Cognitive Features of Social Phobia

New cognitive models of social phobia have been developed based, in part, on a growing number of studies suggesting that people with social phobia process information related to social threat differently than people who are not socially anxious and, in some cases, differently than individuals with other anxiety disorders. In addition to providing an overview of recent models of social phobia, this paper reviews the research literature to date on the following aspects of cognition in social phobia: attention, memory, attributions and appraisals, imagery and perspective, and perfectionism.