Maladaptive perfectionism is characterized by high standards and the perception that own performance does not meet these expectations, the discrepancy in perfectionism. It is often accompanied by...Show moreMaladaptive perfectionism is characterized by high standards and the perception that own performance does not meet these expectations, the discrepancy in perfectionism. It is often accompanied by fear of negative evaluation and instable self-esteem. This study used a SELF- speech task and looked at the discrepancy trait of perfectionism specifically to examine how individuals with this trait update their feelings about the self, with the expectation that they would show a negativity bias. Additionally, it was hypothesized that these individuals would show differences in brain activity (mid-frontal theta oscillations) caused by negative feedback. Ninety-five participants, out of which fifty-two were in the high discrepancy group, gave a speech about themselves and received positive and negative feedback about their performance. Results of this study show that individuals learn differently from negative and positive feedback. More specifically, both groups showed a positivity bias indicating that they update their feelings about the self more after receiving positive than negative feedback. Differently than expected, the high discrepancy group did not show negativity bias and had learning rates similar to the low discrepancy group. This study also found that theta power activity was not correlated to the mismatch or valence of the feedback received after the task. Furthermore, no group differences in theta power activity were found. These findings indicate that the discrepancy between one’s expectations and self-perception is not related to a negativity bias or increased mid-frontal theta power oscillations. Future research should focus on other classifications of perfectionism to confirm these findings.Show less
People who score high on social anxiety measures tend to interpret social cues negatively and evaluate negative interpretations of social scenarios as more likely. The aim of this research is to...Show morePeople who score high on social anxiety measures tend to interpret social cues negatively and evaluate negative interpretations of social scenarios as more likely. The aim of this research is to fill the gap in the literature about potential interference of cognitive biases in social anxiety with a probabilistic learning paradigm in a social evaluative environment. The current study sampled participants along the social anxiety spectrum and used the SELF-Profile paradigm to make participants believe that they were evaluated on characteristics about themselves that they endorsed at an earlier point. Data of 19 healthy female undergraduates across the social anxiety spectrum was used (Mage (in years) = 19.90, SE = 1.57). Before every trial of the experiment participants needed to indicate their expectation of being accepted by one of four participant-chosen peers based on a personal statement. Participants received immediate acceptance or rejection feedback from the peer which, unknowing to the participant, had a predetermined probability of giving acceptance feedback on 15%, 30%, 70% or 85% of the trials. Scoring lower on the self-report social anxiety measure (LSAS) was significantly associated with more positive predictions for the positive peer but not significantly correlated with negative predictions for the negative peer. Neither reaction times with the respective peers (positive or negative) nor the overall pre-task expectation of receiving acceptance feedback were significantly associated with the self-reported social anxiety score in our sample. Furthermore, we could not identify a significant effect of self-reported social anxiety scores on the amount of recalled acceptance feedback from the negative and positive peer, respectively. Future studies should investigate gender-effects and include psychophysiological measurements to circumvent social desirability and other self-report biases.Show less
