Social anxiety, depressive symptoms, and post-event rumination: affective consequences and social contextual influences

Abstract

Using a self-presentation perspective, we hypothesized that during social interactions in which social attractiveness could be easily appraised by others, more socially anxious individuals would be more prone to ruminate and rumination would have more adverse emotional consequences. After assessing social anxiety and depressive symptoms, unacquainted college students participated in 45-min structured social interactions manipulated to induce personal self-disclosure or mimic superficial, small-talk. Affective experiences were assessed immediately after and 24h after social interactions. Results found that social anxiety was associated with negative post-event rumination more strongly among those with elevated depressive symptoms. Further, at higher levels of social anxiety, post-event rumination was associated with increases in NA following personal disclosure interactions and decreases in NA following small-talk interactions. Individuals with more depressive symptoms experienced increases in NA following small-talk interactions, but not personal disclosure interactions. Contrary to expectation, positive relations between social anxiety and rumination were not mediated by self-presentation concerns during interactions. Fitting with relevant theory, findings implicated symptom and social contextual variables that moderate the affective consequences of rumination.