1 - (SYM 72) from Cringe to Compassion: Shame and Self-compassion in Social Encounters Among People with Social Anxiety

Background: Shame has been identified as a core emotion in social anxiety disorder (SAD; e.g., Moscovitch, 2009) that is maintained through frequent and inflexible use of cognitive and behavioral avoidance strategies (e.g., self-critical post-event processing, social avoidance). Self-compassion (SC) has been posited as a potent emotion regulation strategy for responding to shame due to its emphasis on self-acceptance, self-kindness, and embracing flaws as a part of the shared human experience (Neff, 2023). Cross-sectional studies have shown that people with SAD report lower SC relative to their less anxious peers; this has not been assessed using intensive longitudinal designs that allow for the assessment of within-person effects. 

Method: Participants (N = 134) were recruited from Amazon’s MTurk. Participants completed a baseline measure of SA severity and then filled out a daily diary survey for 14 days. Each night, participants reported whether they experienced a stressful social interaction that day. If a stressful interaction was endorsed, they completed measures assessing internal shame (IS) and external shame (ES) experienced during the interaction and SC they employed just following the interaction.  

Results: Across the 2 weeks, 724 stressful social interactions were reported. In line with pre-registered hypotheses (osf.io/zdwmy), results indicated that increased baseline SA severity was associated with decreased SC following stressful interactions across participants (B = -6.05, 95% CI = -9.04, -3.06, p < .001). Contrary to our predictions, SA severity did not moderate the relation between shame experienced during the stressful interaction and subsequent SC employed (p = .82). Specifically, higher IS and ES reported during the interaction was associated with less self-compassionate responding at the between and within-person level, regardless of participants’ SA severity (all ps < .004). 

Conclusions: While higher SA was associated with lower daily SC in response to stressful social interactions across participants, people higher in SA were not less likely to report SC in response to shame reported during stressful interactions than their less anxious peers. Rather, across days, social interactions characterized by more shame were associated with less SC than interactions where less shame was reported. Across participants, people who typically reported more shame during stressful social interactions also typically reported less subsequent self-compassion.