Unfamiliar Untrained Observers’ Rating of Adolescent Safety Behaviors Within Social Interactions with Unfamiliar Peer Confederates

• In Event: Innovations in Measurement of Social Competence in Child Clinical Populations

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Adolescents experiencing social anxiety often engage in safety behaviors―covert avoidance strategies for managing distress (e.g., avoiding eye contact) (Piccirillo et al., 2016). Although safety behaviors provide short-term reductions in distress they may contribute to the long-term development and maintenance of social anxiety, as socially anxious individuals often become dependent on using safety behaviors in social situations (Cannon et al., 2020). Within exposure-based therapy, clients who employ safety behaviors during exposures display poorer treatment outcomes compared to clients who do not use these behaviors during exposures (Hedtke et al., 2009). The use of safety behaviors also negatively impacts interpersonal functioning. Interaction partners often perceive individuals using safety behaviors as socially unskilled, resulting in less willingness to engage in social contact with that person in the future (Stangier et al., 2006). Consequently, evidence-based assessments of safety behaviors may facilitate our understanding of the development and treatment of social anxiety. Prior work supports the psychometric properties of the Subtle Avoidance Frequency Examination (SAFE; Cuming et al., 2009), a self-report survey of safety behaviors. Yet, we need complementary methods for assessing these behaviors within contexts where adolescents often experience concerns. Specifically, we require measures of how unfamiliar people perceive safety behaviors, given their influence on interpersonal functioning and social skill evaluation. Recent work indicates that, based on short, direct social interactions with adolescents, individuals posing as unfamiliar peers (i.e., peer confederates) and without assessment training can capably report about adolescent social anxiety (Deros et al., 2018).
METHODS: Our approach builds upon this work by testing whether we could gather valid SAFE reports from unfamiliar untrained observers (UUOs), who observed adolescents within archived recordings of these short social interactions. A mixed clinical/community sample of 105 adolescents self-reported on their functioning and participated in a series of social interaction tasks with peer confederates (i.e., Unfamiliar Peer Paradigm; Cannon et al., 2020), who also provided social anxiety reports about the adolescent. Based on video recordings of these tasks, trained independent observers rated adolescents’ observed social skills (Glenn et al., 2019), and an additional set of UUOs completed SAFE reports of these same adolescents.
RESULTS: Unfamiliar untrained observers’ SAFE reports (a) related to adolescents’ SAFE self-reports (r=.25, p<.05), (b) distinguished adolescents on clinically elevated social anxiety concerns (t=3.29; p<.01; d=0.65), (c) related to trained independent observers’ ratings of adolescent social skills within interactions with peer confederates (r=-.37, p< .001), and (d) related to adolescents’ self-reported arousal within these same interactions (r=.38, p<.001).
DISCUSSION: Our findings provide evidence that after observing adolescents in a brief set of social interaction tasks, UUOs can provide psychometrically sound reports of adolescent safety behaviors. In doing so, UUOs’ reports on the SAFE incrementally contribute information with regards to clinically relevant indices and assessment of adolescents’ social skills, over-and-above other informants’ reports. These findings have important clinical and theoretical implications for multi-informant approaches to mental health assessment broadly, and the evaluation of adolescent social anxiety in particular.

Authors

• Taylor Lynn Rezeppa, University of Maryland - College Park
  Presenting Author

• Hide Okuno, University of Maryland
  Non-Presenting Author

• Noor Qasmieh, University of Maryland
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah Jensen Racz, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jessica L Borelli, University of California - Irvine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Andres De Los Reyes, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author