Biased cognitions and social anxiety: building a global framework for integrating cognitive, behavioral, and neural processes

Social anxiety is a common emotional experience that occurs in response to the perceived threat of evaluation from others before, during, or after social situations. When social anxiety reaches a high level of severity such that functioning is impaired and associated with considerable distress, we refer to it as Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). With a lifetime prevalence ranging from 7.3 to 12.1%, SAD is the fourth most common psychiatric disorder (Kessler et al., 2005). SAD has an early onset and tends to follow a chronic and debilitating course if untreated (e.g., Hayward et al., 2008). SAD usually precedes other anxiety, mood, and substance abuse disorders (e.g., Randall et al., 2001; Lampe et al., 2003).