Table 2.
Study findings and effect sizes.
| Effect size | Finding | |
|---|---|---|
| Emotion recognition | ||
| Alvi et al. (2020) - Study 1 | For total, d = 0.47; for negative, d = 0.44; for positive, d = 0.36; for neutral d = 0.40 | No association between SA and emotion recognition |
| Arrais et al. (2010) | Not reported | Group X gender interaction- women in SA group required less emotional intensity to recognize faces displaying fear, happiness, and sadness compared to HC |
| Auyeung and Alden (2020) - Study 1 | Not reported | Across both conditions, higher SA predicted greater accuracy of target’s negative affect |
| Auyeung and Alden (2020) - Study 2 | d = 0.55 | Across both conditions, SAD group had greater accuracy of target negative affect compared to HC |
| Bell et al. (2011) | Not reported | No differences between groups on accuracy |
| Bodner et al. (2012) | d = 0.94 | SA group was less accurate at recognition of happy voices in female voices compared to HC |
| Button et al. (2013) | Not reported | No difference between groups on accuracy |
| Campbell et al. (2009) | Not reported | No difference between groups on accuracy |
| Dickter et al. (2018) - Study 2 | d = 0.37 | For complex faces, high SA group was less accurate than low SA group |
| Garner et al. (2009) | d = 0.64 | SA group was less accurate at identifying fearful faces than HC |
| Gilboa-Schechtman et al. (2008) - Study 2 | d = 0.55 | SA group less sensitive to angry expressions than HC |
| Hagemann et al. (2016) | d = 0.55 | No difference between groups on accuracy |
| Heuer et al. (2010) | d = 0 | No difference between groups on accuracy |
| Hunter et al. (2009) | Not reported | SA group was more accurate for happy, sad, and fearful faces compared to HC |
| M. Jacobs et al. (2008) | d = 1.62 | No difference between groups on accuracy; negative correlation between SA and experiential EI |
| Joormann and Gotlib (2006) | Not reported | No difference between groups on accuracy; SA group was able to identify angry faces more quickly than HC |
| Lau et al. (2014) | d = 0.84 | Lower emotion recognition associated with lower social anxiety |
| Mohlman et al. (2007) | d = 1.66 (for positive association); d = 1.96 (for negative association) | SA group was more accurate at identifying angry faces, and less accurate at neutral faces, than HC, following threat manipulation |
| Montagne et al. (2006) | Not reported | SA group was less sensitive to negative emotions compared to HC |
| Mullins and Duke (2004) | Not reported | No association between SA and accuracy, regardless of condition |
| Oh et al. (2018) | Not reported | SA group was less accurate for total, fear, surprise, neutral, and happy stimuli than HC |
| Phan et al. (2006) | Not reported | No difference between groups on accuracy |
| Philippot and Douilliez (2005) | d = 0.34 | No difference between groups on accuracy |
| Quadflieg et al. (2007) | Not reported | SA group was less accurate for happy utterances, but more accurate for fearful and sad utterances, than HC |
| Schofield et al. (2007) | Not reported | No differences between groups on accuracy |
| Straube et al. (2004) | Not reported | No differences between groups on accuracy |
| Torro-Alves et al. (2016) | Not reported | SA group was more accurate for angry faces with 25% intensity than HC |
| Tseng et al. (2017) | d = 0.52 (across stimuli) and d = 0.67 (for fear accuracy) | HC had greater accuracy than SA group across facial and vocal accuracy; SA group was less accurate in fear accuracy for faces |
| Winton et al. (1995) | Not reported | SA group was more accurate at identifying negative facial expressions, and less accurate at neutral expressions, than HC; no difference in groups for videos (facial/body and auditory stimuli) |
| Yoon et al. (2007) | Not reported | No difference between groups on accuracy |
| Social perception | ||
| Hampel et al. (2011) | d = 0.52 | Negative association between SA and social perception |
| Schroeder (1995a) | d = 0.47 | No association between SA and interpersonal perception |
| Schroeder (1995b) | d = 0.49 | Negative association between SA and interpersonal perception |
| Schroeder and Ketrow (1997) | d = 0.54 | Negative association between SA and interpersonal perception |
| Veljaca and Rapee (1998) | Not reported | SA group was more accurate in negative social cue detection, and less accurate at positive cue detection, compared to HC |
| Affect sharing | ||
| Alvi et al. (in press) - Study 1 | d = 0.04 | No effect of SA on affect sharing |
| Alvi et al. (in press) - Study 2 | d = 0.02 | No effect of SA on affect sharing |
| Morrison et al. (2016) | d = 0.55 | SA group had less congruence for positive stimuli, compared to HC |
| Theory of mind | ||
| Alvi et al. (2020) - Study 1 | For total, d = 0.86; for negative, d = 0.77; for positive, d = 0.44; for neutral d = 0.71 | Negative association between SA and accuracy for total, negative, positive, and neutral stimuli |
| Ballespí et al. (2018) | Not reported | No difference between groups on accuracy in video task; hyper-mentalizing in SA group for self-referential paradigm |
| Buhlmann et al. (2015) | d = 0.72 | SA group was less accurate than HC in ToM |
| Hezel and McNally (2014) | d = 0.61 (for videos task) and d = 0.70 (for eyes task) | SA group was less accurate on both the video and eyes tasks compared to HC |
| M. Jacobs et al., (2008) | d = 0.12 | No difference between groups on accuracy |
| Lenton-Brym et al. (2018) | d = 0.06 | No difference between groups on accuracy |
| Lyvers et al. (2019) | d = 0.45 | Negative association between SA and ToM |
| Maleki et al. (2020) | Not reported | SA group had lower ToM on eyes task compared to HC; for positive and neutral valence, HC had greater ToM than SAD group; for negative valence, HC had lower ToM than SAD group; No difference between groups on faux pas accuracy |
| Sutterby et al. (2012) | d = 0.67 | Group X gender interaction for tasks; women in SA group were more accurate compared to women in HC group |
| Tibi-Elhanany et al. (2011) | Not reported | SA group had greater cognitive accuracy, but less affective accuracy, than HC |
| Washburn et al. (2016) | d = 0.59 | SA group had lower ToM on eyes task for total, positive, and neutral stimuli compared to HC; no effect for video task |
| Empathic accuracy | ||
| Alvi et al. (2020)- Study 2 | Not reported | Higher negative association between SA and positive, compared to negative, stimuli |
| Auyeung and Alden (2016) | Not reported | Group X condition interaction; SA associated greater accuracy for target negative affect when faced with social threat |
| Morrison et al. (2016) | d = 0 | No difference between groups on accuracy |
Note. Effect sizes were converted to Cohen's d to compare effect sizes using a standard unit; SA = social anxiety; SAD = social anxiety disorder; HC = healthy controls; ToM = theory of mind.