Social Anxiety and Empathy: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to clarify the association between social anxiety and affective (AE) and cognitive empathy (CE). METHODS: 1442 studies from PsycINFO, Medline, and EMBASE (inception-January 2020) were systematically reviewed. Included studies (N = 48) either predicted variance in empathy using social anxiety scores or compared empathy scores between socially anxious individuals and a control group. RESULTS: Social anxiety and AE were statistically significantly positively associated, k = 14, r = .103 (95%CI [.003, .203]), z = 2.03, p = .043. Sex (QM (2) = 18.79, p <  .0001), and type of measures (QM (1 = 7.34, p = .007) moderated the association. Correlations were significant for male samples (rmale = .316, (95%CI [.200, .432])) and studies using self-report measures (rself-report = .162 (95%CI [.070, .254])). Overall, social anxiety and CE were not significantly associated, k = 52, r =-.021 (95%CI [-.075, .034]), z= -0.74, p = .459. Sample type moderated the association (QM (1) = 5.03, p < .0001). For clinical samples the association was negative (rclinical= -.112, (95%CI [-.201, -.017]). CONCLUSION: There was evidence for a positive association between social anxiety and AE, but future studies are needed to verify the moderating roles of sex and type of measure. Besides, low CE might only hold for patients with SAD.

The effects of a brief meaning in life intervention on the incentive salience of alcohol.

There is an increasing body of evidence that life meaning is inversely related to alcohol consumption. Much of this research is cross-sectional and few studies have examined mechanisms for the inverse relation. The current study investigated whether a brief meaning intervention would lead to reduced incentive salience of alcohol. Seventy undergraduate students who reported regular alcohol consumption were assigned either to control or a meaning condition, which involved thinking about and committing to pursue intrinsically valued goals. The incentive salience of alcohol was operationalized as the extent to which alcohol cues interfered with the correct completion of an alcohol Stroop task. The results indicated that the meaning intervention led to reduced incentive salience as measured by alcohol Stroop errors, but not incentive salience as measured by reaction time. The findings suggest that incentive salience may be one mechanism through which individuals with greater life meaning regulate their drinking behavior.