Social Phobia 351
and external cues of social threat. External feedback in the form of verbal and non-
verbal cues from others that can be interpreted as signs of possible negative evalua-
tion will be given attentional processing priority (Rapee & Heimberg, 1997), whereas
external social cues indicative of safety (i.e., approval) or “benign acceptance” will be
ignored or minimized. In addition internal information such as symptoms of anxiety
or an “online” negative evaluation of one’s social performance will be given attentional
priority because they are consistent with the maladaptive social self- schemas and nega-
tive mental representation of how socially phobic individuals think they are perceived by
others in the social situation. In fact the “mental representation of the self as seen by the
audience” which “is based on how the individual believes the audience views him or her
at any given moment” (Rapee & Heimberg, 1997, p. 744) is a core cognitive construct
in Rapee and Heimberg’s model of social phobia.
A second consequence of schema activation is a heightened self- focused attention
during social interaction (see D. M. Clark, 2001; D. M. Clark & Wells, 1995). Acti-
vation of the social threat schemas results in hypervigilance and observation of one’s
internal state, especially any physical, emotional, or behavioral cues that might be inter-
preted as signs of anxiety and loss of control. Socially anxious individuals assume other
people also notice these anxiety symptoms which then become the basis of their nega-
tive evaluation. In this way interoceptive information reinforces the socially anxious
person’s mental representation of how she assumes she is seen by others. D. M. Clark
and Wells (1995) highlight two additional consequences associated with heightened
self- focused attention. Because most of the attentional resources are devoted to self-
monitoring, very little attention is available for processing external information from
individuals in the social setting. As a result individuals fail to process social informa-
tion that might disconfirm their maladaptive threat schemas. Furthermore, the intense
self- monitoring results in a type of emotional reasoning or “ex- consequentia reasoning”
(Arntz et al., 1995) so that socially anxious individuals assume that others must also
observe what they feel. This processing of the self as a negative social object is a key con-
cept in D. M. Clark and Wells’s (1995) model in which socially phobic individuals are
considered “trapped in a closed system in which most of their evidence for their fears is
self- generated and disconfirmatory evidence (such as other people’s responses) becomes
inaccessible or is ignored” (D. M. Clark, 2001, p. 408). As an example, Gerald’s hands
and legs would shake when he felt intensely anxious in social situations. Because he
was so aware of these physical sensations, he assumed others would notice his shaking,
conclude that he must be nervous, and wonder if he might have some mental illness that
was causing him to behave so strangely.
Occurrence of involuntary inhibitory behaviors is another important consequence
of negative social self- schema activation in social situations. Socially phobic individuals
are actually inhibited in social encounters as indicated by their stiff and rigid posture,
taut face expression, and often inarticulate speech such as stuttering, stammering, hav-
ing difficulty finding the right word, or appearing tongue-tied. Socially phobic individu-
als realize they tend to behave in this manner when socially anxious and that these
inhibitory behaviors are not only noticed by others but are probably interpreted by them
in a negative manner. Feeling unable to counter the negative effects of inhibition on
social performance, this tendency for inhibition in social phobia leads to a perceived loss
of control, heightened perception of personal vulnerability and social ineptitude, and