In a recent article published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorder (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.janxis.2015.06,003) entitled “Inferring other People’s States of Mind: Comparison Across Social Anxiety, Body Dysmorphic, and Obsexive -Compulsive Disorders”, authors describe a study in which they investigated what are the ability to understand the mental state of other people by some types of patients.
Specifically, the authors compared a group of patients with social anxiety disorder (DAS) and a group of patients with dysmorphobia (DM) towards a group of patients with obsessive compulsive disorder (DOC) and a control group of healthy subjects.
The authors united the DAS group and the DM group because they both present a high fear of the judgment of others About their (alleged) defects and both disorders, according to cognitive behavioral models, present specific bias of interpretation of social stimuli.
The sample of das patients as well as that of DM patients consisted of 35 subjects, mainly women (21); The doc sample, however, although always made up of 35 subjects, presented only 17 women. All subjects received a clinical diagnosis and it was they administered scid ias well as specific stairs for the disorder.
For the experiment the Mas (movie for the assessment of social cognition)that is, a test based on video clips to measure the ability to understand the mental states of other people; Specifically, the subjects of the study, after having attended a 15 -minute video in which 4 actors (two women and two men) participate in a party, had to answer 45 multiple choice questions about the emotions, thoughts and intentions of the characters.
The results showed how the two experimental groups (DAS and DM) presented one less accuracy In interpreting social situations, while no one was detected between the DOC group and the group of healthy subjects.
In addition, a certain difference was highlighted between the two experimental groups about the understanding of thoughts and intentions, while once again there was no difference between the DOC group and the control group. Instead, no difference was detected in understanding emotions between the different groups.
This study, according to the authors, confirms and strengthens the belief that at the basis of the ailments considered, in accordance with the cognitive behavioral models, there is a marked tendency to distort theinterpretation of social stimuli.
In conclusion, however, it should be considered that the study presented some limitations, such as the composition of the samples, in which the female percentage was predominant, or that the differences in the results between the groups were very limited.
