1 - (SYM 66) Hooking the Self onto the Past: Deep vs. Superficial Processing of Positive Autobiographical Memories in Individuals with Social Anxiety

In a preregistered study (osf.io/jve6h), we examined whether intentional retrieval and meaningful processing of positive autobiographical memories could be used by high SA individuals to offset the negative affective, cognitive, and interpersonal consequences of perceived social threat.

Method: We recruited a diverse sample of 255 undergraduates with high trait SA (48% Asian, 44% White, 2% Black, 2% Latin American, 0.5% First Nations, 3.5% Other). Participants recollected a personal experience in which they felt socially connected, valued, or accepted and then completed a writing task in which they were randomly assigned to process their memory either deeply (by writing about its meaning in relation to the self), or superficially (by writing about its perceptual features). Participants were then exposed to a distressing Cyberball exclusion task and guided to reactivate their positive memory during a final recovery phase.

Results: The success of the experimental manipulation was confirmed through thematic coding of participants' written narratives. Preregistered repeated-measures analyses revealed that participants in the deep processing condition exhibited greater improvements over time than those in the shallow processing condition on multiple measures. For example, during memory reactivation following exclusion, participants in the deep processing condition experienced significant reductions in negative self-beliefs compared to the previous time point, Mdiff = .89, p < .001, CI [.37, 1.41] whereas those in the superficial processing did not, Mdiff = .07, p = .787, CI [-.44, .57]. At final recovery, deep processing was associated with significantly lower ratings of negative self-beliefs than superficial processing, Mdiff = 1.29, p = .032, CI [.11, 2.47].

Conclusions: Positive memory retrieval + deep processing may be an effective strategy for building resilience to stressful social experiences such as ostracism. Although results require replication across diverse community and clinical samples, they provide preliminary support for the potential utility of memory-based interventions that guide anxious patients to "hook" self-meaning onto past positive events.