Cognitive Therapy and Research, Vol. 24,No. 4,2000,pp.473–488 Self-Focused Attention and Social Anxiety in Social Phobics and Normal Controls Sheila R. Woody 1,3 and Benjamin F. Rodriguez 2 Self-focused attention has been demonstrated to influence and be influenced by situa- tional social anxiety in clients with social phobia, but the mechanisms of this relation- ship have yet to be established. This study examines the degree to which self-focus exacerbates anxiety and impairs social performance in normal controls as well as social phobics. In addition, the role of fear of negative evaluation as a moderator of this relationship is examined. Results supported the hypothesis of a functional role of self-focused attention in anxiety but not social performance, and this relationship held true for participants in the normal controlgroup as well as the social phobia group. Fear of negative evaluation was surprisingly not a factor in this relationship. These results are discussed in a framework of shifting attributions for social effecti ve- ness based on the shift in perspective engendered by self-focused attention. KEY WORDS:self-focus; social phobia; anxiety;attention. The relationship between negative affect and self-focused attention has received increasing research attention in the last decade. Severalinvestigators have docu- mented the self-focusing effect of negative mood (Salovey, 1992; Wegner & Guili- ano, 1980; Wood, Saltzberg, & Goldsamt, 1990; Wood, Saltzberg, Neale, Stone, & Rachmiel,1990),while others have examined the reverse effect, or the degree to which self-directed attention impacts affect,cognition,or perception (Burgio, Glass,& Merluzzi,1982;Fenigstein, 1979;Gibbons,Carver,Scheier,& Hormuth, 1979; Lundh & O ¨ st, 1996; Scheier & Carver, 1977; Woody, 1996). Theoretical papers have been devoted to explaining the widely documented relationship between self- focused attention and negative affect (Palfai & Salovey, 1992) or psychopathology (Ingram, 1990). In particular, several writers have attempted to explain the role of self-focused attention in social anxiety (Hartman, 1983; Hope, Gansler, & Heimberg, 1989;Sarason, 1975;Schlenker & Leary, 1982). Definitions of ‘‘self-focused attention’’ abound. Palfai and Salovey (1992) use 1 Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver,BC. 2 Now at Department of Psychology, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. 3 Correspondence should be sent to Sheila R. Woody, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia,2136 West Mall, Vancouver,BC, Canada V6T 1Z4. 473 0147-5916/00/0800-0473$18.00/0  2000 Plenum Publishing Corporation