relatively little research, however, has attempted to import basic behavioral science frameworks in order to better understand the psychological processes that underlie this exaggerated avoidance in individuals suffering from high levels of anxiety. There are reasons for suspecting that pronounced avoidance among anxious individuals may reflect the presence of basic cognitive and motivational biases typically associated with risk avoidant decision making in nonclinical populations. The proposed research, therefore, is designed to investigate patterns of risk-avoidant decision-making among individuals exhibiting social anxiety symptoms. Moreover, this research will focus on whether manipulations designed to evoke specific social motives (self-protection from interpersonal threat, seeking a mate, social dominance-striving) may enhance or attenuate risk-avoidant decision-making in anxious individuals. The proposed work will aid in developing a conceptual model that integrates social-motivational factors, cognitive risk appraisal processes, and risk decision-making in persons exhibiting social anxiety symptoms. The long-term goal of this research is to develop a general model that specifies the basic psychological processes linked to risk decision-making in groups exhibiting overly risky behavior (e.g., substance use disorders), as well as exaggerated risk-aversion.
