The effect of state anxiety on jumping-to-conclusions bias in social anxiety: An experimental and computational modelling study

Abstract

Research indicates that the tendency to make hasty decisions based on minimal information, also known as the Jumping-to-Conclusions bias, may be linked to social anxiety and could be exacerbated under high state anxiety, but this relationship is inconclusive due to a lack of consistent findings. The present study applied a Bayesian computational modelling approach alongside frequentist hypothesis testing to investigate the relationships between trait and state social anxiety and the Jumping-to-Conclusions bias across various beads tasks. An online experimental study involving 131 participants experiencing subclinical social anxiety revealed that higher trait social anxiety significantly attenuated one's belief updating in neutral situations when exposed to a state social anxiety induction. Conversely, higher trait social anxiety significantly increased belief updating about one's social performance, but this depended on the state social anxiety induction. No significant associations were found between trait and state social anxiety and observed dependent variables measured in the beads tasks. The implications are explored.