The effects of social anxiety on motor responsivity were examined. High and low socially anxious subjects participated in an experiment consisting of four stages: baseline, anticipated social evaluation, actual social evaluation, and recovery. Acoustic startle stimuli varying in intensity were presented, either with or without a prepulse, during each stage of the experiment. High socially anxious subjects were more anxious than low social anxious subjects across all stages of the experiment. An analysis of response latency revealed that high socially anxious subjects responded faster to the startle stimuli than low socially anxious subjects. In addition, in all subjects, a high level of anxiety resulted in the failure of subjects to respond differentially to startle stimuli varying in stimulus intensity. The results are discussed in terms of possible motor system differences between high and low socially anxious subjects, as well as the effects of state anxiety on motoric performance. (A)
Abstract