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Social Distancing During A COVID-19 Lockdown Contributes to The Maintenance of Social Anxiety: A Natural Experiment

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to extensive social distancing measures. For those suffering from social anxiety, social distancing coincides with a tendency to avoid social interactions. We used this natural experiment imposed by a COVID-19 lockdown to examine how mandated low social expo...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Arad, Gal, Shamai-Leshem, Dana, Bar-Haim, Yair
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8117800/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34007091
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10608-021-10231-7
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author Arad, Gal
Shamai-Leshem, Dana
Bar-Haim, Yair
author_facet Arad, Gal
Shamai-Leshem, Dana
Bar-Haim, Yair
author_sort Arad, Gal
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to extensive social distancing measures. For those suffering from social anxiety, social distancing coincides with a tendency to avoid social interactions. We used this natural experiment imposed by a COVID-19 lockdown to examine how mandated low social exposure influenced socially anxious university students, and compared their anxiety to that of socially anxious students in preceding academic years with no social distancing. METHODS: Ninety-nine socially anxious students were assessed for social anxiety symptoms at the beginning of the fall and spring semesters. Students from the 2019–2020 academic year (which included a lockdown followed by social distancing measures at the end of the fall semester) were compared to students from preceding years (2016–2019) on social anxiety levels. RESULTS: Whereas social anxiety decreased in socially anxious students from the fall to the spring semester in the years preceding the pandemic, during the 2019–2020 academic year social anxiety levels remained high and unchanged. These results held when controlling for depressive symptoms and when analyzing social anxiety items that cannot be confounded with COVID-19-related anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: The current results suggest that reduced exposure to social situations may play a role in the maintenance of social anxiety. Alternative explanations are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-81178002021-05-14 Social Distancing During A COVID-19 Lockdown Contributes to The Maintenance of Social Anxiety: A Natural Experiment Arad, Gal Shamai-Leshem, Dana Bar-Haim, Yair Cognit Ther Res Original Article BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to extensive social distancing measures. For those suffering from social anxiety, social distancing coincides with a tendency to avoid social interactions. We used this natural experiment imposed by a COVID-19 lockdown to examine how mandated low social exposure influenced socially anxious university students, and compared their anxiety to that of socially anxious students in preceding academic years with no social distancing. METHODS: Ninety-nine socially anxious students were assessed for social anxiety symptoms at the beginning of the fall and spring semesters. Students from the 2019–2020 academic year (which included a lockdown followed by social distancing measures at the end of the fall semester) were compared to students from preceding years (2016–2019) on social anxiety levels. RESULTS: Whereas social anxiety decreased in socially anxious students from the fall to the spring semester in the years preceding the pandemic, during the 2019–2020 academic year social anxiety levels remained high and unchanged. These results held when controlling for depressive symptoms and when analyzing social anxiety items that cannot be confounded with COVID-19-related anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: The current results suggest that reduced exposure to social situations may play a role in the maintenance of social anxiety. Alternative explanations are discussed. Springer US 2021-05-13 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8117800/ /pubmed/34007091 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10608-021-10231-7 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Original Article
Arad, Gal
Shamai-Leshem, Dana
Bar-Haim, Yair
Social Distancing During A COVID-19 Lockdown Contributes to The Maintenance of Social Anxiety: A Natural Experiment
title Social Distancing During A COVID-19 Lockdown Contributes to The Maintenance of Social Anxiety: A Natural Experiment
title_full Social Distancing During A COVID-19 Lockdown Contributes to The Maintenance of Social Anxiety: A Natural Experiment
title_fullStr Social Distancing During A COVID-19 Lockdown Contributes to The Maintenance of Social Anxiety: A Natural Experiment
title_full_unstemmed Social Distancing During A COVID-19 Lockdown Contributes to The Maintenance of Social Anxiety: A Natural Experiment
title_short Social Distancing During A COVID-19 Lockdown Contributes to The Maintenance of Social Anxiety: A Natural Experiment
title_sort social distancing during a covid-19 lockdown contributes to the maintenance of social anxiety: a natural experiment
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8117800/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34007091
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10608-021-10231-7
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