The relationship between social anxiety and safety-learning processes

Social anxiety disorder is a prevalent and debilitating disorder that significantly impairs quality of life. Although Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, that incorporates exposure as a primary component, is the first-line treatment for social anxiety disorder, relapse after treatment is common. Principles of threat extinction serve as a laboratory-based model for exposure therapy and extensive research has utilised Pavlovian threat extinction paradigms to examine the relationship between elevated levels of anxiety and extinction learning mechanisms. However, relatively few studies have investigated the effect of social anxiety specifically on extinction learning processes. Therefore, the primary aim of the work that I will present was to examine the relationship between individual differences in social anxiety and learning processes within Pavlovian threat extinction paradigms.