Skills training for dating anxiety
A half-baked literature review: Skills training for dating anxiety
In order to infer whether sociosexual skills training is a useful adjunct to standard treatment of anxiety, the first page of Google scholar was systematically reviewed for unique interventional studies that include with any measure of anxiety as an outcome, studies with comment on methodological issues or otherwise theorising with implications for the interpretation of the empirical evidence were discovered using the search terms: (1) social skills training for anxiety and (2) heterosexual social skills and (3) dating anxiety. And (4) behavioural replication training and (5) sensitivity training 10 studies were found, each very dated. The search space was expanded from (1) to searches (2) till (5) due to the keywords found in potentially relevant studies.
Studies that did not contextualise in terms of sexual motivations (e.g. dating) were excluded (namely: the study—Social skills training augments the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral group therapy for social anxiety disorder : www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005789405800619)
The studies found were (strike out: excluded):
Social skills training and systematic desensitization in reducing dating anxiety: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0005796775900546
Treatment strategies for dating anxiety in college men based on real-life practice.: psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1979-31475-001
Evaluation of three dating-specific treatment approaches for heterosexual dating anxiety.: psycnet.apa.org/journals/ccp/43/2/259/
A comparison between behavioral replication training and sensitivity training approaches to heterosexual dating anxiety.: psycnet.apa.org/journals/cou/23/3/190/
Social skills training and systematic desensitization in reducing dating anxiety: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0005796775900546
Social skills training augments the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral group therapy for social anxiety disorder : www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005789405800619
Skills training as an approach to the treatment of heterosexual-social anxiety: A review.: psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/84/1/140/
Self-ratings and judges’ ratings of heterosexual social anxiety and skill: A generalizability study.: psycnet.apa.org/journals/ccp/47/1/164/
Heterosexual social skills in a population of rapists and child molesters.: psycnet.apa.org/journals/ccp/53/1/55/
The importance of behavioral and cognitive factors in heterosexual-social anxiety1: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1980.tb00834.x/abstract
The search is halted prematurely due to the discovery of a systematic review (see: Skills training as an approach to the treatment of heterosexual-social anxiety: A review.: psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/84/1/140/) However, other studies emerged after the review anyway. In any case, the review’s conclusions are likely to hold true and they do suggest that there is promise to sociosexual skills training, but methodological issues will hold back good empirical research. Therefore, it is not expected to be productive to continue this review.
It is hypothesised that the evidence is so dated due to changes in terminology. The literature approximates exposure treatments for social phobia or social anxiety. However, searches of the first page of Google Scholar (exposure therapy and social anxiety; exposure therapy and social phobia) yield no results except where pharmacotherapies are in adjunct to the therapy) which are inappropriate for our purposes.
Tl;dr. See: Skills training as an approach to the treatment of heterosexual-social anxiety: A review.: psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/84/1/140/
Research translation idea
I have an idea for teaching certain vulnerable young people the skills needed to achieve social skills without intoxication. I was wondering if you have any feedback for my proposal so that I can revise it. Many students report they drink or get high for the disinhibiting effects that help them socialise with the other sex. It is hypothesised that this is because of latent anxieties and inproper self-medication. Due to the irresponsiveness of the target population at universities to respond to demand reduction programs and health promotion, the inflexibility of the university’s institutions to delivering supply reduction campaigns, and the relative resource intensity of harm minimisation programs, alternative, innovative interventions are sought. One innovative strategy is to treat the underlying anxiety that motivates substance use in young people. The purpose of this social skills training program is to train groups of young people to socialise romantically and sexually with the opposite sex to replace substance-assisted romantic and sexual initiatory behaviour. Initial steps will be surveying the evidence-base, followed by the design, implementation and evaluation of a pilot program. This will be disseminated for critique by the broader scientific and clinical community before scaling if and as appropriate. The success of the program will be evaluated by structured interview eliciting psychological distress.
Background reading
Gender differences in social anxiety disorder: results from the national epidemiologic sample on alcohol and related conditions. - www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21903358
Examining Sex and Gender Differences in Anxiety Disorders—www.intechopen.com/books/a-fresh-look-at-anxiety-disorders/examining-sex-and-gender-differences-in-anxiety-disorders
not academic but interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSZky8dk7OE
The 5th ref is a duplicate of the first.
Alcohol works as a ‘social lubricant’ to make people less inhibited, in moderation it’s very effective at what it does. It also works quickly and is cheap. There is also a culture and set of traditions around alcohol, as well as a powerful industry lobby.
I pity the fool who tries to compete with something that is so good at what it does, especially with a ‘training program’.
The only way I can see alcohol being dislodged is with another drug which is specifically engineered to be better than alcohol at what it does (reduce anxiety, provide an excuse for people to get away with things, etc) but also has none of the problems that alcohol has.
Yeah. Actually I think LWers might benefit from alcohol more than the general population, because we’re a pretty uptight bunch.
Lol… well that is slightly off topic but it might or might not be true. I do think that well designed recreational drugs are an under-studied topic though.
I think it’s mainly an issue of culture. When dancing Salsa for example alcohol means dancing worse and thus people don’t drink as much.
Furthermore, the environment where you salsa dance is not as prone to social anxiety since everybody is there to dance. There is less anxiety at being rejected. And, as you start dancing or just hearing the beat, it releases some internal chemicals in your brain because you do feel more loose even without drugs.
Anyhow, where I have learned to dance, there were parties where people did drink. But you are probably right that people drank less in that environment.
it’s a combination of cultural inertia + the actual utility of alcohol which gets that culture started. Your own example illustrates that well: alcohol impairs the activity of salsa dancing, so a culture of not drinking when you dance developed.
Yes. There are also a few additional factors: If you dance than you train the ability to ask strangers to dance is a fairly structured way because you have to do it all the time. Dancing does provides a fairly structured way of having a good time together on a physical level.
That means that if you want to create a social enviroment whereby people don’t drink alcohol you need to provide social rituals that make it easy for people to connect. Preferably rituals that also allow people to process their emotions so that they don’t have to use alcohol to get them out of the way.
For what search term? How many results did you let Google Scholar put on one page?
I would like to read that review but can’t access it (either through my Uni or sci-hub). Can you provide the pdf of this review please ?
Thanks for this small litterature review.
My internet is extremely slow at the moment so I can’t get the file right now, but I can do this. I’ll get back to you. If somehow I forget after a week days just remind me (but you shouldn’t have to, ideally)