Anxiety

A new study has identified neuroplastic changes in brain structure that accompany attention bias modification training in highly anxious individuals. The findings, which appear in the journal Biological Psychology, shed light on the mechanisms underlying the efficacy of the treatment.

New research provides evidence that shyness is associated with reduced behavioral mimicry through increased self-focused attention during new social interactions. The findings have been published in the Journal of Research in Personality.

Socially anxious women exhibit heightened oxytocin reactivity to psychosocial stress, according to new research published in Psychoneuroendocrinology. The study provides evidence that the hormone plays a role in physiological reactions to socially stressful situations.

New findings suggest that people with social anxiety pay more attention to negative social information — but only if they have low attentional control. For participants with greater control over their attention, social anxiety vulnerability was not associated with an...

New research published the Journal of Psychiatric Research sheds light on the neurophysiological processes related to gaze-contingent music reward therapy, a novel treatment that relies on eye-tracking technology and pleasing music to reduce attention to threatening stimuli.

A new study found that the presence of a stranger lowered participants’ physiological responses to fear, but the effect was weaker among those who tend to feel anxious around others. The company of a virtual reality agent, however, was found...

New research published the Journal of Abnormal Psychology suggests that social comparisons play an important role in social anxiety. The findings provide evidence that people with social anxiety view themselves as inferior or deficient compared to others, which in turn...

People with social anxiety tend to have less satisfying romantic relationships, according to findings published in the journal Behaviour Change. But the findings suggest that this tendency to have less satisfying relationships is driven by higher levels of depression among people...

Many people experience feelings of apprehension, tension or discomfort when confronted by a math problem -- a phenomenon known as math anxiety. Women tend to experience more math anxiety compared to their male peers and a new study, published in...

New psychology research published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology adds support to existing claims regarding the cognitive benefits of exercise. The study revealed that 20 minutes of exercise on a treadmill improved inhibitory control, attention, and action monitoring among both anxious and...

A new study published in the journal PLOS One suggests that social anxiety is characterized by increased avoidance, rather than hypervigilance, during social situations.

New research provides evidence that anxiety is related to altered interoception, the perception of one's own internal bodily states. The new study, published in the journal Neuron, examined the relationship between anxiety and the perception of breathing.

A study published in the journal Cognition and Emotion suggests that people can grow anxious toward self-attributes (e.g., being unintelligent, appearing nervous) after seeing these attributes repeatedly paired with negative evaluations. The findings suggest that anxiety toward self-attributes — a core feature...

New research indicates that people who use humor to arouse sympathy for human imperfections or act silly to make others laugh tend to experience less pathological worry. But the findings, published in Personality and Individual Differences, suggest there can also...

A population-based cohort study found that people who were diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (SAD) were less likely to meet a range of educational outcomes — from passing all of their compulsory school subjects to earning a university degree. The...